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

Now, in the book of Jude there, the verse that I wanted to focus on is in verse 22 where the Bible reads, and if 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 is talking about when it says if some have compassion making a difference, and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire. This 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 shepherd. So the Bible says He looked at them and He was moved with compassion. It says in verse 37, then saith the end to 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. Look at 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, it says, Behold two blind men sitting by the wayside 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. 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 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? 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, you know, 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 compassion 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, you know, the calm at the beginning and then the passion, you know, calm, passion is Latin based and sympathy is Greek based, but it's really almost the identical word. And so when we have compassion, it's when we care about other people. We're not indifferent toward their suffering. We're not indifferent toward the fact that they're not saved, that they're on their 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, you know, 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, you know, we changed our location. We changed our address. You know, 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. Because we have compassion on them. And if we don't preach the gospel, if we don't do the soul winning, basically with our actions, we're saying we don't care. We're indifferent. Doesn't matter to us. See, Jesus looked at a crowd of people. He didn't just not care. He cared. 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 about it. In the next verse, in chapter 10 verse 1, he ordains 12 and he sends them out as laborers. He says I have compassion, I want 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? It 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 loss. 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? It said, if 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 are 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. Seventeen 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 four people saved when we went out soul winning. People will object to, ah, ah, you're taking the credit, you're taking the glory, you didn't get anybody saved. No. And by the way, the people who say that are not souls, they don't get anybody saved. And 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. 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, they're 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? So there are four times in the Bible that it 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 Calvinists, 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, others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. 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 at 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 labor, and thy patience, and 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 labored 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 Nicolaitans, 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. 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? 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'd lost their first love, how do 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 at the book of Acts, how he's always commissioning them, what's known as the great commission, saying go ye therefore 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've 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. And 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 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 Judea 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 alright, go do the work. Go preach the gospel to every creature. That's the thing he tells them to do before he leaves, and then even before that, when he first ordained 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. That is the primary work of our church is evangelism. That's our primary work as far as doing the work. Now obviously 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. In fact, why don't we just take our whole church and just move it to some wilderness compound somewhere? You know, 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 the city? Because the lost are in the city. That's why we're here. 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 co-workers. If we're not giving the gospel to our friends, family, loved ones. And 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 married a long time and let's say you've kind of lost your first love, right? 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, it's 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, you know, 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, you know, 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 Nicolaitans and they've tried them, which say they're 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. 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, you know, 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, 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've got your family, you've got your friends, you've got a few people, you've 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 and you see real human beings, you look them in the eye, you ask them if they're saved and they're not. You ought to love people and you ought to have compassion. 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'd quit doing the first works and they'd get busy with everything else. 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 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, but 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? 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. They got the Awana and the patch, and I'm not saying these things are bad, but I'm saying they got the Awana and the patch, the pirate and the choir and the Sunday school and all 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 who's 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? And 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, you know, in a way he's right because if your goal with soul winning is to build a big church or to, you know, get a lot of offerings coming in or to get a big attendance, you know, 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 even realize how much soul winning goes on in this church on a weekly basis, but it's hundreds of man hours. You know, by the time you take all the people, 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, let me rephrase that. If you don't love people. 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. That's an unloving church and an unloving pastor. Well we're not going to do so because it 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 does work to get people to heaven. You know I was thinking, I won a girl to the Lord yesterday. You know, 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 said do your parents speak English? No. Her parents speak no English. They're not going to bring her to Faith Ford Baptist Church. I gave her the gospel, she's 13. Hopefully she's not going to get in the car and start driving over here. A 13 year old's not going to drive herself down here. Maybe someday 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 20 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. But that's not going to grow the church. So what? Who cares? And I seem to recall Jesus saying upon this rock I'll build my church and the gates of 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 noticed 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. 