Now, in the Book of Jude there, the verse that I wanted to focus on is in Verse 22, where the Bible reads, "And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh," and what I want to preach about this morning is the subject of having compassion for the unsaved. Compassion for the unsaved, and that's what the Scripture's talking about when it says "of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire." The Scripture is talking about people being saved, and escaping the fires of Hell, and it says that we should have compassion for the lost, or for the unsaved.
Now, go to Matthew, Chapter 9, because when we look at the four Gospels, and we look at the life of Jesus Christ, we can see that He definitely had compassion for those that were not saved. He definitely loved those who were not saved. Look what it says in Matthew 9:36, famous Scripture: "But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherds," so the Bible's saying He looked at them and He was moved with compassion. It says in Verse 37, "Then saith he unto his disciples, 'The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into His harvest.'"
Go to Chapter 14 of Matthew. Matthew, Chapter number 14. It says in Verse 13, "When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart: and when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities. And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick." Flip over to Chapter 20; so we see that Jesus Christ looking upon the multitudes, the Bible says "My eye affected my heart," and when Jesus looked at people He loved them. He had compassion on them. Great multitudes were there. He had compassion; but even individuals.
Look at Chapter 20, Verse 30, "And so then, behold, two blind men sitting by the way side, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David. And the multitude rebuked them, because they should hold their peace: but they cried the more, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David. And Jesus stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye that I shall do unto you? They say unto him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened. So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him."
Flip forward a few pages to Mark, Chapter 1. Mark, Chapter number 1. Look at Verse number 40. It says, "And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt," meaning "If you want to," "Thou canst make me clean." Mark 1, Verse 41, "And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed."
There are a lot more examples that we could turn to in the four Gospels where the Bible talks about Jesus looking at people and loving them, looking at people and having compassion on them, and the term that keeps coming up over and over again with "compassion" is that He was "moved with compassion." Now, what exactly does "compassion" mean? Well, if you were to just look up, excuse me, the word "compassion" in a dictionary, it says, "A feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate," and it gives for the opposite, the antonyms, "mercilessness" and "indifference." What does "indifference" mean?
Congregation: [You 00:03:47] don't care.
Pastor: You don't care; so the opposite of compassion is when you don't care, and if you just look at the word compassion, and just kind of break it down to its root word, "passion." What does it mean to have passion? It's when you feel strongly about something. If I said, "He's very passionate about the Word of God," he has strong feelings about the Word of God. If I said that a man was very passionate with his wife, it means that he has very strong feelings toward his wife; and com-passion means that we feel sorry for other people, or we feel sympathy for them. We love them, and we see their doom, and we see their lost condition, and we feel bad about it, and we love them, and we want to see them saved. That's what it means to have compassion.
When Jesus looked on those who physically were suffering with leprosy, physically suffering with blindness, physically suffering from hunger, because they hadn't eaten in a few days, he had compassion on them. He didn't just sit there and not care, and have no sympathy. In fact, the word "sympathy" is probably the closest word to "compassion," because if you look at the root of compassion, the "com" at the beginning, and then the "passion," "com-passion" is Latin-based, and "sym-pathy" is Greek-based, but it's really almost identical word; and so when we have compassion, it's when we care about other people. It's when we love ... We're not indifferent toward their suffering. We're not indifferent toward the fact that they're not saved, that they're on the way to Hell. We actually care. We actually love them, and we actually want to see them saved. We need to be like Jesus Christ and have compassion for the unsaved.
Jesus Christ looked upon the multitudes, and He said, "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest," so when He was moved with compassion, He said the answer is that we need workers or laborers to go out amongst these people and lead them to Christ, to lead them to the truth, to be a leader that would preach unto them the Word of God, and preach unto them the truth of the Gospel. You see, our compassion should move us. What does it mean to be "moved"? Something needs to change. I mean, if something moved, if our church moved, we changed our location, we changed our address, if I move from here to there, there's been a change in my location, and we need to be moved with compassion, not to just feel compassion, but that that compassion would compel us to do something, and want to get the Gospel to the lost.
Jesus said: Let's not just sit around and have compassion, but He basically said, "Pray the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest." Why do we go out into the harvest and try to win lost souls to Christ? Because of our compassion. Because of our love. "The love of Christ constraineth us," the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, to be a part of that ministry of reconciliation, reconciling lost souls unto Jesus Christ. We should go out and go soul-winning, knock the doors, we should also preach the Gospel unto our friends, loved ones, coworkers. Why? Because we love them!
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor: Because we have compassion on them; and if we don't preach the Gospel, if we don't do the soul-winning, basically whith our actions were saying, "We don't care. We're indifferent. Doesn't matter." See, Jesus looked at a crowd of people. He didn't just not care. He cared.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor: He had compassion, and He said, "Let's do something about it. Let's pray that laborers will be sent out," and then, by the way, He didn't just pray, but in the next verse, in Chapter 10, Verse 1, He ordains 1two, and He sends them out as laborers. He says, "I have compassion. I want the people to be saved. I want to send people out into the harvest to reap souls for the Kingdom of God," and He says, "Let's send people out. Let's organize them. Let's get them two by two, and let's send them into all the towns and villages." We need to have that same compassion if we're following Christ. What does it mean? To follow Christ means to be like Christ, and Jesus Christ said, "If you follow Me, I will make you fishers of men." Why? Because that's what He did. He loved the lost. He said, "I've come to seek and to save that which was lost," and if we're following Him, we're going to have that same mission. We're going to have that same goal. We're going to be on that same path.
Now, if you would turn in your Bible to Revelation Chapter 2. Revelation Chapter number 2, last book of the Bible, Revelation Chapter 2. Remember the first Verse that we read in Jude said, "Of some have compassion, making a difference: Others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh"? There are some out there, and by the way they're the enemies of soul-winning, they're the enemies of evangelism. They're the enemies of the true Gospel of Christ, that basically teach that we can't do anything to save anybody, because it's all already been foreordained, it's all already been chosen by God, and there's nothing we can do to change it. It's just all been ordained from the foundation of the world.
