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

All right, we're here in Luke chapter 8, and I just want to thank Pastor Menes for just the opportunity to preach as part of this series. And I've learned a lot preaching this sermon series, the sermons I've preached. And honestly, I believe that when you preach sermons, you learn more than anybody else does, because you really have to try to dig in there and study and everything like that. So it's really helpful when, if you're preaching, you learn a lot as you're preparing. And I want you to look at Luke 8, verse 15. And the Bible reads in Luke 8, verse 15, it says, But that on the good ground are they which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it and bring forth fruit with patience. Tonight we're going to be looking at the final sermon during this Parable of the Sower series, and so far we've looked at a bunch of failures. We looked at people that didn't get saved, and we looked at people that didn't become fruit-bearing trees. And so tonight we're actually going to look at the person who's actually successful, and we're going to learn strategies of what we need to do if we're going to be a soul winner. But I want you to notice, as an introduction, the first thing. This is going to be very obvious, but verse 15 comes after verse 14. And verse 15 comes after verse 13. After verse 12, we say, Obviously I know that, Brother Stuckey. But my point in that is this, that when Jesus was mentioning this to them, He goes from one right to the next. And so I'm not going to re-preach what we mentioned in the last several weeks, but we looked at those that failed, and they failed for certain reasons. And so the thing is, we're talking about the successful soul winner tonight. If you don't apply what we talked about the last couple weeks, you're not going to be a successful soul winner. You can't just forsake what we heard the last several weeks and just do what I say tonight, and you're going to be good to go, because you're going to fall into the same trap from verse 13, verse 14, getting choked with the cares and riches and pleasures of this life. So when Jesus is mentioning verse 15, He doesn't re-preach what He preached in verse 13 or verse 14. He moves on to a new thing, and we're going to see five points tonight. But I want you to turn to Matthew 13 to start. Now, Luke 8, verse 15 is much more comprehensive than what it says in Matthew and Mark. But when we're looking at this idea of what exactly is success, because I mentioned that the ones we mentioned before were failures, so what exactly does it mean to be successful? Have you ever wondered that? What would the determination be whether or not you're successful in your Christian life, that God will look down and say, Well done, you know, my good and faithful servant. You did a good job in this life. What exactly is success? Well, Matthew chapter 13 gives us a better idea. It actually puts a number on this. It says in verse 23, Matthew 13, verse 23, But he that receives seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it, which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. And so he gives various different numbers. He talks about getting a hundred saved, or sixty saved, or thirty saved. You say, Why does he give different numbers? Well, obviously, we're at different stages in life. Some people are able to go soul winning more than others. Just because you get thirty saved, that doesn't mean that you're less successful than someone that gets a hundred. You could be a lot more busy with your life. Maybe you don't have as much free time. You work more hours. Or maybe you're just in a much less receptive area. So we don't have the exact same number. We shouldn't just look at our numbers and compare it to someone else and say, Oh, wow, you know, I'm better than them, you know, as we talked about this morning, because I got twenty-nine saved, and they got twenty-eight. Well, you might have a lot more free time. You might be in a different stage in life, or you might have just had the better luck of the draw on the people that you talked to. So we're not comparing to other people. And so he gives different numbers. He mentions a hundred. He mentions sixty. He mentions thirty. You know, it's going to depend on your stage in life and where you are. You know, when I first got saved, my goal was to get two people saved in my lifetime. That was my goal. Now, when I first got saved, I initially tried to give the gospel to my parents and my sister and my roommate, people that I really cared about. But outside of that, I was scared to death to talk to anybody. If he had told me I'd be up here talking behind the pulpit, I would not have believed you. I never would have thought I'd be that person. The person who led me to the Lord is the one who really kind of pushed me to try to start preaching the gospel to people. He's like, We've got to start talking to someone. It was about eight months after that was the first time I tried to talk to somebody, just a random stranger. And then I walked away and I had the same reaction everybody does. That was not that scary. You know, the first time you go soloing, you're like, Oh my goodness, I don't know if I can do this. This is like the scariest thing. You know, random stranger. What's going to happen? And then you do it and you realize that wasn't even that big of a deal. Now, the guy didn't get saved. He wasn't interested. But I was over my fears at that point. All of a sudden, I started to try to talk to people as I was at WVU, and I started to become a soul winner. But here's the thing. When I first started, I had a lot of zeal. But you know what I didn't have? I didn't have knowledge. I had no clue what I was doing. You know, I would love to just listen to a recording of what I said, you know, when I first started going soul winning. Because I think all I pretty much did was just talk about eternal security, because I knew that was a heaven or hell issue. So I'd just show them a lot of verses, and then just at the end be like, So, I mean, do you get it? Do you believe that if you changed your mind? And if they said yes, then I just kind of walked away. You know, because nobody had ever taught me. I didn't have any sort of pattern of, you know, I've got to try to close them in prayer. I didn't know what I was doing. I was zealous. And the great thing about this is that if you're zealous, you're trying to do what's right, God will redirect your zeal into the right way, if you have the right heart about that. I believe that. And, you know, honestly, I probably sounded a little bit foolish with some of the things I said. If you had gone soul winning with me back then, you'd think, man, this guy's a terrible soul winner. You know, I had zeal, but I didn't have that much knowledge. So I had no idea whether or not I was getting anybody saved. Now, the great thing about the Word of God is this. If you show people verses from the Word of God, and you explain them, you're going to accidentally get people saved, even if you're doing a terrible job. Now, I didn't realize whether or not I was getting anybody saved or not, because I wasn't trying to close in prayer. But I ran into some people years later that told me, hey, you know, I already settled this. You talked to me about this years ago. So that shows me the Word of God is powerful, even if the way it's presented is not the best. But I didn't realize I was getting anybody saved. So my goal in life was to get two people saved. Now, the reason why it was two was because my parents taught me a principle when I was a kid that whatever situation you are in in life, you've got to leave it as a better place than when you started. You know, you go to a job and it's a mess. Make sure you leave that job in a better position than when you got there. I think that's a great principle. And so I figured two saved because not only do I replace myself, but I add another one to it. And I looked at this number. I was like, 30. I was like, those have got to be the greatest soul winners ever, to get 30 people saved or 60 or 100. I was like, that's just amazing to be able to win that many people to the Lord. My goal was just two. Well, turn to Psalms chapter 1. And I think sometimes we get the wrong idea about what it's saying here in Matthew 13, verse 23. When I first started going soul winning, my goal was two. But once I actually learned how to go soul winning, I realized that's not a very good goal, to get two people saved in your lifetime. I think there's a lot of people in this room that have gotten more than two people saved in one conversation. Right? Two saved is really not that big of a goal for a lifetime. Quite honestly, 30 saved is not that big of a goal for a lifetime. I mean, if you get one person saved per month, in two and a half years, you got 30 people. A hundred saved in a lifetime is not really that good of a goal. One saved per month in eight and one third years, you reached your quota. You hit 100. Well, here's the thing, though. The Bible's not talking about getting 30 saved in a lifetime. It's talking about getting 30 saved per year. Look at Psalms chapter 1, verse 1. It says, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. See, when it's talking about 30, 60, or 100, it's not talking about a lifetime. It's talking about per season. Because think about this. If you have an apple tree in the backyard, does anybody in their right mind wait 50 years to find out how much fruit you got on it? No, you pick it every single year. Right? And so when we're a fruit-bearing tree, our goal is to be soul winners every year for our entire lives. That's what success is. Now, like I said, it's not a specific number of 30, that if you don't get 30 this year, if you got 28, then you are a failure. Obviously, you