[0:00] All right, well, we'll try to continue tonight and maybe, Lord willing, conclude the times that we've been here studying and considering some keys for effective soul winning was the kind of the title I gave this.
[0:17] And we've covered a lot of ground in a few weeks and tried to just encourage you to participate and to be alive in your efforts to win souls.
[0:32] The first thing we said that can help you is to know the scriptures and how that can not only just give you confidence in approaching somebody or bringing up the topic, but that's the book.
[0:46] Like that is where the, those are the words of life. That's where the truth comes from. God forbid you're trying to win them to Christ without the scriptures, without the truth of the scriptures, I should say.
[0:56] So know the scriptures. Secondly was the use of gospel tracks and, and, and spent a lot of time on that, but probably could have spent more. And I even came across something this week, a testimony from somebody that I know, but I didn't even know this was their testimony.
[1:14] And to hear them talk about how the Lord used a gospel track in their life, I just thought the story seemed like they're endless with that. And that is a legitimate and a fruitful ministry and one that you do well to get involved with, to use gospel tracks, have them on you.
[1:30] Third was to pray, to be dependent upon the Lord. And then we talked last week again about being soul conscious and not just seeing people as your friends or your neighbors or your relatives, but as a soul that's eternal.
[1:44] And that's going to be either burning in the fires of hell or there's no other options there. It's heaven or hell. And start seeing people that way could help you to be more effective in your witness and maybe even give you that extra little bit of ounce of courage that you need to open your mouth when you believe it's true.
[2:04] And then that last week we ended with this about avoiding arguments. And that's important advice because I've learned that the hard way and I told you some stories on that where I wasted half an hour, 45 minutes, watched the guy leave and pull away because I'm standing here arguing and debating something with somebody who's never going to get saved, never interested in what we're offering.
[2:28] And learn to avoid them, learn to spot them and avoid them and don't let them suck you into time wasted when you could be getting out the gospel. So tonight then we're going to try to get these last three points.
[2:39] I think we will. The number six way to be more effective is to keep the conversation on the gospel.
[2:52] To center the witness effort on the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if you don't know what the gospel is, well, I trust you can find that. First Corinthians 15 verses 1 through 4 describe how that Christ died for our sins and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day.
[3:11] And he was seen of many witnesses. And so he's alive and it's verified. But you want to center that conversation on the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
[3:22] And one key point, don't just say, oh, the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection. Death, burial, and resurrection. Don't forget that it says that Christ died for our sins. And if you just brush over that death, burial, and resurrection, there's a big element there that you could be missing or should be getting driven home into the center.
[3:41] That you're a sinner. It's for your sins that he died. And that's a huge element of the gospel message that you don't want to omit. And these guys that are trained to be slick and to be quick talkers and to get to this one, two, three, pray with me and just, what is it, admit, believe, and confess.
[3:58] And then you're there. They're illegitimate. They're not doing Jesus Christ a service or that sinner a service and running them into a prayer.
[4:10] I want to read you something here. Maybe some of you have read this already. This is Bill Eubanks, an evangelist that's with the Lord. Lord, and this is, I may even have kind of, I feel like I said this to you or hinted at.
[4:23] I'm going to read it for you. He says, this is just some little excerpts of his ministry, short stories of the ministry. And one of them says, we were in a fast draw church at a missions conference.
[4:34] When he says fast draw, he's talking about the guys that are just really quick to get you to pray a prayer and you're saved. And just notch on the belt and go on to the next one. Just one, two, three, repeat after me and everybody's saved now.
[4:46] He says, we're in a fast draw church at a missions conference. We go out soul winning on Saturday. I'm with one of the staff members and we knock on a door. The man comes to the door and you can tell right off he is not interested in our Christ or his gospel.
[5:00] But the super soul winner bullies his way into the house. And now we're sitting at the, in the guy's living room without asking. The soul winner gives him the Romans road. Like he's reading the guy's rights like they do when you arrest somebody.
[5:13] He then asks the man if he'd like to get saved. The man says emphatically, no, I wouldn't. The superstar says, well, can I pray for you? And he says, he says he wants us out of his house.
[5:25] So he answers, yeah, go ahead. The superstar says, God help this man here to see his need for Christ. And he goes on praying. And after he prays, he says, can I pick you up for church tomorrow?
[5:36] The man says, no, I don't want to go to church. The superstar thanks him for letting us talk with him. And as we step out on the porch with the door closing behind us, superstar Christian turns to me and says with a straight face, well, another one got in.