That is a lie. That is a twisting of Scripture, and a twisting of the truth, because the Bible clearly teaches that we and others have free will. That is what the Bible says; 17 times the word "free will" is used, and yet these Calvinists will teach that free will doesn't exist. Let me tell you something: "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Whosoever will, can come to Christ. Whosoever will, whosoever believes in Christ shall be saved, and the Bible says, "You will not come to Me that you might have life." If one doesn't come to Christ, it's because he will not. He doesn't want to. It's up to people to choose whether or not they're going to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ or not, but the Bible does say that we have the power to make a difference, and to save them with fear.
Now, people will even object to the term "We got somebody saved." We use that term, don't we? We say, "Hey, I got my coworker saved. Hey, we had 4 people saved when we went out soul-winning." Now, people object that, "Ah! Ah! You're taking the credit! You're taking the glory! Ah! You didn't get anybody saved." No, and by the way, the people who say that are not soul ... They don't get anybody saved.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor: That jealousy comes up in them when they hear that you're doing something for God, and the Judas Iscariots of this world, the holier-than-thou Judas Iscariots, "Oh, you should have given that money to the poor! Oh, you don't" ... The lying devils who always, when somebody does something good, they attack it. That woman did a good work when she broke that bottle of ointment and put it on Christ, and Judas is right there to criticize that good work. Because whenever we do something good, there are going to be the naysayers that are of the devil that want to discourage us from doing that which is good; and when you go out and get people saved, the devil wants to come and discourage you from doing that; and so they'll say, "Oh, how dare you say, 'We got them saved'?"
When in fact, the Bible uses that exact term, and in fact the Bible even takes it a step further by saying, in Jude, "Others save with fear." What is the subject of the sentence, "Others save with fear"? That is an imperative sentence, and the subject is you. It's the implied you. You save people with fear. That's why Paul said, "I've become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." He said, "I might save some." In Romans, he said, "If, by any means" ... Chapter 11, Verse 14, "If by any means I might provoke to emulation them that are of my flesh, and might save some of them." "Who knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?" There are 4 times in the Bible that talks about how we go out and save people.
Now, look. Obviously, we know Jesus Christ is the Savior. Obviously, we know He gets all the glory. Without Him, we can do nothing. Obviously, we know Jesus Christ is the only Savior. He's the one that saves; but wait a minute, when we point people to Jesus Christ, we have a part in that work of reconciliation. The Bible says that Jesus Christ has committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation. Therefore, we beseech people in Christ's stead, saying, "Be ye reconciled to God, we do have a part in it, Calvinist, dead-as-a-doornail, reformed, ESV-preaching moron. We! Win! Souls! To Christ! At Faithful Word Baptist Church, and the reason you don't like it is because you're not doing it! That's why;" and I'm here to tell you something. A church that is a loving church and a compassionate church wants to go out and save some people from the fires of Hell, and that's what the Bible says, "Of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh."
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor: What do you see in those two verses? Love and hate. You love the unsaved, you love the lost, you love soul-winning, but you hate sin. You hate the garment spotted by the flesh. Now, look at Revelation Chapter 2, Verse 1, because this is spoken unto a church, and it's a church that had lost their first love. This is a church that didn't have compassion. Right? Because love and compassion kind of go hand in hand, don't they? I mean, Jesus Christ, he loved the unsaved, he loved the lost, and he had compassion on them. He had sympathy for them. People that we love, we're not going to be indifferent toward.
We're not going to just have no caring for them; so the Bible says, in Revelation 2:1, "Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love."
"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. But this thou hast," he's saying on a positive note, "thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." Now, in this passage, we see a church that was doing work for God. Because the Bible, the very first thing it says about this church in Verse 2 is what? "I know thy works and thy labor," so are these people working?
Congregation: Yes.
Pastor: They're laboring. What does labor mean? To work hard, so He says, "I know your works, and I know your labor." He says, "I know you're working, and I know you're working hard," but they lost their first love. How did they correct the problem? Because He says, "Look, you've lost your first love. Here's how we're going to fix it," and in Verse number 5, he tells them how to fix it. "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works." Now, he doesn't say, "Do the first love." He says, "Do the first works," so the way to get the love back is to do the first works. He says, "If you do the first works, you will recover your first love." Do you see that in this passage?
Now, what are the first works? If you think about it, Jesus Christ, when He departed this Earth and ascended up to Heaven, and you'll find this at the end of the Gospels, you'll also find it in the Book of Acts how He's always commissioning them, what's known as the Great Commission, saying, "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature," or He says in another place, "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, amen, and Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you."
He says, "As the Father has sent me, so send I you," and why was he sent? To seek and save that which was lost. It doesn't say, "Sit around and wait for the lost to come to Him." Jesus didn't say, "My Father has sent Me to just be here, so that lost people can come visit Me." No, he said, "I'm going to go find them. I'm going to go seek to and to save that which was lost," and in Acts, Chapter 1, He gives that same commission right before He ascends up to Heaven, He says, "Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth," and He said it in the account of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. It's all the same, folks. At the end of His ministry, He's already died. He's already been buried. He's already risen again. He's already taught His disciples all about the Kingdom of God and what they're supposed to preach, and he says, "All right, go do the work. Go preach the Gospel to every creature."
That's the thing He tells him to do before He leaves, and then even before that, when he first ordained the apostles in the first place, what's the first thing he does? Sends them out two by two and says, "Go preach in the towns and villages." Okay. That is the primary work of our church, is evangelism. That's our primary work, as far as doing the work. Now, obviously, yeah, we're here to teach the saints, but to teach them to do what? To be a soul-winner. To teach them to be able to reach others with the Gospel. Otherwise, we might as well all just go to Heaven. I mean, I'd rather be up there than down here, but the point of being down here is because this is where the lost are.
Congregation: Right. Yeah.
Pastor: In fact, why don't we just take our whole church, and just move it to some wilderness compound somewhere? We can just move out to the wilderness and live off the land, get away from the corruption of the big, bad city, and get away from all the sinful influences. You want to know why we're in the middle of a city? Because the lost are in the city. That's why we're here. I mean, why are we in Phoenix? Why not move out to some idyllic, nice place? Because we want to be in the place where the people are. Jesus said, "I don't want to take you out of the world. I just want to keep you from the evil." We need to be in the world, but not of the world. We need to be in the city, but not of the city, and we need to reach the lost with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Otherwise, why even be in Tempe? Why even be on this Earth, if we're not reaching out to the unsaved, if we're not going to work and giving the Gospel to our coworkers? If we're not giving the Gospel to our friends, family, loved ones? The primary, best way of getting people saved, going out and knocking doors, and just preaching the Gospel to the unloved and the forgotten, and everybody. Everybody. Going soul-winning is what I'm talking about.