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. Why even have a big church? So that we can knock every door in Phoenix with the gospel. Five 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, co-workers. But I'll say 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. 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 co-workers and you'll be more effective. And you'll be a better soul winner. You'll be more experienced at it. Are you in 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 need 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 in the soul winning and not just say, hey I'm going to a soul winning church and I put money in the plate. No, no, you get out there and do the work also. And 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, you know, 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. I 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 have become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. So what the Bible is 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, you know, I like to think of the root word of where charity comes from, 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 have become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, he's saying, I need to love people. I need to love people and care about people and have compassion on people. You know, I think all three 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, you know, it's just noise. Sounding brass, tinkling cymbal is just noise. It doesn't have any meaning. Look at verse two. It says, and though I have the gift of prophecy, you know, 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, you know, 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 three. 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? Give all your goods to the poor? You know, there are a lot of people who give to the poor that don't love the poor at all. Bill Gates? Anyone? 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, 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 weekend. All these chemicals that they found in these vaccines that are being given out in Africa by all these charitable organizations, that 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 zero as we can. I mean, I saw it with my own eyes. He said, we want to bring it as close to zero, and he said, we could do that partially through vaccines. He flat out just said it. Who saw that clip where he said it? Yeah, half the church has their hand go up, yeah. Yeah we're that kind of church, 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 are 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 take 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. You know, 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 St. Bono. I said The Gospel According to Bono. And I showed all the quotes where he preaches a false gospel, but he's going to feed the poor in Africa and do all this. And then it came out in the news recently that 97 or 98 percent of what's donated to Bono's charity doesn't make it to Africa. Two percent 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, and just keep fornicating, keep on being a homo or whatever. But that's another sermon that shall be preached at another time. So 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? And Jesus is thinking, you don't care for the poor, you want to steal the money, Bono. You know, Judas is taking like 98 percent, right, and two percent is going to the poor. So what I'm saying is that we need to make sure that when we live our lives and serve God and preach and do so, 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. And by the way, people can perceive when you don't care about them. They can tell. You know, I read a book about body language, and this book about body language, you know, it talked about how at least 60 percent 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, you know, 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's great. But you know it's not because of the body language, you know, she's not making eye contact, you know, 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? 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. You know, part of it is that you might need to change your attitude. And if you get an attitude, and I'm not saying fake it, oh I've got to go get that book and read it and figure it 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, and 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. And I've explained this to people before, you know, 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, one, two, three, four, no. Each person needs to be a real soul to us that we really care about. And you know, 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 a lot from people that you love. If you love somebody, you put up with things. You know, 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? Just crank through it, get it done, let's get to the next door, you know, 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? 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? And 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, if people get point one, I'm ready to move on to point two. 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, one, two, three, 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. We pick a random street, we pick random houses, 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 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. 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 to the Gospel? And then you go out and go, 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? Are you going to do a good job? It might be the only shot at it. I'd rather do one thing well than 10 things poorly. I'd rather give one 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. Because 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. 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. There are seven days in the week and plenty of time to go talk to people. By the way, that's why if we've got to leave at 6.30, soul winning's over at 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. 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 Syndrome or some other mental handicap, some other disability, and they get saved. Man, isn't that worth it? Praise the Lord. 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. 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. 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 verse 4, charity suffered 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. 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 impressing 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, did 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 verse 5 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 loving 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. And 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 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 in so many churches fail at soul winning? Because they expect to fail. They plan to fail. They don't believe in soul winning. Now let me ask you this. Does the gospel of Jesus Christ have power? Are we preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ? Why do you think people aren't going to get saved when we go out soul winning? It just doesn't make any sense. 