[5:51] End of story. And that's the mindset and the tactics and the way with some of these guys that are just, just got to get him to pray. You can pray for him.
[6:03] And I don't even believe that stuff's real. I don't even believe that ever happens. I just, it's so hard to believe being on the other side of it, that somebody would be that stupid or that pushy to pretend that that soul is trusting Christ for their salvation just because they prayed for them.
[6:23] Now, anyway, I could go on with some of that. And I've got some experience with a guy that I could have strangled him many times standing on somebody's porch because he refused to do this, to center the conversation on the gospel and to focus in on the gospel message.
[6:43] And he would eliminate it. He'd try his best just to get him to get to a prayer. I was with a guy one time that I, it was probably a good five minutes that we stood on the porch and he spoke.
[6:56] He kind of had the lead and he spoke to this individual and he never one time said the name of Jesus or Jesus Christ or Christ. He said God. He was from Michigan.
[7:08] He said God all the time. And I never really caught it until that particular time where he was quoting verses and like half of a verse or something.
[7:19] But he just kept saying God loves you and God does. Can I show you a verse that says that God loves you and he doesn't want you to go to hell and that God will forgive your sins. But he never mentioned one time Christ or Christ dying on the cross or that that wasn't even brought up.
[7:35] He ran all the way through what he deemed was his gospel presentation and tried to get the person to repeat after him in a prayer. And the person wasn't having it. They just wanted him to move on.
[7:47] And so we moved on and I was just biting my tongue standing behind him, just wanted to grab him by the belt and pull him down off the steps because it's frustrating. Well, don't be afraid to bring up the gospel.
[8:00] You want to win somebody to Christ, center the conversation around that. I mentioned to you the other week that you may have to answer a question to get some stuff out of people that they don't understand, don't know.
[8:15] But make sure you're getting to the gospel. I do want to tell you this one story. This is kind of lengthy. I'll try to make it short. But this is probably the best thing that I've ever seen in a long-term way.
[8:30] So I'll try to be brief. I'll try to be real brief. So this, I get in, I get the pastor's wife of the church comes by my office and she says, hey, I got an email to the church.
[8:40] I forwarded it to you. Some guy got a track and he wants to talk. And so I get the email, respond. He says he's an atheist. But he says that he's been reading books about creation because he's realizing that although he's been taught about evolution and all the evidence, he doesn't doubt it for one minute.
[8:58] He's an atheist through and through. But now somebody at work got him reading a book about creation. And he was intrigued that it's the same evidence but they're interpreting it differently. And he said, you know, I'm curious.
[9:08] And then he goes to the gas station just right up the hill from our church and there's a track. And the track laying there, he picks it up and it has the church address. So he emails the church, you know, to whom it may concern.
[9:20] Kind of got some questions. And so I get the thing. I reply. He comes in and agrees to meet with me on a Tuesday. And as it turns out, that's his free day of the week.
[9:30] He works a government job and he's a pretty, like, super smart guy, like, intellectual way up there, super duper reader. And I felt like this guy, I'm going to look like a fool.
[9:43] Try to sit down and debate with him or talk to him about evolution, creation. I wasn't, I didn't even know what I was doing or what this was going to bring out. I just prayed and said, Lord, whatever you want here, you know, let's see what happens.
[9:56] But one thing I had full confidence in, like, like, he was coming in the room as an atheist, but I knew I had this. And I know I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer and I know he could probably run circles around me with brains and stuff he's studied and known.
[10:12] But I have 100% confidence in this book. I don't, he can, like Dr. Uckman said, you couldn't talk me out of this with a talking machine. This thing is real.
[10:22] And it's changed my life. And so I thought, if I can just, just open the Bible and just point him to the Bible, I'll try to witness to him. And so he came in and we talked and he kind of brought up what his thoughts were.
[10:36] And so my thinking is he's lost. He's not going to get anything until he really is born again of the spirit. So I'm giving him the gospel and trying to bring it around this way and bring it around this way.
[10:46] And finally, I just realized, like, this is not happening. This is never going to happen like that with this guy. There's no way. He's not looking for this. He's just looking for why, you know, what's the, you know, why.
[10:58] And so I had this thought while we're sitting there. I thought, if you're willing to, I will teach you some, what this book tells us, what it teaches us.
[11:10] And I will spend some time with you if you want to do this. And I'll educate you into what the Bible says on these things. And so I thought I'd already written this curriculum that I had assembled and kind of put together for our teenagers in Christian school.