know, we're in different situations in life, and quite honestly, you know, I believe that in Sacramento, if you go soul-winning every week on Saturdays, and that's the only time you go, you're probably not going to reach 30 saved. You know, because honestly, you know, there's a lot of areas that aren't that receptive. You probably won't hit that 30 mark. That doesn't mean that you're a failure. You might only be able to go once. I'm not saying that you have to reach that number. God gives different numbers. He's just kind of giving you a sample. Obviously, people that are in really unreceptive areas, they're not going to get as many saved. When we were on the Philippines missions trip, there's a couple of guys in this room that got more than 30 on that trip, okay? You're not going to get that many saved in a week here in Sacramento, even if you do go soul-winning for hours and hours. We're in different stages. We're in different situations, but our goal to be successful is you're a soul-winner every year your entire life. That is what success is. Think about this. Let's say you had 50 apple trees in your backyard, and you went out there and one apple tree produced fruit that year. Is that a success if one out of 50 produced fruit, 2%? It's not successful at all. I'm using the number 50 because think about this. Let's say you get saved at the age of 20, and let's say you're in incapable health until you're 70 years old. That's 50 years, okay? Think about if you had 50 apple trees and one out of 50 produced fruit. That's not a success. That's a failure. What if you had 10? That's 20% of those trees. 10 out of 50 produced fruit. You would say that was terrible. It was a failure. We get this idea that everybody is successful. Everybody gets this trophy sort of mentality. In college, everybody graduates no matter whether they understand the material or not. That's the way it works in college. Success in the Christian life, very few people meet that mark. Very few people you could really look at, look back at their life, and say that they were a success. The truth is if you're not a soul winner, you are a failure, the Bible says. That's what we see. If you had a tree, if you had apple trees and very few of them produced fruit, you would say it's a failure. Now, obviously, we get into soul winning at different stages in life, but once you become a soul winner, never quit it. Go until the day you die. I got saved when I was 18. I started going soul winning when I was 19 years old. From 19 to 69 is 50 years. Now, I've been soul winning for about 14 years, but if I quit tomorrow and never went soul winning a day in my life, I was a failure. Just because I might have accomplished more than other people, that doesn't mean that I'm successful. We don't judge ourselves versus someone else. 14 out of 50 apple trees producing fruit is not successful. That's a failure. That's 28%. That's terrible. If we're going to be successful, we need to be in this for the long haul. Luke 8.15, turn back to Luke 8. Luke 8.15, it tells us what we need to do to be in this for the long haul, to be a soul winner until the day we die. I'll be honest. When I was preparing this sermon, I was kind of surprised at some of the things mentioned in Luke 8.15 as I understood everything, because there's certain things we might think of to be a soul winner. Obviously, you've got to be out there. You've got to be knocking doors a lot. There's a lot of various different things, but there's a lot of things mentioned in Luke 8.15 you wouldn't think about. It mentions the heart. It mentions two different points we're going to look at in the heart, things that you just kind of pass over and don't even think about. Notice in Luke 8.15, we've got five points tonight. One is that an honest heart. That's one of the points. I'm going to give you the points up front. Another one is a good heart. Another one is hearing the word. It says having heard the word. Another one says keep it, and another one is patience. We need to do these five things to bring forth fruit our entire lives. These five points are not in that order, though, because notice how it says having heard the word. That's past tense. The first point is hearing the word. It's not talking about hearing the word when you get saved. It's talking about every time you hear the word. You read the Bible, you hear from God every single morning. Every single day, you're hearing the word of God. Sunday morning, you heard a sermon about responsibilities, and you apply that to your life. You hear the word of God. Sunday night, you hear a sermon. You're hearing the word of God. Every time you hear the word of God, you listen to a sermon on YouTube, or you read the Bible, you memorize the Bible. Every time you're hearing the word of God is what it's talking about. So the first thing is hearing the word of God. Second, when we hear the word of God, we need to respond with an honest heart, and we'll see what that's talking about. A good heart. And we need to keep it, which is more comprehensive than just keeping it temporarily. It's talking about your whole life you keep it. We'll see that. And then having patience. We must do these five things. Now turn to Luke chapter 11. Luke 8 verse 15 is a very comprehensive verse. You know, there are a lot of verses in the Bible I could show you that I'm going to show you in Luke 11 verse 28, but Luke 8 has a lot more information than it does in these other verses. Look at Luke 11 verse 28. Luke 11 verse 28, it says, But he said, Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it. It says hear the word of God and keep it. Now those things are mentioned in Luke 8 15, but also in Luke 8 15 it mentions having an honest heart and a good heart and having patience. You see, there's an intermediate steps that need to take place in your heart when you hear the word of God. Now it makes sense that the Bible doesn't mention those steps every single time you're hearing the word of God, because it would make the Bible a lot bigger. It's just kind of saying you hear the word of God and keep it. And when we preach certain instruments, we do the same thing. We say, hey, hear the word of God, now apply it to your lives. But there's also intermediate steps that are taking place in the heart that you might not even think about that must take place. And it's paramount that you have a good heart going into it, because if you don't have the right heart going into it, you're probably not going to end up having the honest and good heart when you actually hear the word of God. But there's intermediate steps that take place in the heart and must take place in the heart if you're going to be a soul winner until the day you die. Now turn to Nehemiah chapter 8. Now the first point is probably the most basic, and that is just simply hearing the word of God. And honestly, there's so many verses in the Bible that talks about hearing the word of God. The first third in the book of Proverbs is talking about crying out for wisdom and needing to get wisdom and needing to learn the word of God. So many verses in the book of Psalms, the whole chapter of Psalms 119, so many places that talk about hearing the word of God. So I just want to take you to one and just kind of explain this story here in Nehemiah chapter 8. Nehemiah chapter 8. So the first step to being a soul winner until the day you die, according to Luke 8.15, and like I said, not forgetting what we learned in the previous weeks, but what's mentioned here in Luke 8.15 is you need to hear the word of God. We need to hear the word of God as much as we possibly can if we're going to be a soul winner until the day we die. Nehemiah chapter 8, look at verse number 1. And all the people gathered themselves together as one man entered the street that was before the Watergate, and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel. And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding upon the first day of the seventh month. So everybody that can hear. Everybody needs to hear the word of God. Doesn't matter the age, doesn't matter who you are, man, woman, child, everybody needs to hear the word of God. Everyone that can hear with understanding, according to the Bible, upon the first day of the seventh month. And he read therein before the street that was before the Watergate from the morning until midday. Now, that sounds like a long sermon to me. You know, people get upset. It's like, oh, man, this sermon's so long. I want to go to Golden Corral. You know, it's going to be so busy by the time I get there. It's already at the 30-minute mark. But here they read from morning to midday. I had somebody tell me this who graduated from Bible college. He told me that this is what they taught him in Bible college. The perfect link for a sermon is 23 minutes. That's what he was taught. And the reason why is, he said, it is scientifically impossible for a person to pay attention for more than 23 minutes. Well, let's look at what the Bible says. Because the Bible actually says that these people did pay attention. It says, from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand, in the ears of all the people were attentive on to the book of the law. These people paid attention for more than 23 minutes. From morning until midday, that's a long sermon. And quite honestly, there's a lot of long sermons in the Bible. When you've got a guy falling asleep and dying and having to be brought back to life, that's a long sermon. Right? And so, honestly, what we need in America is not shortening the sermons. And that's kind of the standard of all these new non-denominational type churches, where they're preaching. They have lots of music. And music is important. We need the music, but they shorten the sermon. And the sermon is just like this little pat on the