Now, think about this. What if you were married, and what if the fire had kind of gone out of your marriage a little bit? Right? You've been a married a long time, and let's say you've kind of lost your first love. Right? You don't ... Because, let's face it, everybody who's married, I mean, I should hope so, there was a time when you felt very strong feelings of love toward your spouse, or else why did you even get married, right? You felt that strong feeling of love and attraction toward your spouse, and maybe after many years of marriage, like you've lost your first love.
Do the first works. When you first were dating, and when you first got married, you probably put a lot more work into that relationship than what you're putting into it right now, if the fire has gone out. You were probably putting a lot more effort and time and thought and energy and work into that relationship. Do the first works to get the first love. What love had these people lost? I mean, in this church. I'm just using that as an illustration; but what love had the Ephesus church lost? They lost their first love.
He's like, "Do the first works. Now, I'll tell you this. There are a lot of churches out there that preach some really good doctrine, and they hate the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, and they've tried them, would say they are apostles and are not, and has found them liars," meaning that they take the right stand. They've exposed the false teachers, and they've taught Biblical truth, and in fact, they're working very hard, and they can't bear with them that are evil. I mean, they're preaching hard on sin, and they have a lot of things right, and they're working hard, but they're not doing any soul-winning. I mean, there are so many churches like that, I can't even count.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor: I'm not kidding. I mean, you want to talk about Phoenix, Arizona, you want to talk about the state of Arizona, you want to talk about the United States, the vast majority of King James Bible-preaching, preaching-hard-on-sin-type churches that have a lot of great doctrine, they're not reaching the lost, and there's only one reason why they're not reaching the lost: Because they don't love the lost. Stop and think about that. Can you really say that a church loves the unsaved and loves the lost when they're doing nothing to reach them? When they're not knocking a single door? When they're not going to the poor? They're not going to the ghetto? They're not walking up and down the street talking to people, and reaching people where they are?
Can you really say that that's, "Oh, that's a church that just loves the lost"? No, because if they had that love, they'd be doing the first works, and Jesus says, "Well, if you're not feeling the love, get out and start doing the work, and hopefully you'll start feeling the love because your eye will affect your heart." You see, it's easy, and I want you to listen to what I'm preaching this morning. It's easy to forget about the unsaved if you don't see them.
Think about this now. Isn't it easy to just kind of go to church week after week, you go to your job, you see the same people, you go home, you got your family, you got your friends, you got a few people, you got your little world there: It's easy to just kind of forget that most people aren't saved, most people are going to Hell, and a lot of them would get saved if we would give them the Gospel, if they would hear the truth preached: Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God; but when you get out soul-winning, when you actually get out there and start knocking the doors, you come face to face with people, right, and you see real human beings, you look them in the eye. You ask them if they're saved, and they're not; and you ought to love people, and you ought to have ...
Hopefully, you're like Jesus, where, when you see that, you have compassion. You feel bad for people. You want them to know the truth. You want them to be saved. This church in Ephesus had lost their love of the unsaved. They didn't have the compassion that Jesus had and that they had once had, and as a result, they quit doing the first works, and they get busy with everything else. I mean, I'm sure they were really busy with all their Easter program and their Christmas play, and they were all busy with the choir practice, and they got really busy with all the activities, and the softball league, and all ...
Look, I'm not saying those are bad things, but you know what, and I'm sure they probably did a lot of really nice work on building a really nice building and maybe a lot of cool artwork and everything like that. Nobody has as cool artwork as we do, [by now 00:23:27]. Praise God for the lady who did all these paintings; but what I'm saying is, it's easy to get busy about things, but you're not reaching the lost. Can you see how a church could have a lot of ... You know what? Just go down the list of independent Baptist churches in Arizona, and look at all their websites, and there will be a tab called "Ministries," and they'll list so many ministries, and it's everything but soul-winning.
Congregation: That's right.
Pastor: You don't have any ... You got all these ministries. They got the [Owana 00:23:57] and the [Patch 00:24:06], and I'm not saying these things are bad, but I'm saying, they got [Owana 00:24:03] and the [Patch the Pirate 00:24:03], and the choir, and the Sunday School, and all this stuff, and then it's like no soul-winning, no door-knocking, no evangelism, and it's funny ... Go to 1 Corinthians 13 while I tell you this, but it's funny, I was talking to Joe here, he was visiting yesterday, and he said he was at a church recently, and that church didn't have any soul-winning, and he asked the pastor, he said, "Hey, you guys do soul-winning? You guys knock any doors? You guys preach the Gospel to the lost?" He said, "Well, we used to," but he said that soul-winning is ineffective.
He said, "We just don't think it's effective. We just don't think it works," and I said to Joe, I said, "Well, in a way, he's right, because if your goal with soul-winning is to build a big church or to get a lot of offerings coming in, or to get a big attendance, he's right. It really isn't that effective. It really doesn't work that well. For what you put into it. I mean, for the amount of hours and time and effort you put into soul-winning, it is not the most efficient way to make the church grow, and to make the church get visitors and money in the plate. It just simply isn't," and I don't even know if some of you realize how much soul-winning goes on in this church on a weekly basis; but it's hundreds of man hours.
By the time we take all the people who go soul-winning ... I mean, we have people going soul-winning constantly for hours and hours. If you add it all up, it's hundreds of man hours a week of soul-winning that goes on through the efforts of this church; and honestly, for the amount that goes into it, you don't get a whole lot of visitors, and a whole lot of growth in the church from it, but, you see, that's not the goal of soul-winning. You know what the goal is? To get people saved; and you know what? It's really effective at that. We really get a lot of people saved, and that's what it's all about, getting people saved; but if you have this warped mentality ... Oh, let me rephrase that. If you don't love people ...
Congregation: Yeah.
Congregation: Correct.
Congregation: That's good.