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? If the gospel has the power to save, if in the book of Acts they preach 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, well we're living in the last days and it's the legacy in church age and people just don't want the truth anymore. You know what, but then other people who believe in soul winning are going out and succeeding at it. Right? 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. And by the way, he says when we pray, believe. And that's why when I pray, when we go out soul winning and 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 would 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. And by the way, there have been times when it was just obvious that God led me. One time, one time I was going, I was just by myself and I was going soul winning eastern side of Tempe and I often zone out. You know, I'm driving along and just completely zoned out and just drove miles beyond where I was planning to go soul winning. 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 is 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 pull in there and I looked at the area and 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, he just, he starts tearing up and 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 get beat up by the border patrol or anything, I can call him. But anyway, so 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. You know, God obviously worked through me getting zoned out there and you know, the first person I talked 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 this street is going to be horrible. You know what I mean? Because I know I was just here for this one guy, but I'm like, well, I'll knock it anyway. So I knock this whole big long street and it's just not interested, not interested, not interested. But it was like, 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 and don't we all, I mean I hope you pray that and I hope you mean it when you're going soloing, 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 goes forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. God promised us success if we go soloing. He promised that it will work. But yet people will say it doesn't work. It's not effective. Yeah, it's not effective for your wallet, it's effective for souls in heaven, not effective for the attendance. 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, you know, we break out the ice cream, we break the record, it's fun but you know what, 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. You know, 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've got so much I want to say but I've got to just cram it into these last few minutes here, but go to one more place, Romans 5, Romans chapter 5. So 1 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 notice 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, they stop hoping. You know, 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 get saved the first time they hear the Gospel in Acts. Some of them have to hear it again. They say we'll hear thee again on this matter. But what about all the people who got saved the first time they heard the Gospel in Acts? But yet people today don't believe that 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 and they get cynical and then they start saying, well soul winning doesn't work. And if that guy in Tempe, Arizona says it works, he's a liar. He's a fraud. They're just going out and just, they're just one, two, three, repeat after me, no we're not. We love people. We're taking the time. We're being thorough. 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 wanted to Lord yesterday 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? But let me say this. They get cynical. Ah, you've got to come to church. Oh, so the Bible says believe and go to church and thou shalt be saved? It's not what it says. It says whosoever believeth. And by the way, John the Baptist and Jesus had thousands and thousands of people saved, but 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. 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. They might not know how to pray. They don't even know what they're doing. Even the disciples said to Jesus, teach us to pray. 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. If I don't love you, I'm going to make it hard for you to get saved. It's hard. It's a six week class and I'm not even going to help you pray at all. You've got to do this on your own and you've got to jump through all these hoops to get saved. And then they attack us and call us easy believism 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. Just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. But easy believism because they want to make it hard. You know what? They shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. Try to make it hard. Try to close the door. Man, I want to kick the door wide open. I want to point them, here's the door, let me get the doorknob 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? How can you drag her in the door like that? Yeah, pulling people out of the fire. Pulling people out of the fire. Pulling people out of the fire. Hey, he said, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Paul wanted to persuade people. He wanted to compel them to come in to salvation. And they want to basically say like, well, I mean, are you sure you're ready to go through this door? Are you sure you're ready to turn your whole life around? You know what I mean? And, okay, well, find the door yourself. I'm not even going to tell you which. See all these doors? Just find it. You know, they're making it hard. 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. I thank God it was easy enough for me to get saved when I was six years old. I'm glad it wasn't hard. I probably couldn't have done it at age six 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. I'm with this guy Ed, and we get off work around four o'clock. So 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. He was showing me stuff on weightlifting. We were doing that for a while. 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. He was listening, but he wasn't really giving me a lot of feedback necessarily of whether he believed it. He's 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. I just didn't really know where he was at. So we're talking. Finally, end of the day, we go up to the hotel room, and we go to bed, and 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, and he says, so all I have to do is just believe in Jesus. I just have to believe. He's just kind of clarifying it with me, and I say, yep, that's what the Bible says, this and that. And he reached out and flipped on the light and sat up in the bed and he said, Steve, can you just help me do this right now? I don't know what to do. 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 help you with the words to just ask Jesus to save you, just to tell him that you're trusting him. And you know, we got on our knees by the bedside, and I led him in prayer, oh one of those repeat after me prayers, 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. And you know what? What was I supposed to say to him, nope, do it yourself, good night, see you in the morning. Struggle with God all night in prayer in your own bed, do your own thing. No, no, no, look, I love him, 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 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. 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.