back, where you don't learn anything. You don't hear anything that actually changes your life. You just hear this 15-minute sermon that's nice. You hear this 23-minute sermon that's nice and sweet, and you walked in, and you leave saying, man, I'm such a great Christian, after that 23-minute sermon. That's the pattern we have, not just from non-denominational churches, from the Baptist churches. That's what you're getting now in today's world. The Baptist pastors are getting watered down. They're shortening the sermons and also taking out content, even during that shortened time. You're learning nothing. But we need long sermons. And I'm not saying that you just stand up here and you just say, wow, I've got to go 30 more minutes. I have nothing left. I'm just going to keep going. But here's the thing. This book is so big. There is so much to learn in this book, on any topic. And we need to hear the Word of God. We need to learn. We need long sermons. We need what we see here in EMI chapter 8. And people are capable of paying attention. The problem is we've got this video game generation. People that sit here and watch the TV, they see all these explosions, these flashing lights, and then they can't pay attention for the sermon. And honestly, if that's your kids, that they can't pay attention, you might want to watch the things that are coming into their eyes, because maybe the Word of God is not that exciting to them, because they're just seeing all these other things that are taking away their focus. These people, they were excited for the Word of God. They paid attention for hours to hear the Word of God preached. Notice what it says in verse 4. And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood. You say, is having a pulpit biblical? It is biblical. We see it here in EMI chapter 8, verse 4, which they had made for the purpose. Drop down to verse number 5. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people. You say, is it biblical to have an elevated platform that you're preaching? It is. He was above all the people. That's what the Bible says. He had a pulpit of wood. He was above all the people. Notice this in verse 5. Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people. And when he opened it, all the people stood up. That's always caught my attention before. Everybody stood up. You say, well, why did everybody stand up? Well, I'm going to give you some worldly examples that are going to help us understand this. But my whole life, I've always loved playing sports. I've been a sports fan. And my dad and I, we used to go to international soccer games. We'd watch a lot of US versus Mexico games, US Netherlands games, things like that. And when you're in the stadium watching the game, and then all of a sudden there's a through ball played, and the guy's one-on-one versus the keeper, every single person in the audience, every single person, stands up out of their seat. You know why? Because there's a good chance the guy's going to score a goal. They sense something great is about to take place. And every single person stands up. I remember being a kid and watching Michael Jordan play. And then he'd steal the ball. He'd be on a breakaway. And I'd be sitting on my couch. I'd just jump up just to see what kind of slam he would do. Because you want to see something great, you're excited about what's happening. Well, these people, when the Word of God was opened, they stood up. Now, I'm not saying we have to stand up. I don't want you to just stand up during the sermon. I'm not saying that. But these people were excited enough to stand up. They considered the Word of God something precious. Now, in today's world, we have so many exciting things happening that we don't consider the Bible that precious. You know, most of us have probably lots of Bibles. I have lots of Bibles at my house. We have it on our nightstand. We have it beside our bed. We have it in our car. We bring it to church. We can have the Bible on our cell phone. And we have it all around, and we don't consider it that precious. These people, they didn't have the Bible all the time. And so when they got the opportunity to hear the Word of God, they were excited about it. You know, we need to get back to being excited about the Word of God, and not just think it's a drudgery to come to church or say, Man, I've got to put in my 15 minutes of Bible reading this morning, but actually being excited for the Word of God. And you've got to ask yourself this question. If you're not excited, why is that? Because you should be excited when you read the Word of God. You should read it with the idea that you're going to learn something, that God has something to show you, that you come here to church, you're going to hear a sermon that can help change your life. You ought to come with the idea that I'm going to learn something and be excited about it. And not just worrying about everything else and checking this or that on your cell phone during the sermon, but actually caring about what the Bible says. And if you do not have that excitement, it's not the Bible that's the problem. It's not the preaching that's the problem. It's your heart that's the problem. There's something wrong, and you've got to figure out what it is. Because honestly, when you're not excited about something, you're going to eventually fade out. That's the way it is. If you don't enjoy something, if you're not joyful, if you're not excited, you're going to fade out. And even if you're not excited about serving God, you need to serve Him anyway, but you've got to find a way to get excited about it. You've got to find a way to consider reading the Bible and praying and going soul-winding and coming to church as being something that's great. And that's what we see here in Nehemiah chapter 8. The Word of God is opened, and everybody just stands up. They're not told they have to stand up. They're not ordered to stand up. They just chose to because they were excited. They wanted to hear what happened. They wanted to hear what the Word of God said. We need to get excited about the Word of God. Now, as I mentioned, there's many ways that we can hear the Word of God. Reading the Word of God is probably the best way. You hear preaching three times a week, but your personal Bible reading is more important than sermons. In your free time, you should not just be listening to tons of YouTube sermons and never reading the Bible. It's more important. It's going to do you more benefit in the long run to memorize the Bible and read the Bible than just listen to sermons. Now, I remember having a job where I was behind a computer all day on Microsoft Excel, and I was pretty much like copy-paste, copy-paste, copy-paste. So I didn't have to focus that much. So I did listen to a lot of sermons, and it didn't distract me from working. Honestly, the audio Bible, I just don't learn that much from it. I've tried it many times. You might be an auditory learner. I'm not an auditory learner that much. I have to actually see it. So it didn't do me that much, whereas preaching would really help me. So if you have that opportunity to listen to preaching on the job and it doesn't distract, or listen to the audio Bible if you learn that way, then do it as much as you can hear the Word of God, because this is going to help you being a soul winner for the long haul. That's what we see in Luke 8.15, having heard the Word. It's not talking about the moment they got saved. Every time you hear the Word of God, as much as you can. Turn to Matthew chapter 23, and I think one mistake we make, including myself, is this. We'll read the Bible when we want to read the Bible. But you know what we really ought to do is just read the Bible anyway. And honestly, I noticed this when I first started reading the Bible. When I first started reading the Bible, I didn't understand hardly anything. I mean, I was saved, and I understood things from the book of John and the basic stuff. But there are so many books in the Bible, like, I have no idea. And honestly, when you start reading the Bible, because I'm sure there's a lot of people in here that you're probably not that consistent with your Bible reading. When you start reading the Bible, it's more about being just diligent. And what ends up happening is you start learning the Word of God, you start to enjoy it more. See, the things of God get better with time. The things of the world get worse with time. That's the way it works. And so when you first start reading the Bible, it might be difficult. You've got to just do it anyway. And it will become more exciting with time. You're going to understand this book more and more. When you first start, though, you've got to just get through it. If you're not that excited, you've got to just keep doing it anyway, and eventually it will be exciting, because you'll start to learn things. And when God shows you things, it's going to be very exciting to you when you know the Holy Spirit showed you something, and it just clicks with you. It's an amazing feeling. It says in Matthew chapter 23, this is kind of in between points one and two. So you hear the Word of God, and notice what it says in Matthew 23, verse 25. "'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.'" So what he's saying here is if we clean the inside, the outside will get cleansed. You see, if we cleanse our heart, it will cleanse the outside. When somebody first starts coming to a church, everybody's so paranoid about how they're dressed. That's kind of our natural thing. We see that, and we think, man, that person's not wearing a suit and tie. They must not be right with God. Here's the thing. If they cleanse the inside, the outside's going to get cleansed. We don't have to worry about the way they're dressed. If they start reading the Bible, they hear the Word of