[11:26] And so it was already bound up, the doctrine of bibliology, the doctrine of the Bible, the doctrine of God, doctrine of Christ, Holy Spirit. Like, went through a lot of stuff. And I thought, I said, I'll give you one of these. We'll just go through this slowly, fill in in the blanks.
[11:39] You can keep it with you. And I can give you a Bible that you can follow along with and help you. And so we did. He came back the next Tuesday. And we sat down and started going through, first of all, declaring what this book is, what it claims to be, showing him proofs of prophecy and inspiration and scientific things that are in this book before.
[11:59] You know, we've covered some of that here. And he's just like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Never saw any of this before. But it didn't, like, make him want to believe on Jesus Christ. He's just like, this is definitely something here.
[12:10] That's why you guys have all this big church going on and all these people here. And so the more he continued to come back and continued to come back, an atheist sitting across from me for an hour every Tuesday.
[12:22] And I thought to myself, I think this guy is going to get saved one day. But I have no idea how and when. Because, well, you know, I just felt like the book's going to get in.
[12:34] It's going to do something. And, well, really long story, trying to bring it down. After nine months, we had gone through so much stuff. I would tell people, this guy, I know a, I have a buddy who's a King James Bible-believing atheist.
[12:50] There's not too many of them around. That's really a rare thing. And so, sure enough, I mean, he came in with it. He got himself a Bible.
[13:00] He came in with a King James Bible. And every week after week, sat down and went through the studies. And the whole time we're in the Bible. Like, that's all I know.
[13:11] I'm not going to be able to battle wits with you on anything else. So I know this book. We're going to study this book. And we did. He was eating it up. Nine months go by. He comes in one day with his King James Bible, his notebook, sets it down.
[13:23] And we're getting ready to pick it up where we left off and just continue moving forward. And he's like, hey, I want to tell you something. And he's just kind of like jittery with it. And just, I didn't really know how to come out with it.
[13:35] And he's just like, well, I got saved. And his face went, woo, lit up with the biggest smile I've ever seen on his face ever. And I was like, really?
[13:48] Tell me more. Tell me about this. And he just said, you know, I just, I knew this was real. And I needed it for myself. And I don't remember his words. But he prayed and asked the Lord to save him.
[14:01] And after that, I mean, we finished the study. We went on to stuff, other stuff. Long story or shorter or longer. He goes, feels like he needs to get involved in some mission work.
[14:12] He moves to Georgia. He's doing something. I lost touch of him with him probably five years ago or more, probably more than that. And the last I heard, he had come out west trying to witness to people.
[14:23] I don't even know, some kind of, some program he got involved in. But what I had to do, this is the lengthy version of this answer questions.
[14:35] Sometimes it's okay to answer their questions. Sometimes it might take nine months to let the word of God pound away at the hard heart. That's been totally rock solid of lies and false beliefs.
[14:49] And the Lord did it with his word. And anyway, I tried to get him the gospel right away. It turned out he needed to get some stuff unwound first.
[14:59] And sure enough, he's born again. And he's got joy in his heart. His wife was lost. He's witnessing to her. He got her to come to church. Most of the time he worked on Sunday. But when he didn't, he was there and dragging her along to church.
[15:13] And I don't remember what happened with her, really. It's kind of vague anymore. But sometimes you have to answer those questions. And that's a good thing. And Titus, we read this last week about avoiding the opposition.
[15:27] I'm sorry, avoiding the arguments. Titus said that after the first or second admonition, reject the heretic. But you know what? The first admonition, you've got to give them. And the second one, you give them.
[15:39] And after that, okay, they're not interested. Then you can reject them. But be prepared to maybe answer that question if you can. Now, getting back to where we started with center the conversation on the gospel of Jesus Christ.
[15:52] You don't want to center it on just, hey, God loves you. And all he wants to do is love you more. And you could say love 30,000 times.
[16:03] And that's just not the gospel. I'm not a problem at all with talking about the love of God. Because from the Bible, it says that he loved us and gave himself.
[16:15] And you'll find it. You can take them right to that and show them. You want to talk about God being a loving God? He loved you this much that he gave his only begotten son. You put that on him.
[16:26] Why did he do that? He did it because you're a sinner. And your sins need to be paid for. That's how much, that's how big of a God of love he is to give his own son. But don't go to this, he loves you so much he just wants to hug you and bring you in.
[16:40] Why would they need a God if he loves them that much already? Why do they need to come to him? He loves them the way they are. Now, centered on the gospel. The gospel, the love of God is displayed in the gospel.