Pastor: If you don't love people, you don't give a rip about some poor person that gets saved that's never going to show up. You don't give a rip about some teenager that gets saved. You don't give a rip about somebody who speaks Spanish and doesn't speak English, so they're never going to come to church, and they get saved. You don't even care about people that are poor, that are handicapped, that are never going to show up because they don't even speak English. You don't care! You only care about the money in the plate, or the people that come to the building; and you know what? That's an unloving church, and an unloving pastor.
"Well, we're not going to do [something that 00:26:33] doesn't work." Yeah, it doesn't work for your selfish motives, but it does work for the Kingdom of God. It works to get people saved. It works to get people to Heaven. I think, and I won a girl to the Lord yesterday, a young, 13-year-old Hispanic girl in a poor apartment complex. What are the chances that she's going to be here today? Pretty much zero. I mean, she's not going to get here. I mean, her parents ... I said, "Do your parents speak English?" "No." Her parents speak no English. They're not going to bring her to Faithful Word Baptist Church.
I gave her the [Gospel 00:27:11], she got to say ... She's 13. Hopefully, she's not going to get in the car and start driving over, a 13 year old's not going to drive herself down here. I mean, maybe some day, as an adult, hopefully, she'll show up at church, and hopefully we can knock that door again, and she'll remember and come to church, but you know what? You think I regret spending the time, going out, spending a few hours yesterday knocking doors? You think I regret taking twenty-some minutes to talk to that girl? Because that girl's going to Heaven. She was going to Hell. Now she's saved. Now she's going to Heaven, and she's eternally sealed by the Holy Ghost, and can never lose that free gift of eternal life. You think I regret that? No, why? Because I loved her. Because I love the lost, and that's what I want to do with my life, is get people saved.
Yet, "Well, but that's not going to grow the church;" so what? Who cares? I seem to recall Jesus saying, "Upon this rock, I'll build my church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." Let Him deal, let God build the church. I'm not in the church-building business. I'm in the soul-winning business. I'm in the Gospel-preaching business, and I'll let God build the church as he sees fit; and by the way, I notice that our church gets bigger every year. Every single year, our church gets bigger. Is it always a direct result of soul-winning? No. No. It's not a direct result of soul-winning; but you know what? It's God, blessing a soul-winning church, and people have it so backwards, where they think, "Hey, let's go soul-winning to build the church."
You know how I look at it? "Let's build a big church so we can do more soul-winning." Soul-winning is not the means to the end. Soul-winning is the goal. Soul-winning is the end. Soul ... Look, why even have a big church; so that we can knock every door in Phoenix with the Gospel 5 times. That's why. Because we love people, and we want people to be saved; but let me say this, though: Obviously, going soul-winning is a big part of it. Going soul-winning, and also, it doesn't just stop at door-to-door. Obviously, you should win souls in your personal life, your friends, family, coworkers, but I'll tell you this: If all you're doing is that personal life-type soul-winning, you're probably doing a lot less than if you went and knocked doors. I mean, it's not even comparable.
Plus, when you go out and knock a lot of doors, you actually get good at it, and then you take those skills that you develop, and you take the boldness that you develop, and the faith that you develop through knocking doors, and then you go back and talk to your family, friends, and coworkers, and you'll be more effective, and you'll be a better soul-winner. You'll be more experienced at it.
All right. Again, 1 Corinthians 13; but not only is just going out soul-winning a big step for a church, a church like the Ephesus church, they needed to be going out and evangelizing and doing the first works and having the first love. Then, also, individuals, we need to not just say, "Well, yeah! Rah, rah! I go to Faithful Word Baptist!" How about you actually get involved with the soul-winning and not just say, "Hey, I'm going to a soul-winning church, and I've put money in the plate"? No. No. You get out there and do the work also. You be a part ...
By the way, you'll find yourself becoming a more loving person. The first love will come back when you do the first works. You go out and talk to people with Bible in hand and tear in the eye, and love people, and see the lost, and see their condition, and want them to be saved. You'll get the love back. You'll get the fire back in your Christian life; but let me say this to those who are doing the work, to those who are doing the soul-winning: We should be sure that we always are compassionate and loving when we go soul-winning, and that we're not just going soul-winning and just going through the motions, or even just going out and saying, "Well, it's my duty. It's my obedience to Christ."
Yes, going soul-winning is obedience to Christ. Yes, it is our duty; but we should also feel it, when we go soul-winning, and actually love people and care about the people that we're talking to. Let me explain to you how this plays out. Look at 1 Corinthians 13, Verse 1. It says, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal," so what the Bible's saying is that even if we're eloquent and we say a lot of good things, if we don't have charity, and what is charity? Charity could be defined as love, or just ... I like to think of the root word of where "charity" comes from, the word. It comes from the same root word as the word "caring." You care, and that is what love is.
I mean, when you love someone, you care about somebody; so when the Bible says, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal," He's saying I need to love people and care about people and have compassion on Bible. I think all 3 of those words come forth as we read this entire passage; and so what's God saying? If we're going through the motions and saying good things, but we don't love that person, it's just noise. Sounding brass, tinkling cymbal is just noise. Doesn't have any meaning.
Look at Verse 2. It says, "And though I have the gift of prophecy," meaning, "I'm a great, gifted preacher," "and I understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing," and I wonder if we could just take this passage and apply it to a church and say, a church that really has a lot of knowledge, really a lot of powerful, great preaching, and a lot of faith, but do they love people? Do they have charity? Otherwise, it should be called Nothing Baptist Church. Think about that. Nothing Baptist Church. Pastor Nobody.
Look at Verse 3, "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth nothing," and you say, "Pastor Anderson, who in the world would bestow all their goods to feed the poor, and they don't have charity? I mean, isn't that the definition of charity, to give all your goods to poor?" There are a lot of people who give to the poor that don't love the poor at all. Bill Gates. Anyone?
Congregation: Good.