God, and they respond in the right way, they're going to change. And it's not your place to go up to someone at church and tell them to dress differently. That is not your place. When I first started going to church, 19 years old, I showed up every single service with shorts on and long soccer tear-away pants, Adidas soccer shoes. I didn't wear a tie at all and a soccer shirt on. And I'm sure people looked at me on the outside and thought that—and honestly, I wasn't right with God at the time. I'll admit that. But I was a new Christian. I needed time to grow. And people are going to come to this church that are new. Maybe guys that have long hair or women that have short hair, they're not dressed right. They can change. The Word of God is powerful, and people can change. We don't have to come up to them and tell them to change how they're dressed. Because the preaching of the Word of God and their personal Bible reading will cleanse the inside, and as a result, the outside's going to be cleansed. Turn to Luke 8. Turn back to Luke 8. And so in Luke 8, verse 15, we see, But that on the good ground are they which in an honest and good heart—and as I mentioned, having heard the words the first thing because it's past tense—so once you hear the Word of God, you need to respond with an honest and good heart. Now these things are not the same thing. They're closely linked together. We're going to see that. But the first thing that's mentioned is having an honest heart. And you might think, what does having an honest heart really have to do with being a soul winner for the long haul? Obviously, we need to have an honest heart. But you know, when I first started studying this, it just kind of struck me as odd that it mentioned an honest heart. But you can clearly see this is linked to being a soul winner. We'll turn to Jeremiah 17. Jeremiah 17. I'm going to show you another verse that shows you very clearly that having an honest heart is linked with being a soul winner. And then we're going to see a few verses that are going to explain what exactly is the Bible talking about. In Jeremiah 17, verse 9, as you're turning, there's a very famous verse. Many of you have it memorized. It says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? So we see the heart is deceitful, right? We'll look back at verse number 7. It says, blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and his hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth out her roots by the river and shall not see when he cometh, but her leaf shall be green and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. So the verse right before talks about being a soul winner, and the verse right afterwards talks about having a deceitful heart. See, having an honest heart is linked with being a soul winner. You know, sometimes we memorize verses, and they're awesome verses, and sometimes we should probably just look at the verses kind of around it, and we're going to learn even more about the Bible. Now turn to Jonah chapter 2, and as you turn to Jonah 2, Jeremiah 17, verse 8, that's very similar to Psalms 1-3, one of the first verses we looked at about bringing forth fruit in your season. It's a very similar verse. It's worded very similarly. And let us see what the Bible means by having an honest heart. What is the link between having an honest heart and being a soul winner till the day you die? What exactly does that mean? Now in Jonah chapter 2, remember that Jonah got swallowed by a whale at the end of Jonah chapter 1, right? And as a result of being swallowed by the whale, he cried because of his affliction. Now, I don't have a whole lot of people I can talk to that got swallowed by a whale to kind of get their opinion, but I'd imagine that if you get swallowed by a whale, it's probably going to cause you to say, God, I'm sorry. You're going to realize, man, I'm in a bad situation right now. You know, it probably smelled terrible. It was probably dark. The acids were probably... I mean, it's probably a good depiction of hell. It's probably why, you know, we see that in Matthew chapter 12 where it's linked with Jesus going to hell three days and three nights. But as a result of this, he cries unto God, and he gets right with God in Jonah 2. And notice what he says in verse 7. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came in unto the end of thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice unto thee with a voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. So Jonah compares someone observing lying vanities versus someone who's going to sacrifice unto God with a voice of thanksgiving, someone who's going to be thankful for what they have. Basically, let's say, for example, you hear a sermon about how you need to get the alcohol out of your life, that drunkenness is wicked, it's a sin, and any amount of alcohol is wrong. You know, we've heard these sermons from this church before. And let's say, for example, you either don't know it or you haven't chosen to apply it. But let's say you just don't know it. You've never heard it before, and you hear that sermon. Here's the thing. Once you hear it, you need to actually apply it. If you're guilty, if the shoe fits, you've got to be honest. You've got to admit it. And if you refuse to be honest, you know what you're doing? You're forsaking your own mercy. See, if you weren't aware about it, God would be more merciful to you. But when you find out what the Bible says and you choose to just not do it, even though you know that's what the Bible says, you know you're guilty, and you just choose, I'm not going to do it, you're forsaking your own mercy. It's like, for example, somebody gets, let's say, kicked out of church for being a railer. Now, if you get kicked out of church for being a railer, there's still an opportunity to come back. That doesn't mean that you're a reprobate. That doesn't mean that you're completely gone. But you're going to have to come back the whole way. You're going to have to admit that you were wrong, apologize, and if you're not willing to, if you want to observe lying vanities and say, well, I shouldn't have never been kicked out, you know, the people were wrong, it wasn't me, you know what, you're forsaking your own mercy if you're not willing to be honest. There's a way to come back, but you've got to have an honest heart. And see, every single time we hear the Word of God, we need to respond with an honest heart. If the shoe fits, we wear it. Every single one of us. Look, there are plenty of things that have been preached behind this pulpit where the shoe fit me, and I needed to change something. We're all sinners. None of us are perfect. Don't think that just because somebody comes up here and preaches, they're never going to make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody's trying to change. When I preach a sermon, honestly, I step on my toes left, right, and down, like, every single page. When we hear what the Word of God says, we cannot observe a lying vanity. We must just admit we're wrong. And Jonah came back to God, because he realized, you know what, I'm guilty, I should have just gone and done what God said, I was wrong, he did not observe a lying vanity. And you know what, God was merciful to Jonah because he didn't observe a lying vanity. Turn to James chapter 3. And it doesn't matter what the sermon is. You hear a sermon about worldliness? If you realize you're a worldly person, you've got to just admit it. Have an honest heart when you hear the preaching, and change. Have an honest heart. You hear a sermon about how you need to be a soul winner until the day you die, and you don't regularly go soul winning? You know what you need to do? You need to make the change. Admit, you know what, I'm wrong in this area. Don't say, wow, I'm so busy. You're forsaking your own mercy then. You're seeing what the Bible says, you've got to just admit the fact, I'm not a soul winner, I'm worldly. You hear a sermon about having a family Bible time and you're not doing it, just cut out the excuses, and admit you're wrong, have an honest heart, and apply it. We're going to hear so many great sermons the rest of our lives when you go to a church that's actually preaching the Bible. And what's the point of hearing the preaching if you're not willing to admit when it applies to you? What's the purpose? I mean, it's just a game if you show up here and you don't want to change. And that's what all the other churches are doing. They're not preaching anything because people don't want to change. And I'll tell you what, if you go outside of the walls of this church, very few people have an honest heart out there that are saved, as the Bible would term it. Very few people want to hear what the word of God says. They want to be lied to. They don't want to know what the Bible says. They do not want to hear that they're wrong or they're guilty. That's the truth. Very, very few people want to actually know what the Bible says. Very few people are willing to have an honest heart when they hear the preaching, and it's a prideful thing. We don't want to admit that we're wrong. You know, I personally, here's a quote from Alcoholics Anonymous, I don't have anything for or against Alcoholics Anonymous, I don't know enough about it, but here's a quote from them where it says, admit that you, of yourself, are powerless to overcome your addictions, and that your life has become unmanageable. Basically, just the first step is just admitting you have a problem. Haven't we heard that so many times in our lives? The first step to fixing something is just admitting you have a problem. And you know what? The Bible gives that step too. You hear the word of God, you admit you have a problem. Now that doesn't fix the problem by itself, but the first step to actually fixing a