[16:51] But make sure that it's Jesus Christ, death, burial, resurrection. Make sure they know it's for their sins. Please don't ever omit that. Don't be afraid to use the word saved.
[17:02] I know a lady that went to a Lutheran church and she said, oh, we love coming to this church now because they use the S word. I was like, what? I was like, what? Did you hear pastor talking in his office?
[17:14] Deacons meeting? What? She's like, no, saved. You say saved here. My other church, they never said that word. It's like, well, yeah, you got that right. We do. Anyway, center the conversation around the gospel.
[17:28] Let's move on. Number seven, to be a more effective soul winner is to press for a decision. Press for a decision only if conviction is present.
[17:39] That'll knock out a lot of what some other guys do in their quick-hitting soul winning methods of just push, push, push, pray, pray, pray. But it's important to discern when to push for them to make a decision and to lead them into a prayer.
[17:56] It's also important when to know to draw back and allow the Lord to deal with their heart. And you don't – some people are impressionable. Children are very impressionable.
[18:06] I cringe a little bit when I hear families coming in and saying, hey, guess what? So-and-so got saved, and they're like three and a half years old. It's just kind of like, well, I'm not going to judge it, but I've been very standoffish when my kids were little.
[18:25] Because I don't want them just to feel like they're pleasing Daddy or pleasing the Sunday school teacher. I don't want people pushing them. And you can do harm, and rather than good – when we had vacation Bible school, there would always be these decision slips at the end, like stacks of them.
[18:41] And if you read through them, you could kind of start sorting them because some of them were the same name. Night after night after night were coming forward to get saved. And one worker says, number one, they came for reassurance.
[18:52] The next worker says they came for salvation. It's obvious that these workers weren't really using wisdom or discernment in dealing with the kids and trying to press for whether they came forward to receive Christ and they understand the gospel.
[19:05] It's pretty important to discern if conviction's present. And if you see tears in their eyes and you see that they're shaking and quivering in their lips, you can pretty well understand they know what's going on.
[19:19] And you can push right through that and get them to lead them to Christ. But remember that winning that soul is not about you getting to do this. And now I can finally say I led somebody to Christ or pushing so that you can tell your preacher or your friend or your relative, hey, I led somebody to Christ today.
[19:37] It's not about you getting to do that. It's about the Lord Jesus Christ saving a sinner and about you pleasing him in your witness. So be careful. Because listen to this.
[19:48] You can't save a soul, but you can convince a sinner to pray a prayer. There's a line to be drawn between the two. And be careful. But press for the decision if conviction is present.
[20:00] Otherwise, back off. Somebody said one time you can only pick the ripe fruit. And that's a good way to look at it when you're witnessing to people. Don't be afraid to back off.
[20:10] It can be hard to do when you want to win a soul to Christ, when you want them to get saved. It can be hard to back off. Look at 1 Corinthians with me. Finally take you somewhere in the Bible.
[20:22] 1 Corinthians chapter number 3. I told you that story about the atheist.
[20:41] And I wanted to bring that up here. And I got ahead of myself. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Look at verse 6.
[20:54] Paul says, I have planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything. Neither he that watereth. But God that giveth the increase.
[21:06] Now, with that fellow that was an atheist, I plowed. And I plowed. And I plowed. And I plowed. And I plowed. And I plowed. For 8, 9 months.
[21:17] All along the way, planting seeds of the word of God. But I didn't win him to Christ. Like, I didn't get to see him trust Christ. But it took some time.
[21:27] And backing off can be hard to do. But here's a little tip here. A bit of advice. Is be content to plow, plant, and water. Be content as a soul winner to do that.
[21:39] And let God give the increase. Don't be so feeling like I have to get this done. And seal the deal. You're not a telemarketer. You don't get, you know, your paycheck here on earth isn't going to go up.
[21:52] Because you can prove that you've got a few more signed up for the kingdom. As much as we want to. And as much as this is about being more effective. I'm kind of cautioning you more than I am pushing you.
[22:05] I'm saying press for the decision. But only do it when conviction is present. Otherwise, back off. Now finally, let's look at one more thing. And we'll run a few verses here.
[22:16] Go to Ephesians chapter number 2. And get chapter 6 at the same time. Ephesians 2, Ephesians 6.
[22:30] And one more thought here along these lines of soul winning. is when you go and when you make attempts and you want to be effective, it's going to help you if you expect opposition.