Pastor: Say, how do you know he doesn't love the poor? Because he wants them all dead, because he's sterilizing them, because he's poisoning them. Okay, yeah, "Oh, you're a conspiracy guy." Yes, I am. Deal with it. It's true. I mean, I just saw it in the news this week. All these chemicals that they found in these vaccines that are being given out in Africa by all these charitable organizations, these vaccines have this ... I forget what the substance was, but it was a chemical in it that's a birth control chemical that they're putting in to sterilize the people that they're vaccinating; and Bill Gates even said, "We want to bring the population of the world as close to 0 as we can." I mean, it's, I saw it with my own eyes. He said, "I want to bring it as close to 0," and he said, "We could do that partially through vaccines." I mean, he flat out just said it. Who's seen him? Who saw that clip recently?
Yeah, half the church has their hand go up. Yeah. Yeah, we're that kind of church, okay, but anyway; but the point is, there are a lot of people out there who give away a lot of money, and they do a lot of quote-unquote "charity," and there's some other reasons why they could be doing it, rather than being motivated by real love. Like, for example, vainglory. "Look at me, everybody. Look what I'm doing. See all this stuff I'm giving away? Here, take a photo of me spooning Malt-O-Meal into this African kid's mouth." They do it for vainglory.
They might do it for an ulterior motive, like, "Yeah, we just really want to care of you and give you these foods and vaccines," as they sterilize them, as they carry out a Satanic eugenics agenda. There could be a lot of reasons why people do things besides actually having love in their heart, and I have to say, it's not going to profit them anything. People that are not saved, that preach lies, like Bono, the lead singer of U2. Big charity guy, right; but he preaches a false Gospel. He does not believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I did a whole sermon one time called "The Gospel According to Bono," and I didn't say Saint Bono, and so "The Gospel According to Bono."
I showed all the quotes where he preached the false Gospel, but he's going to feed the poor in Africa and do all this. Then it came out in the news recently that 97 or 98% of what's donated to Bono's charity doesn't make it to Africa; 2% actually makes it to the poor. The rest just goes to him and his staff, and they just want to talk about how we can fornicate without getting AIDS, or whatever, and just keep fornicating, keep on being a homo, or whatever; but that's another sermon that shall be preached at another time. What I'm saying is that, a lot of times, people are doing a lot of works, whether it be feeding the poor ... I mean, even Judas Iscariot said, "Hey, let's feed the poor." Remember? Jesus said, is thinking, "You don't care for the poor. You want to steal the money, Bono." Judas taking like 98%, right, and 2%'s going to the poor, okay?
What I'm saying is that we need to make sure that when we live our lives and serve God and preach and do soul-winning, that we're not just going through the motions. Because going through the motions is not enough, according to God. Even if you sacrifice your life, even if you gave away everything you had, even if you preached the greatest sermon of all time, going through the motions without having charity and love in your heart, without the compassion and the tear in the eye, without really caring about, what you're doing is worthless to God.
By the way, people can perceive when you don't care about them. They can tell. I read a book about body language, and this book about body language, it talked about how at least 60% of communication is non-verbal. What we're actually saying, the words that are coming out of our mouth, are less than half of the message we're sending people. The rest of it comes by our tone of voice. The rest of it comes by our hand gestures, our movements, the way our body is positioned, and I don't think that most of us are going out all day thinking, "Okay, let's send the right body language," and we're putting on this perfect show of body language; but here's what it is. You're sending those signals without knowing it. What's in your heart comes out, and people, even when you're saying nice things to them, even when you act like you love them, you're sending them subliminal messages, and you're sending them subtle cues and signals through your body language, and people just have a feeling, and can just understand what you really think and how you feel about them. Just by the way that you act.
It's like if you've been married for a long time, you know your spouse's body language. "Honey, is everything okay?" "Oh, yeah. Everything great," but you know it's not, because of the body language. She's not making eye contact. There's all these different, and it's different for everybody. Even the book that I read, it said you can't do a one-size-fits-all, because different people have different body language and everything; but do you ever just get a feeling about people, and you don't really know why? You just don't like that person, or you do like that person? A lot of it's because of that; and so what I'm saying is, there are a lot of things that even science doesn't understand, even beyond body language of just pheromones, and just other things. Where you go out, and you don't like people, and you don't love people, and you don't care about people, and then you wonder why they don't want to hear the Gospel from you.
FeCongregation: Right.
Pastor: Part of it is that you might need to change your attitude; and if you get an attitude, I'm not saying, fake it. "Oh, I got to go get that book and read it and figure out ... " No. What I'm saying is, be real, and when you're real, the realness will come across; and when you really love people, they can feel that. They can sense that. They might not even understand why. Maybe it's just something subtle. Maybe it's body language. Maybe it's just the spirit; but they can just feel the love, because they know that you're there because you truly care about them, and you really love them, and you really want them to be saved; so I think that part of being an effective soul-winner is having love, having charity, having compassion, caring about people, loving people, being out there for the right reason.
I've explained this to people before. When that door opens up, I like to just behold that person and just love that person, and just care about that person, and think of them as a real human being, not just another person to get saved, another number, 1, 2, 3, 4. No. Each person needs to be a real soul to us, that we really care about. Part of that, let's keep reading. It says in Verse 4: "Charity suffereth long, and is kind," and I know that "Suffereth long," the primary meaning of that would be that you put up with a lot from people that you love. If you love somebody, you put up with things. You're married, you love your spouse, you're going to put up with some things. You love your children, you put up with them. You can suffer long with them; but wait a minute.
What about this, and I know this isn't the primary meaning, but let me ask you this: If you really love the people that you're giving the Gospel to on soul-winning, would you just blow through the plan of salvation as fast as you can, just to get it done and get to the next door?
Congregation: No.
Pastor: Just crank through it, get it done, "Let's get to the next door, let's get it ... " No way, and here's what I like to tell people: "Why don't you give the Gospel to everybody, like you're giving the Gospel to your mother?"
Congregation: Yes. That's good.
Pastor: I mean, what if this is your mother, who never wanted to hear the Gospel, and all of a sudden, now your mother says, "Okay, give me the Gospel?" How would you do? How much time would you spend for someone that you really loved and cared about? That's how we should be. Now, I'm not saying that we need to kick a dead horse. I mean, once people get it, they get it. If people get point 1, I'm ready to move on to point 2. I'm not into wasting time. There's a whole world out there, of lost people to get to, so I'm not saying, "Hey, let's just take forever, and waste time, and just beat a dead horse, with people," because sometimes people do have to go, and they do have other things, and we want to get through the whole plan of salvation, with people.