problem is admitting or realizing that you have a problem. And we come to church and we hear a sermon straight from the Bible, we need to realize, you know what, if the shoe fits, it fits. I've got a problem in this area. I need to fix this area. And then we go through the steps necessary to fix it. But the first step is just having an honest heart and admitting I have a problem. In James 3, verse 14, the Bible reads, James 3, verse 14, but if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth. You see, that's what a lot of people like to do. They hear the sermon, they know it's the truth, and they just lie against it. They want to be deceived, they want to be lied to. They just won't admit that they're wrong. They do not want to have an honest heart. And that's why most people don't want to come to a church like this. Most people don't want to hear anything because they never want to get confronted with any sin. They never want to have to admit, hey, I'm wrong, I'm guilty. They observe lying vanities, they lie against the truth, they want to be lied to. And we see that in the Bible where people want to be lied to. Now for people, and like I mentioned last time I preached, you got to realize we're the exceptions. Most people don't think like us. Most saved people don't think like us. Most saved people do not want to be at a church like this. They do not want to hear the Word of God preached. That's the truth. They'll like maybe 80% of the sermons, but then once they hear the sermon on something they're guilty about, they don't like the preaching anymore. That's the way it is. Turn back to Luke chapter 8. And so the first thing we saw is you have to hear the Word of God as much as possible. You can't really make a change in your life if you're not actually seeing what the Bible says. We need to hear the Word of God and see it as much as we can. That way we have the opportunity to have the right response of having an honest heart. But just because you admit that you have a problem, that doesn't fix the problem. There's something else you have to have. You have to have a good heart. It says in Luke 8 verse 15, but that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the Word, keep it and bring forth fruit with patience. So the Bible says you need to have an honest heart. You have to admit when you hear the preaching, hey, this applies to me. I'm guilty. But you have to actually make the change. You have to actually have a good heart where it doesn't really do you that much good. Now when we go door to door and we preach the gospel to someone, and they realize the Bible says they're on their way to hell, that's better than if they don't realize that. But if they don't actually get saved, you know, they're still unsaved. It's better they have an honest heart. They see what the Bible says. They admit, okay, according to the Bible, I'm guilty. But it still doesn't fix the problem. They still actually need to get saved. They need to have a good heart, as the Bible would say. Now turn to Psalms 14. Psalms 14. We're going to look at a few verses, talk about a good heart, and then we're going to see what the link is between an honest heart and a good heart. But as you're turning to Psalms 14, let me quote to you Romans 3, 10, where the Bible reads, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. In Romans 3, 10, it says, as it is written. That means that it's actually written somewhere. What's written in Psalms 14. So let's compare spiritual with spiritual, see what the Bible says. So in Romans 3, 10, it says, there is none righteous, no, not one. But notice what it says in Psalms 14, verse 3. They are all gone aside. They are altogether become filthy. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. So there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. And so basically, you know, being good and being righteous, they're synonymous here. Turn to Proverbs chapter 2. Proverbs chapter 2. And the reason why I'm showing you this is because I'm going to show you some verses where the Bible talks about doing right, and that's the same thing as doing good, okay. And so in Proverbs chapter 2, verse 20, the Bible reads, that thou mayest walk in the way of good men and keep the paths of the righteous. So the person who's the good man is the one who's righteous. You see, being good and being right, they're used interchangeably here. Now turn to Exodus chapter 15. And I want to show you just a few verses that talk about doing right or doing good, and then we're going to see the link between having an honest heart and a good heart. And in Exodus chapter 15, verse 26, the Bible reads, and said, if thou will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, so that's hearing the voice of God, hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and will do that which is right in his sight, and will give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes. So it says, do that which is right in his sight. So the person that has the right heart or the good heart is one that's actually going to do good, okay. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter 13. Deuteronomy 13. We'll look at one more verse. Now you might think, you know, we're about 40 minutes into this sermon. This is a soul-winning sermon? You say, I haven't even heard anything about it. We need to go and knock the doors, you know, pounding the pulp, but you need to be out there four times a week. But according to the Bible, in Luke 8 15, this is what we're seeing. To be a soul-winner for your whole life, there are other things than just thinking about how many times you go out there. And honestly, if you get your heart cleansed, it's not going to be hard to do what's on the outside. It's just going to kind of flow naturally if you cleanse the heart. But it says in Deuteronomy chapter 13, verse 18, when thou shalt hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee to say, to do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord thy God. The Bible talks about doing what's right. You hear the voice of God, you do what's right. Now it mentions keeping, and this is very similar. The thing is, though, keeping it is more of like a lifelong thing. It's not just you hear the Word of God and you do it once, but you keep it permanently. We're going to see that later. But turn to James 1, and I want to show you the link between an honest heart and a good heart. And as I mentioned, it's better to have an honest heart about an issue. It's better if you realize that there's a problem. But here's what ends up happening when you hear the Word of God and you have an honest heart, but you don't have a good heart. You don't actually do it. You hear a sermon about how you need to read the Bible every single day. And you hear that sermon, and man, it just pierces you in the heart. And you're like, oh man, I need to start doing that. And then you don't start applying it, though. You do it for a couple days and you kind of quit. Then all of a sudden you hear a sermon a couple weeks later that just kind of mentions briefly about reading the Word of God. And eventually you're just like, man, that got me again. And then you're actually reading the Bible and you see a verse about how you need to read the Bible every day, but you're still going off and on, and you're doing this yo-yo thing your whole life. But you know what eventually happens? You start becoming desensitized to the message. You see, you're much more likely to keep it the first couple times you hear it. But people have this attitude, I'm just going to hear this my whole life and one day I'm going to apply it. And the truth is, you're probably never going to apply it. That's the way it works. Everyone's like, you know, it's going to surprise you, Brother Stuckey. One day I'm going to show up at church. It's like, yeah, you know what, you're right. It is going to surprise me. One day I'm going to read the Bible cover to cover. It's like, yeah, you've been saved 30 years, you haven't done it. You're right, it's going to surprise me if you start reading the Bible every single day. I am going to be surprised. One day you're going to see me out soul winning. Yeah, you know what, that is going to surprise me. Because if you haven't done it when you heard the sermon over and over again, if you didn't do it on the third, fourth, fifth or sixth time, you're probably not going to do it on the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first time. Because you get desensitized. And what ends up happening, we're going to see this in James 1, a person who has an honest heart but does not have a good heart eventually gets a dishonest heart. People do not want to just keep realizing they're guilty. They'll start justifying their actions. We see that in James chapter 1, and it makes sense. Because you don't want to just keep admitting that you're wrong. And so what ends up happening is, if a person comes here and they love the preaching but they don't start doing what they hear, eventually it's going to lead to a dishonest heart. And then they're not even going to want to be at a place like this. Because they don't even want to hear what the Bible says. They don't want to have to change anything. They don't want to admit that they're guilty. They're going to leave a place like this. James 1, notice what it says in verse 22, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own self. So we talk about being a hearer of the word and being a doer and deceiving your own self. It's going to give you more clarification on the next verses. It says in verse 23, four. So four kind of links was mentioned in verse 22 with what he's about to say. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he's like on a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueeth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. So the Bible talks about hearing the Word of God, and it likens looking into the perfect law of liberty as into looking into glass or looking into a mirror, okay? Now when you look into a mirror, what's the point of looking into a mirror? You're looking to see if you have a problem, right? That's the same thing. We come here to hear the Word of God because we want to hear if we have a problem we need to fix. That's the point of a mirror. That ought to be the point why we want to hear the Word of God. We ought to want to be able to fix the problems that we have. But the Bible talks about being a forgetful hearer, and so it's basically someone who looks in a mirror. Let's say, for example, you eat jelly donuts in the morning before you come to church on Sunday morning. And let's say you're a messy eater like me, okay? And your wife always has to tell you, man, you've got a smeared, you know, my wife always tells me, she's like, are you a baby? And she says it like kind of jokingly, but she's just like, because I'm always, I'm eating, and I got stuff all over my shirt and everything like that. But, you know, you eat that jelly donut, then all of a sudden you look in a mirror, and all of a sudden you realize, wow, it's all over my face, it's all over my white shirt and everything, you know, this is terrible. Now, what would the smart thing be? The smart thing would be to fix the problem. You get the jelly off your face, you put on a new shirt. The foolish thing would be to walk away and not do anything about it. But see, that's the example the Bible's giving. The Bible's giving the example of somebody who looks in the mirror and sees the problem, because remember it talks about being a forgetful hearer. So it says in verse 24, he beholdeth himself. So he can see what he looks like. It's not someone who doesn't realize, it's not someone who's having a dishonest heart. He can see in the mirror very clearly what the problem is. It says he beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and straightway forget it. If he forgot what manner of man he was, that means he knew what manner of man he was. This is an honest heart, but does not have a good heart. He's not actually doing what's wrong. And he ends up forgetting about what the problem is. He ends up deceiving his own heart, because notice in verse 22 it said deceiving your own selves. But notice as it goes on to verse 26, and it says, If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. See, there's a lot of people that come to a church like this, or any church, whether it's a soul-winning church or not, and they seem to be religious. They put on the suit and the tie. Man, you think, man, this person, they love the Lord. They probably read the Bible an hour every morning. They get there and have prayer every single morning. They're close to God. They're always talking about God. But in reality, their religion is vain, because they're not actually doing anything the Word of God says. Now, they got the outside fix. They got me fooled. They might have you fooled, but they don't have God fooled. And see, there's a lot of people, they come even to a church like this. See, here's the thing. Outside this church, the big problem is people that have a dishonest heart. In a church like this, the problem could be people that have an honest heart, because obviously you want to hear the preaching, but it doesn't mean that you have a good heart. It doesn't mean you're willing to fix the problem. But the problem with this is, if you go down this road, eventually it's going to lead to you having a dishonest heart, because you're going to start justifying your actions, start making excuses, start observing lying vanities, and then you're not even going to want to be at a church like this. And then basically, you're going to be here for six months, and it's going to be obvious you don't care about the Bible anymore. You don't want to hear the preaching. You don't want to be involved in anything. And you're sitting there, and then people are going to be shocked one day when you leave. But honestly, it started like six months ago, right? When we got the problem in the heart, we got to get it fixed. And when we hear what the Bible says, we have to apply it, because God's going to be merciful to us if we don't know what the truth is. But once we look into that mirror, and we see face to face, man, I got that that jelly smeared all over my face, or you know, I was shaving, and I got the St. Valentine's Day Massacre running down my face. It's like, you got to fix that problem. And if you don't, you're foolish. You know, why do you even want to know what the Bible says if you don't want to fix it? It's going to eventually lead you having a dishonest heart. You're going to deceive yourself, as the Bible says. Turn to James chapter 4. James 4. And let me turn there myself, actually, because I don't have the whole passage here in my notes. And so in James 4, look at verse 17. James 4 is my favorite chapter in the entire Bible. I love James 4. It's my favorite chapter. James is probably my favorite book. And James 4, I would say, is probably my favorite chapter. I change my mind about every month with this, but right now, it's my favorite chapter in the Bible. And notice the last verse in James 4. It says, verse 17, Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. A person who knows to do good is someone who has an honest heart. They see they have a problem, but they don't do it. They know it to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. But what is the context of that? We'll go back to verse 13. Let us look at what the context is of knowing to do good. What does it say in verse 13? The first three words. Go to now. Go to now. Ye that say that day or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year, and buy and sell and get gain, whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. See, that's what I said. You know, people have this idea, one day I'm going to start being a soul winner. One day I'm going to start reading the Bible. If you don't do it now, you're probably never going to do it. Do it now, according to the Bible. If you know to do good, you know what the Bible says, you have an honest heart. You see what the Bible says, then do it. And if you don't do it now, you're going to become less likely to do it with each passing day, each passing sermon, each passing week. You know, there's certain things that you might have an honest heart about, certain things. There might be certain things that you just refuse to do what's right. You see what it is, but you just do not want to make the change. We need to make that change now. You need to make that change tonight. Turn back to Luke 8. You know, I remember when I got saved, and I started to clean up my life, I started to read the Bible. And I remember, because I listened to hard rock music, music was very blasphemous. You know, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, the whole nine yards. And I remember just hearing an In Penta Baptist sermon, and this was just a sermon online somewhere, I don't even remember who it was, but it was just preaching against worldliness. And I heard that sermon, and I realized when I heard that sermon, right now I have clarity of mind. I see what the Bible says. Man, I'm very guilty. And so what I did is I paused the sermon, I took out, I had like a hundred rock CDs, I took out every single one, threw them in the trash, bundled it up, went outside, and threw it in the trash can. Because I realized right now, I see what the Bible says. I need to make the change. And what if I never made that change? Maybe I never would have. You see, when you know to do good, you need to do it now. And if you don't do it now, you might never do it. Look at Luke 8 15, and it says, But that on the good ground are they which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, so we see the first three points, hearing the word of God, having an honest heart, having a good heart, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. Turn to Psalms 119, Psalms 119. These last couple points won't be as long. But there's a lot of verses in the Bible that talk about you hear the word of God, you apply it, but then it talks about keeping it over and over again. Keep it, keep it. And in Psalms 119, the largest chapter in the Bible, it appears like 40 times in the chapter. We're just going to look at the first four to show you. Verse 2, Psalms 119 verse 2, Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart. Verse number 4, Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently. Verse 5, O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes. Verse 8, I will keep thy statutes. O forsake me not utterly. You see, we hear so many great things from the word of God. It doesn't do much good if you apply it for a short time, but you don't keep it forever. See, if you don't keep these things forever, of course you're going to quit being a soul winner, because you became a soul winner because you started to do what you heard. You applied it, you did it, you made the change, but if you end up throwing away that change years down the road, you end up backsliding, getting rid of it, you don't keep it, you're going to quit being a soul winner. Turn to Proverbs 4 verse 13, and honestly, you know, the way our life works, we get brainwashed by the world all the time. You know, sometimes we just need to hit the reset button. We need to hear the same sermons, because it's not like you hear one sermon against worldliness and you're good to go for life. You know, you hear that sermon, you need to get kicked around a couple months later, right? We need to hear the Word of God over and over again. That's what we see in the Bible. We need to hear the Word of God, because we