[22:46] I didn't say if you understand that there's a devil out there. I'm saying if you expect it. When you go expecting it, you're not going to turn around and cry when it shows up.
[22:58] And so expect it. Why should you expect it? Look at Ephesians chapter 2 verse number 2. This is talking about you before you were saved. This is true about anybody that's not saved.
[23:09] Wherein in time past, you walked according to the course of this world. According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh currently, present tense, in the children of disobedience.
[23:24] If they've got a spirit that is working in them, and when you get saved, the Bible says that you have a different spirit, God working in you.
[23:35] But before that, according to this verse, there's the spirit. And we'll cover this on our study of the devil to some degree, that he's the prince of the power of the air, and he is the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience.
[23:51] Now, if you're trying to lead that soul to Christ, and inside them is a spirit that is against it, what do you think they're going to do? Look at chapter 6 and verse number 12.
[24:08] 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. Every work of God has opposition.
[24:20] Every single one. In some form or another. You can read through your Bible, you'll read Jesus Christ, how he had those Pharisees coming up to him, and just getting in his face.
[24:32] Questioning him, doubting him, mocking him, trying to belittle him in front of everybody, accusing him. What do you think? They were just good, moral, honest men? They wanted to kill him.
[24:44] They were hypocrites. They were liars. Where did that come from? Because of spirits working in them against Jesus Christ, opposing Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 described him trying to get to that church.
[24:57] He said, but Satan hindered us. Because every work of God has opposition. You read about Nehemiah when he gets back into that land, and he's doing the work that God put in his, the burden God put on his heart to get to Jerusalem, and to build that wall around the city.
[25:13] And he gets there, and what happens? Just God's blessing everything everywhere? Just they're whistling while they work? No, they're holding weapons in one hand while they're working, because there's opposition that they can see with their eyes, that have ridiculed and mocked them, that have had a conspiracy against them and threatened them.
[25:33] They're going to take it down. They're going to kill them. There's opposition. And in your flesh, you're going to feel like, oh, I can't witness to them. I can't talk. They're too busy. Look, they're so busy.
[25:44] I can't interrupt them. They're going to ignore me. They're going to laugh at me. They're going to ridicule or mock me. They're going to reproach me. You may think, oh, if I try to go out through the neighborhood, I'll get the door slammed in my face.
[25:58] The dogs will be barking, and everybody will say, get out of here. You'll have all of that going on. You'll have that fear inside of you. And if you just expect there to be opposition and go in the power of God and go with doing all things through Christ, you won't get discouraged so easily when you know something's going to go wrong.
[26:19] I've knocked on the door and talked to a young lady and talked to her and had the Bible opened and took her all the way up to it like a very clean and thorough witness.
[26:31] And she was interested. She was intrigued. She asked some questions. We brought her all the way to what she needs to do. And at that time, this dog just starts freaking out in the window behind her in the door.
[26:46] And she's kicking at him. And she's trying to shut the door behind her halfway, but keep one foot. The dog's trying to stick his nose out. She kicks at him. He goes around the window. And after about two minutes of that, down comes dad.
[26:59] Dad was upstairs sleeping during the day because he works night shift. And dad says, what's going on here? Get out of here. You woke me up. What are we going to do? No, sir.
[27:10] Your daughter, we're trying to get her soul out of hell. He was cussing at us, kicking us out of there, and off we went. And she was, it felt like she was that close. Well, guess what kind of opposition showed up at just that time and got into that dog?
[27:27] And I don't talk weird stuff too much and make people, you know, sit on the edge of their seats with spooky stories, but I've seen that kind of stuff. And I walked away from that porch feeling like there's a spirit working to keep that girl lost because she was close.
[27:43] Look at Acts chapter 5. I'll turn you here. This will be the, eh, and maybe get two places. First Peter 4, that'll be our closer. And Acts 5. Acts chapter 5.
[28:01] Yeah, you might get the door slammed in your face. But that's not like getting beaten, is it? You might have somebody cuss at you, but, I mean, that's not handcuffs.
[28:15] So, what I'd say is, suck it up and take it. But expect it. Expect somebody to cuss you out real good. And understand, we'll get to Peter here and see what he says about that.
[28:29] First, I want you to consider how would you react? Acts chapter 5. So these guys are preaching. I'll just get to the very end of the chapter to see what happened to them. These guys are preaching.
[28:39] They get called in and they go back and preach. And it says, verse 40, to him they agreed when they had called the apostles and beaten them. They commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go.