Let me say this, though: When you're just doing a slipshod, sloppy, "Hurry up," wham, bam, 1, 2, 3, blow through it, you know what? It just shows that you don't care about what you're doing. It just shows that you don't love that person enough to care about whether they're getting a clear presentation of the Gospel, and whether they really understand the Gospel, and whether you're doing the best possible job that you could do for that real person, who is somebody's brother, somebody's sister, somebody's mother, somebody's child, and let me tell you something. When we go out and knock doors, I believe that God is leading us.
Congregation: That's right.
Pastor: We pick a random street, we pick a random house, I believe that God is leading us when we go out, and a lot of times, I'll give somebody the Gospel, and win somebody to the Lord, and here's what they'll say: "Oh, man, my grandma's been trying to get me saved for years." "Oh, man, my brother-in-law's been talking to me about this for years," and you know that that brother-in-law's been praying ...
Congregation: Right, yeah.
Pastor: ... and you know that you are an answer to that prayer; so somebody, somewhere in some distant state is praying, "Oh, God, would You please send someone to talk to my loved one? Would You please send someone that would give them the Gospel? Would You please help them to be receptive of the Gospel," and then you go out and go soul-winning, "Oh, let's go here today." "Why not," and then boom, you're there.
What kind of an answer are you going to be to that prayer? You're going to do a good job. It might be the only shot at it. I'd rather do 1 thing well than 10 things poorly. I'd rather give 1 person the Gospel well, than to just blow through and crank out some speed presentation with a bunch of people. You know what? We ought to do a good job because we actually love the person and care about the specific person that we're talking to at that moment. Jesus looked on him, and beholding him, loved him. He had compassion on him. He cared. He spoke with charity. Suffer long with people, meaning take the time necessary. Sometimes, I've talked to one that was mentally handicapped. It'll take longer to give the Gospel to somebody who's mentally handicapped. "Oh, don't have time for this. Let's just go to the next" ...
No, I mean, how many people are going to, probably, take the time to really be thorough with that mentally handicapped person? You know what? Why don't you just park it there and do a good job? You know what I mean? Why don't you just spend the time necessary, and give that person the Gospel? By the way, I'm not saying to be late for church because you're taking so much time. Because you know what? I believe church is critical, and being on time to church is important; and if you need to spend more time with somebody, then you just need to go back to that door. You just need to write that down and go back; because being on time to church is very important, and there are 7 days in the week and plenty of time to go talk to people, and ...
By the way, that's why, if we got to leave at 6:30, soul-winning's over, it's 6:35 or 6:30, I'm probably not even going to start giving the Gospel to somebody at 6:27, because I know I don't have time to do a good job, or even do a decent job, right? You can always go back. Church is critical. Church is of crucial importance. I just want to throw that out there; but I will say this. You know what? You spend an hour talking to somebody, hour and a half, that has Down's syndrome, or some other mental handicap, some other disability, and they get saved, man. Isn't that worth it?
Congregation: Yes.
Pastor: Praise the Lord, and that person is somebody who Jesus Christ loved and died for. They need the Gospel. We need to start loving the individual, and caring about the individual, and not just being in a hurry; and obviously I know that as a church, we do love people. That's why we're doing it; but you know what? We can always be reminded of this. Some people are better at this than others, of how much love and compassion they have, and it's something that we all need to work toward, being like Christ, and having a heart of compassion and a loving soul-winning. It says in Verse4, "Charity suffereth long, and is kind." What does "kind" mean? You're nice to people. Be nice to people. Don't be rude. Don't be a jerk. Be nice. Smile at people. Be friendly. Love them. Be nice. All these things come across, when you're cold and uncaring and indifferent toward the people with whom you come into contact. They can perceive it right away.
It says, "Charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." You see, it's not a pride thing. When we go out soul-winning, it shouldn't just be about and pressing anybody, it shouldn't be about vaunting yourself, or envying what somebody else is doing. You just go out and you do your own thing, and you do a good job for the Lord, and you don't sit there and compare yourself amongst yourselves with other people. You just go out there, and you do the best job you can, and you love people, and you talk to everybody like you're talking to your mother, like you're talking to your brother, like you're talking to somebody that you really care about, because you ought to care about people and love people.
He says in Verse 5, "Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;" and there are a lot of great things we could stop and talk about in Verse5 and 6, definitely things to meditate upon, but I want to focus on Verse 7 for sake of time. "Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." Now, for some reason, God is tying in here, with charity and love, He's tying in faith, believing and hoping. Now, we're applying this passage today to soul-winning, because that's what we're talking about today, when it comes to love and compassion, we're talking about love and the unsaved. We started in Jude with a verse telling us to have compassion and pull people out of the fire, save people, love people.
When we think about this in regard to soul-winning, we ought to really hope that people get saved when we give them the Gospel and believe that people are going to get saved; and some people today, they go out soul-winning, and they're defeated, they're defeated before they even walk out the door. They go out the door expecting to fail, and here's the thing. When you go out expecting to fail, you probably will; and you wonder why so many people and so many churches fail at soul-winning? Because they expect to fail. They plan to fail. They don't believe in soul-winning. They don't have faith. Now, let me ask you this. Does the Gospel of Jesus Christ have power?
Congregation: Yeah.
FeCongregation: Yeah, absolutely.
Pastor: Are we preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
Congregation: Yes.
Pastor: Why do you think people aren't going to get saved when we go out soul-winning? It just doesn't make any sense. Now, I like what one preacher said. He said, "If you're in a church, and people aren't being saved, either the Gospel is not being preached, or the Gospel has lost its power." It's that simple, right? I mean, if the Gospel has the power to save, if in the Book of Acts they preached the Gospel and people got saved, why do you assume people aren't going to get saved now? It doesn't make any sense; but yet churches have a defeated, "Oh, we're living in the last days, and it's [delay to see, 00:48:55] in church age, and people just don't want the truth anymore," and blah blah. You know what, but then other people who believe in soul-winning are going out and succeeding at it. Right?
Congregation: Right.