can let things slip. We apply it to our life, we start reading the Bible every day, all of a sudden life gets a little bit busy, and all of a sudden we just kind of forget that commandment about how we need to read the Bible every day. That's why we need to keep hearing the same things over and over again. We need the basic doctrines, we need to keep hearing over and over again. Proverbs 4 verse 13, it says, take fast hold of instruction, let her not go, keep her for she is thy life. Now, taking fast hold of instruction and keeping her, these things are very interchangeable. And I'm showing you that because there's a lot of verses that talk about keeping the Word of God. I just want to show you one verse that talks about, you know, holding fast or taking fast hold. And turn to Titus chapter 1, Titus 1. So it's not just when the Bible says keep the Word of God, there's also other ways that it mentions it, like taking fast hold, hold on to it, be steadfast, and things like this. And as you're turning to Titus 1, let me read you a few verses. It says in 1 Thessalonians 5 21, prove all things, hold fast that which is good. Hold fast or keep that which is good. 2 Thessalonians 2 15, therefore brethren stand fast and hold the traditions which he had been taught, whether by word or our epistle. We hear things, we hear what the Bible says, we need to hold on to them. We see what the Bible says, hold on to that. Titus 1 verse 9, holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. So we see about holding fast the faithful word. You hear the Word of God, you need to keep it, you need to hold it fast. Turn to Philippians chapter 3. As you're turning Philippians 3, I'm going to read you in Revelation chapter 2, verse 24 and 25, it says, But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan as they speak, I will put upon you none other burden but that which ye have already hold fast till I come. The things we know we need to hold fast to, we need to keep the Word of God, we need to keep what we've already heard. Philippians chapter 3 goes in more detail about this. This is what it says in verse number 12, Philippians 3, verse 12, Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded. And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. I love verse 15 because what it's basically saying, when it says as many as be perfect, it means someone who's striving to be a complete Christian. You want to know what the Word of God says, you want to apply it, as many as be perfect. And you know what the Bible says? God shall reveal even this unto you. If in anything ye be otherwise minded. So basically, if you're striving to live for God, but you have areas that need to get fixed, God shall reveal even this unto you. He's going to show you the areas you need. God wants us to become godly people. He wants us to be holy people. He's going to show us what we need to change. But now notice what it says in verse 16, Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. The level we've already reached, don't lose that level. You hear a sermon about how you need to read the Bible every day and you apply it to your life? Keep that. Hold on to it. You say, Brother Sucky, I've only been saved for a couple years. That's not the end of the world. Because you come here on a Sunday morning, you hear the Word of God preached. You're not at a church where you won't grow. You're at a church that you're going to grow if you apply what the Bible says. You come here on Sunday morning, you hear the Word of God preached, you say, Amen, that's great. I need to apply that. I'm guilty on that. I'm going to do it. Then you come on Sunday night, you hear new things, you apply those, and you just keep adding on to it. And honestly, if we would just apply everything we hear, we'd be amazed how much we would grow in a couple years. The reason why people don't grow that quickly is because they hear what the Bible says, they just don't do it. They don't want to admit that they're guilty and they don't want to apply it. But honestly, I mean, 156 sermons in a year at a church where the Word of God is being thundered, where the Word of God is really being preached, if we actually applied everything in 156 sermons, do you realize how much you would grow? Do you realize how much of a different person you would be if you actually applied everything you hear? You hear new things from the Bible. We need to have an honest heart. We need to have a good heart. And once we understand it, once we've applied it, you keep it forever. You never let it go. You never go back to the stage where you're not reading the Bible every day. You never go back to the stage where you're not praying. You never go back to the stage where you're living some of the worldly life and things that you used to do. No, you hear things from the Word of God, you apply them, you do them, and you keep them forever. And if we would keep them forever, we would grow very quickly. We'd grow quite a bit. Turn back to Luke 8. So the first thing about being a lifelong soul winner, we need to hear the Word of God as much as possible. You should come to all the church services, but read the Bible as much as possible. Memorize the Bible as much as possible. Hear the Word of God as much as possible. And when we hear the Word of God, we need to have an honest heart. If the message applies to us, we need to just admit it. Let's not make excuses. We can all throw out our excuses. We can fool whomever and say, well, you know, this is my situation. Let us just admit, you know what, I'm guilty. I need to apply this. Then once we realize we need to make a change, we've got to just make that change. And it's going to be tough. You know, when I threw away all my rock CDs, that hurt me at the time. Now, I haven't heard that music in so long now. Honestly, you know, it's been long enough that when I hear it in a store or whatever, I don't long for it at all anymore. Eventually, you can get over that. It's tough at the beginning, but over time, it kind of fades out. But, you know, that hurt me a lot. You know, because I listen to those CDs a lot. I was a much different person. You know, 14 years ago, 13 years ago, whenever I threw everything away, I was a much different person. It hurt quite a bit at the time. But, you know, it doesn't hurt me now. I'm glad I did that. And that's the way the Word of God is. It's going to hurt you temporarily, but just do what the Bible says. And when you do it, you're not going to regret it. You're not going to look back and say, man, I made a mistake. It's the best, one of the best decisions I ever made. You know, you hear what the Word of God says, you apply it. And the last thing it says in verse 15, but that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the Word, keep it and bring forth fruit with patience. With patience. Turn to Hebrews chapter 12. We're just going to look at a few more verses here, but the Bible mentions having patience. Now, you can kind of take this a few different ways, and one way you might take this is, well, when we go soul winning, you're not going to get somebody saved every week, and you have to have patience, and you'll be able to win people to the Lord. And that's definitely true. I don't think that's really what it's talking about, though, because, you know, we're talking about being a lifelong soul winner, and it's not like you go years without leading people to the Lord. You know, if you know what you're doing, and you're right with God, you're going to get people saved, even if you're in tough areas. If you go knocking North Natomas every single week for the rest of your life, you're going to get people saved every single year. You'll get several people saved every single year, even though it's a tough area. So I don't think it's just talking about, you know, you've got to be patient out there. It's going to take time. That's definitely true, but I don't think that's the application God's trying to make. I did hear a missionary one time. I use that word lightly, because he was visiting our church in West Virginia, and he was someone that, you know, our church supported. And the way these guys go in the field, they don't, they just kind of go in the field, and they don't really give much contact. You don't really know what they believe. They come in here and preach a generic sermon that doesn't offend anyone, so they can get your money. And he came back in, I think they call it on furlough, after you go so long, you go and visit all the churches that you've been to. And he came back and preached a sermon, and he's like, man, I want to encourage you tonight. He's like, I want you to have patience as you're out so many. It can be hard. You can go a long time without leading people to the Lord. He's like, you can go more than a decade without leading people to the Lord. And I'm just like, oh my goodness, we're paying you? I mean, what exactly are we paying you for? More than a decade? I mean, I don't care if you live in North Korea. I expect more than... I expect at least a few people each year. I mean, it's like, are you kidding me? You're not gonna go, you know, years without leading people to the Lord if you're going soul winning. You know, you're showing the Word of God, the Word of God has power, even in an unreceptive area. And so when it's talking about patience, I think it's basically saying this, that, you know, in life we're gonna have a lot of ups and downs. You know, I've been soul winning for 14 years, and I've been a consistent soul winner, but I can't say that my spiritual life has just been like this. It doesn't work that way with anyone. It's more like, you hit it down, you just kind of, you slowly make your way up there. You're gonna have times where you kind of temporarily backside, maybe for a week or a few days or