[28:51] They departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And then the next verse, they're just back to it, preaching. Now, how would you react when somebody cussed at you or grabbed you and brought you before a council and whipped you?
[29:09] How would you react? Say, I knew it and I'm never doing that again. When Brother Pilkington was here, he gave you a Sunday school lesson. He gave all of us a solid warning and help that the biggest fear we have is getting mocked and getting ridiculed by our peers or by people that see us.
[29:26] We just want to fit in. We just don't want to get the feathers ruffled. And we're not worried about getting punched in the face or tied up or dragged behind a horse. We're not worried about getting put on some rack and stretched and burned at a stake.
[29:41] Nobody in this room is fearful of that. We're afraid we're going to get mocked. We're afraid of that. But if you expect it, it'll help you. You can go in with your armor on.
[29:53] 1 Peter chapter 4, and we'll close with this. 1 Peter 4 and verse 14 through 16. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye.
[30:06] For the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. On their part, he's evil spoken of when they mock and curse his name. But on your part, he is glorified.
[30:19] Isn't that something just a little strange or I don't know if I could call it that, but it's just it's just the way it is. In the Christian life that when you get beat down and mocked and ripped up and embarrassed, Jesus Christ is glorified.
[30:38] And I can't really maybe make sense of that except that he's just pleased that you took something for him. He got whipped and beat for you. And then when you're willing to just let them mock you and tell you to get lost and say something against you and call you a weirdo and cuss you out real good up and down.
[31:01] And when you're reproached for the name of Christ, he is glorified. And I don't see how he's really glorified in that, but he is.
[31:12] Verse 15 continues, let none of you suffer as a murderer, as a thief, or as an evildoer, or a busybody, and other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf.
[31:27] Now he calls being reproached for the name of Christ suffering. Suffering. It's not the kind of suffering we think of, but that goes back to Brother Pilkington's Sunday school lesson where he defined mockery and showed you the afflictions associated with it.
[31:44] And here in Peter he calls it suffering when you're reproached for the name of Christ. Earlier in the passage in verse 4, it ends that they're speaking evil of you because you don't run with them anymore.
[31:55] And you've changed your life and now you're preaching Jesus Christ and they run their mouth. You're suffering reproach and Jesus Christ is glorified. So there's going to be opposition.
[32:08] Are you going to quit when you face it? Are you going to say this is why I don't do this? Because this is how they make me feel? Or is Jesus Christ worth it? And is their soul in need more than they know?
[32:21] Now I think you can be more effective in winning souls if you expect them not to be excited about this message. Expect them not to get excited that Jesus Christ saved your soul.
[32:33] But as you're faithful and as you bear the reproach and you face the opposition and you stay faithful somewhere along the lines whether you even see the fruit or not, God allows something to take place.
[32:48] He allows you to get to that one or to get to that family. And I can't read you or tell you anymore tonight the stories but there are who knows how many there are that took place that souls are saved or maybe even somebody in this building is a product of down the line you could trace it back to somebody winning someone else to Christ.
[33:09] Being faithful, being active in the gospel ministry. don't be afraid of the opposition. Expect it. And that will change your mindset. It will change your outlook.
[33:20] I'm not a tough guy. I'm not a big guy. I know I couldn't hold my own against three roughnecks. I know I'd be in some bad shape if for some reason I try to give out some track to some people.
[33:33] I can't fear that. I can't let my flesh dictate what I do for Jesus Christ. I have to expect that they're not going to be happy with it. and going politely and gently and wise as serpents and harmless as doves as Christ told his apostles.
[33:50] And going with that attitude expecting them just then you back out. Then you just relax and move on. You don't need to start there and park there and preach hell to them. It's not going to bear any fruit.
[34:02] So that was point number eight. And I hope these thoughts tonight about keeping the conversation on the gospel I hope that helps you realize it can run all different directions but if it's a lost soul you want to keep bringing it back to Christ dying for their sins and what God did for them.
[34:20] And then when the conviction is present then you press for that decision but back off if it's not there and just allow the word of God to do its work and then go expecting opposition.
[34:31] So that's point number eight and that'll conclude our series here. Lord willing Sunday morning we'll meet again and continue with what we started on with our series about our study of Satan our adversary and I hope you'll be here for that and it's gonna it's gonna kind of get a little interesting or a little deep kind of thought here at the beginning like I told you Sunday and then it'll get past some of that but we've got to cover that ground first.
[34:59] So let's be dismissed together with prayer and then we can head out of here. Brother Gary can I have you pray before we leave.