Pastor: Why? Because faith, faith gives you power. The Bible says, "If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could remove mountains." Okay. Jesus Christ wants us to go out in faith. By the way, He says, when we pray, believe; and that's why, when I pray, when we go out soul-winning, we pray at the beginning and say, "Lord, lead us. Lead us to the people that want to hear the Gospel. Lead us to those that will be receptive." You're not going to believe this. I actually believe that He does answer that prayer every time.
I mean, I believe that He hears me when I pray that prayer, and that He leads me where he wants me to go that day, because I prayed that. By the way, there have been times when it was just obvious that God led me. One time, I was going soul ... I was just by myself, and I was going soul-winning in the eastern side of Tempe, and I just, I often zone out. You know, I'm driving along and just completely zoned out, and drove miles beyond where I was planning to go soul-winning. Miles, and it was heavy traffic, it was around rush hour.
I was thinking, like, "I'm not going to fight traffic back to that neighborhood. One neighborhood's as good as the next. You know, I'm just going to go soul-winning here, and just mark it on the map later," so I just pulled in there, and I looked at the area. I was like, "Oh man, this is going to be an unreceptive area," because it was kind of a nice part of Tempe, and it was kind of the old liberal, kind of, part of Tempe. I was thinking, like, "Oh, man. The place I was planning on going was better than this," so I knock on the first door, nobody's home. I knock on the second door, and this guy was just ready to get saved.
I mean, this guy was just, he just, he starts tearing up. He was actually a newscaster for a local TV news station. He worked in the newsroom, and I got his cell phone number, in case I needed to, you know, in I get beat up by the border patrol or anything, I can call him, you know; but anyway, I'm talking to this news guy, and I mean, the guy is kind of tearing up, and it was like perfect timing and he wanted to hear the Gospel.
I went through the whole plan of salvation with him, he got saved, it was great, and I was just thinking, "Wow, that's why I'm here." God obviously worked, through me getting zoned out there, and you know, the first person I talk to, and I just thought to myself, I said, "Wait a minute. God brought me here to talk to this one guy. The whole rest of the whole rest of this street's going to be horrible," you know what I mean? Because I know I was just here for this one guy, and I'm like, "Well, I'm not good to anyway," so I knocked this whole big long street that's just, "Not interested, not interested, not interested, not ..." It was like, because I, and I knew, I even said to myself, "Watch! There's no way anyone else is going to get saved, this was too perfect. This is going to be the worst street ever," and it was, but see how God leads?
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor: ... and we don't, don't we all ... I mean, I hope you pray that and I hope you mean it. When you're going soul-winning, "God, lead us. Direct us. Help the people to be home that would hear us, and the people that will reject us, just let them not even be home," you know, that we don't even waste time with it. I'm telling you, God leads us, and we can get people saved. We just have to believe that it works. Believe what God said when He said, "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."
God promised us success if we go soul-winning. He promised that it'll work, but yet, people will say it doesn't work. "It's not effective." Yeah, not effective for your wallet. It's effective for [kick 00:52:52] souls in Heaven, not effective for the attendance. They say, "Well, don't you want to have a big attendance?" I like having a big attendance, but you know what, it's really not that important to me. I mean, I like it and I'll break out, we'll break out the ice cream when we break the record, it's great, it's fun, but you know what, I'll say that's not what makes me get up in the morning.
I don't get up in the morning to break the attendance. I'm not Joel Osteen. I wake up in the morning to basically reach people, because I love people. I mean, that ought to be what it is, and by the way, and I got so much I want to say, but I got to just cram it in these last few minutes here, but go to one more place, Romans 5, Romans, Chapter 5. 1st Corinthians 13 is a pretty key passage, telling us how important it is that we do love people, and care about people, and have compassion on people. No matter what kind of service for God we're doing, when we're preaching the Gospel or anything else, we should believe, we should hope, we should endure, all those things that come with being a charitable person, but I noticed that churches that aren't doing the first works, and have therefore lost the first love, meaning a church that doesn't do soul-winning, it affects their doctrine because they stop believing ...
Congregation: That's right, yeah.
Pastor: ... they stop hoping. They get this negative, defeatist-type attitude, and they stop believing that people get saved. You know what? I've seen people get saved many times, you've seen people get saved many times, we believe that people get saved. We read the Book of Acts, and people are getting saved, and a lot of them are getting saved the first time they hear the Gospel and Acts. Some of them have to hear it again. They say, "Well, hear thee again on this matter," but what about all the people got through the first time they heard the Gospel in Acts? But yet, people, they don't believe that can happen.
They don't believe that we can go out and find people that aren't saved and get them saved, but I believe that, you believe that, because we do it, and what happens is, people who don't do soul-winning, a church that doesn't do soul-winning, they stop believing. They get cynical, and then they start saying, "Well, soul-winning doesn't work, and if that guy says, in Tempe Arizona, says it works, he's a liar. He's a fraud. You know, they're just going out and just, they're just, 'One, two, three, repeat after me, pray [with me 00:55:07].'" No, we're not. We love people. We're taking the time. We're being thorough.
Congregation: [Yeah 00:55:13].
Pastor: We're doing the best job that we can, because we love people, but people, oh yeah, they get cynical and say, "It doesn't work," and then they start getting goofed up on their doctrine, because they have to justify not soul-winning, so it's like, "Well, if these people don't come to church, they're not really saved." Oh, okay, so I guess the 13 year old girl that I won to the Lord is not saved, unless she showed up, with her parents that don't speak English bringing her. A little bit far-fetched, isn't it?
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor: .. but let me say this. They get cynical, "Ah, you got to come to ... " Oh, so did the Bible say, "Believe and go to church, and thou shall be saved."
Congregation: No.
Pastor: It's not what is says. It says, "Whosoever believeth," and by the way, John the Baptist and Jesus had thousands and thousands of people saved, yet in the early church, there were only 120 members in Acts 2, Acts 1. "Where are they all," but it starts affecting their doctrine, and then you'll even start having people attacking praying the sinner's prayer with people. "Ah, you're praying the sinner's prayer with people, blah, blah, blah." You know why we pray the sinner's prayer with people? Can I tell you why? Because we want to help them.