something, kind of, you know, get less zealous, and you get things back up. But then you can go through seasons where you're really getting hit hard. And those, a lot of things can happen. You could have maybe tragedies happen, your life gets really busy, you're at a new stage in life, and you can have, you know, situations where you might really struggle for a while, but you got to just keep waking up every day, having patience, reading the Bible, praying, going soul winning, and eventually that season is gonna be over where you're struggling. And you're still gonna get people saved in that season as you're still going soul winning, and eventually you're gonna be in better spirits. And so our spiritual lives, we can have a lot of bumps along the way. There's a lot of storms of life that can come. There's a lot of problems that can come. We can get involved in sin, we can get involved in worldliness, our stage in life can change, tragedy, things like that. When Hebrews 12, he gives us a great example about running the race with patience. He actually mentions that. It says in verse 1, whereforeseeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience, the race that is set before us. You know, I love it where it says we're compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. You know, I remember when I used to play soccer games, and I'd have maybe, you know, a family member that would come and watch the game. You know, other than my parents, they would always watch my games. But someone else, I would always try to play a little bit harder and a little bit better. You know, I wanted them to see me do a good job. I didn't want to walk away, and for them to think, man, he's such a terrible soccer player, right? I wanted to have a good game. I wanted to try really hard. It kind of gave you a little bit of extra energy to go out there and do a good job. Well, realize we're compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. And we ought to put in every effort, because there's people cheering us on. They want us to reach the finish line, you know, sprinting to the end, fighting and clawing our way, even if we have some setbacks to just keep going and patiently enduring. And it says let us lay aside every weight. Brother Oliver just mentioned, I think, last week about laying aside. When it says every weight, it's not talking about sins. It's just talking about things that are going to drag you down. Think about if I was up here, you know, think about if I trained to run in a marathon, and I was ready. I was in shape. I was running all the time, and then all of a sudden, the day of the competition, I put on a book bag that had like 20 pounds of weight in it, you know, those weighted book bags you can wear. Wouldn't that be a foolish thing to do? Just add 20 extra pounds and then go run a marathon? I'm not going to run that well. And in life, we are that foolish. We put on every single weight that we possibly can and think that we're going to run to the end. It's like you've got to make your choice. You can either be a dedicated soul owner that loves the Lord, or you can be a worldly person. You cannot have both. See, if you put in every single weight in your life, you will not be able to run the race. God gives us physical examples that we can understand, and it's just that simple. If we put on lots of weights, we will not be successful running the race. That's the way it is. We've got to make our choice. What do we want in life? And I'm not saying you can never have any fun doing anything. I'm not saying you can never have any sort of hobby whatsoever, but you know, we ought to try to minimize those things and try to live for the Lord as much as we possibly can. We're only here for a short time, and I'll be gone from this earth in maybe 50 years, but then I've got all of eternity. Who did I lead to the Lord? That's what really counts in the long run. Let us run with patience the race that is set before us. He goes on more detail when he talks about running this race with patience. It says, Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. You know, if our Savior was willing to be crucified, his soul was in hell for three days and three nights. He was able to die and pay for our sins, and it's like, you know, we go through just small little trials, and we just throw in the towel. It's just like, oh, it's just too much. I don't want to go through this persecution. You know, it's foolishness when we really think about what he went through. And not just him. When you open this book, I mean, think about all the people that went through great trials. They went through the storms of life. You know, they look at us and say, storms of life? That's just like a few sprinkles. It's like when people here in California say, man, it's really pouring down the rain. It's like, what are you talking about? I mean, this isn't much rain. You know, we ought to look towards our Savior and great men of the Bible who, they really were patient, and they fought through great afflictions, and they still ran the race. Verse 3, For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest he be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son despiseth not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou rebuked of him, for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourges every son whom he receiveth. Sometimes, you know, we go through trials, and it's because of our own sin. It's our own actions that we chose to do, like his pastor was preaching this morning, and then we get upset at God for chastening us. And it's just like, we put ourselves in that situation. Don't get mad at God. You know, just realize he's doing it for your benefit. He wants you to change. He wants your patience to grow. He wants you to become a better person. Let's look at one last place, James 5. James 5. And as your turn to James 5, let me just read in James 1, verse 3, where it says, Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience, but let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect in an entire wanting nothing. And so sometimes we're gonna go through tests and trials, but it builds character. It builds patience in our lives. It's not a bad thing. It's a good thing if you allow it to be a good thing, but you have to allow it to be a good thing, though. It says in James 5, verse 10, Take my brethren the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering, affliction, and of patience. It talks about the prophets, people that went through great trials and afflictions. They had patience. Go back to verse 7, and James 5 is a really interesting chapter because there's a lot of talk about the end times here. There's a lot of symbolism. And in verse 7, though, it's interesting because there's also symbolism here with soul winning and patience, where it says in verse 7, Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he received the early and latter rain. Be also patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. In our lives, you know, we're gonna go through storms. We need to wait for that early and latter rain to come and refresh us. We need to just be patient. Why? Because there is precious fruit of the earth that we need to lead. We need to win to the Lord. There's people that are ready to get saved. We're going through trials. We're going through afflictions. But you know, hell's still a literal place of fire. We need to have patience and just fight through it. We need to be in this for the long haul. And this sermon is probably not your typical soul winning sermon. But when I was looking over this verse, this is what it teaches in Luke 8.15. It talks about hearing the word of God as much as possible. That makes sense. But it talks about having the right response on the inside. Having an honest heart. Having a good heart. And then it talks about keeping that. And then we need to have patience. And you know, let me just say this kind of in closing. I'll be honest, I don't want to hear in a couple years from now that brother so-and-so left the church. You know, backslid and quit and no longer go so. I don't want to hear that. I'm sure you don't want to hear in a couple years that I'm just throwing the towel in the Philippines and just gave up. I don't want to hear in a couple years about certain people that are no longer at this church, that just backslid and that just quit. And here's the thing. When we're talking about being a soul winner for our whole lives, let's just be honest and say not a single person has completely run that race yet. So I'm just looking at what the Bible says because I want to be in this for the long haul. As I said at the beginning, 14 years is not that long. Now if we try to just compare it to the world, it might seem like a long time, but you know, compare ourselves to the average Christian. It's not much of a comparison. They don't do much or care much at all for God. We need to be in this for the long haul, and I haven't run my race yet. Anyone. You see great men of the Bible who end up throwing in the towel somewhere along the way. I don't want to be one of those people, and I don't want to hear about anyone here being one of those people either. Let's apply these things, not just from tonight's sermon, but everything we heard in this series. Let's close in a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thanks for allowing us to be here today and just the opportunity to be a part of this sermon series. It's a basic sermon series, God, but I really believe it's very important. This is our whole goal of being soul winners. We want to be in it for the long haul, God. Help all of us in this room, including myself. There's many things in this sermon series that I need to apply and do better at in my life, God. Help us through all these things. We pray this in Jesus' name.