Congregation: Yeah.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor: Okay? We're trying to help, because we love them. Because if I just say to somebody, "Okay, call upon the name of the Lord," they're going to be like, " ... " "Okay, pray your own prayer, word it yourself," "Uh ... " They might not know how to pray. They don't even know what to do. You know, even the disciples said to Jesus, "Teach us to pray."
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor: As John taught his disciples. I mean, teaching somebody how to pray, there's nothing wrong with that, but you know what? When you don't love people, you want to make it hard for them to get saved. Think about it. I mean, if I don't love you, I'm going to make it hard for you to get ...
"You got to ... It's hard, it's going to take a six week class, and I'm not going to help you pray at all, you got to do this on your own, and you got to jump through all these hoops, to get saved," and then they attack us and call us, "easy believeism," because we actually love people and want to make it as easy as we can for them to get saved, and thank God, Jesus made it easy. He did the hard part when He died for us. He did the hard part when He rose again. He did the hard part when He lived a sinless life and then shed His blood on the cross, and thank God it's easy to be saved.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor: "Just believe on the Lord, Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,' but, "Ah, easy believer ... " because they want to make it hard. You know what? They shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men.
Congregation: Exactly.
Pastor: Trying to make it hard, you know, trying to close the door. Man, I want to kick the door wide open.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor: I want to point them at, "Here's the door. Let me get the door knob for you. Here, let me help you. Here you go, come on in. Come on through this door. There you go," and you know what? They say, "Aah, how could you drag her in the door like that?" Yeah, pulling people out of the fire.
Congregation: Yeah.
Congregation: Amen.
Congregation: Right.
Pastor: Pulling people out of the fire.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor: Pulling people out of the fire. Hey, he said almost that persuaded me to be a Christian.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor: Paul wanted to persuade people. He wanted to compel them to come in to salvation. You know, and they want to basically say, like, "Well, I mean, if you really ... Are sure you're ready to go through this door? Are you sure you’re really, to turn your whole life around?" You know what I mean? "Okay, well, find the door yourself. I'm not even going to tell you which. See all these doors? Just find it." They're making it hard.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor: Or, "Here, let me put some chairs in front. Let me put a little roadblock, all right? Go through this door. There's salvation. It's right there. Go through the door. Go through that door," and then you wonder why they don't get anybody saved, because they're making it hard. It's not hard, it's easy.
Congregation: Amen.
Pastor: Thank God it was easy enough for me to get saved when I was 6 years old. I'm glad it wasn't hard. I probably couldn't have done it at age 6 if it was too hard. Let me just tell you one quick story, to close on this. I remember a long, long time ago, I was working with a guy, and this story just really illustrates this point, but I was working with a guy out of town. You know your company sends you out of town, and you share a hotel room, and you work with people.
I was working with a guy named Ed, and this guy, Ed, he was a real nice guy, but he wasn't saved. He grew up some kind of Pentecostal or something, but he wasn't saved, he didn't know the Gospel, and so I'm with this guy Ed, and you know, we got off work around 4:00. We go to dinner together, we're hanging out together, we went to the little weight room in the hotel. We're lifting weights. This guy was really into weightlifting, this guy, Ed, and so he was showing me stuff on weight lifting. We're doing that for a while, and we were talking a lot about the Gospel.
I was trying to give this guy the Gospel, I kept giving him the Gospel throughout the evening, as we're at dinner, as we're lifting weights, we're talking about the Bible, we're talking about the Gospel, I'm trying to get this guy saved, and he is listening, but he wasn't really giving me a lot of feedback, necessarily, of whether he believed it. He was just kind of going all, "Okay," you know, just kind of going along with what I'm saying, just kind of listening, but I couldn't really get a feel from him that he was really believing it or getting it, or ...
I just didn't really know where he was at. You know, we're talking. Finally, we're, at the end of the day, we go up to the hotel room, and we go to bed. I'm laying in bed, and from across the room, he starts talking to me from his bed. He starts bringing up to me about the Gospel, so I was thinking, "Oh, great," because he's laying in bed, basically, he'd been thinking about what we had talked about, so he brings it up to me. He's obviously just laying there, it was bothering him, he's thinking about it, and he's laying in his bed and he starts talking to me about it.
He says, "So all I have to do is just believe in Jesus? I just have to believe ... " You know, he's just kind of clarifying it with me, and I said, "Yeah, that's what the Bible said, isn't that?" He reached out and flipped on the light. Sat up in the bed, and he said, "Steve, can you just help me do this right now? I mean, can you, I don't know what to do. I don't know how to ... I believe, so what do I do? Help me do this," and I said, "Well, yeah."
I said, "Let's just pray right now, and I'll just, I'll help you with the words to just ask Jesus to save you, just to tell him that you trust in him," and we got our knees by the bedside, and I led him in prayer. "Oh, one of those 'Repeat after me' prayers, oh, oh, the sinner's prayer, oh ..." You know what? You don't love people. If that's what you think, you're wicked.
Thank you, because you know what? What was I supposed to say to him? "Nope, do it yourself. Goodnight, see you in the morning. Struggle with God all night in prayer in your bed, do your own thing." No, no. Look, I love them, I want to help him. I got on my knees with him and led him in prayer to help him with the words, because he said, "You know what? I want to be saved right now. Help me pray. Teach me to pray," and he got saved. Okay, what in the world is wrong with that? Nothing, if you love people. Nothing, if you believe the Bible. Nothing, if you believe the Gospel. Nothing, if you believe the Book of Acts, but ...
If you're one of these dead as a doornail Calvinistic, "Repent-of-all your sins and jump-through-a-million-hoops to be saved" people, then you have a big problem with what happened in that hotel room that night. You unloving, uncharitable, dead as a doornail, sorry excuse for an independent Baptist. I don't care what you're preaching, I don't care what you prophesied, I don't care what kind of knowledge you have, I don't care how many goods you bestowed, I don't care how many times you've been, you had your body burned, let me tell you something. If you don't have charity, if you don't love people, if you don't have compassion, you're nothing.
Congregation: Right.
Congregation: Yeah.
Pastor: Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. "Father, we thank You so much for loving us and having compassion on us, Lord, and I pray that we would have compassion and love for the lost, and that we would care about people, and that we would not just go through the motions coldly, uncaringly, robotically, but that rather we would actually love people in our hearts, sincerely care about people, and we love You, and in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen."
