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Right, amen. We're in 2 Corinthians 5 and I just want to look at that last part of the chapter again from verse 17. 2 Corinthians 5, 17, which is, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold, all things have become new. And all things are of God, who has reconciled us, excuse me, to himself by Jesus Christ and has given to us a ministry of reconciliation. To wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as our God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God, for he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And we're starting our How to Win Souls series, where I'm going to break down all aspects of soul winning and today's going to be just an introduction to soul winning. So we're going to do an introduction to soul winning today. I'd like to pray and then we're going to get started with the message. Father, thank you for your word, thank you for, well, the ministry of reconciliation, Lord, thank you that you entrust us with such an important task, important job, Lord, and help us to take that seriously, help us to appreciate what a responsibility we have, Lord, and to want to just fine-tune and to learn and to improve and to just be the best soul winners that we can, Lord. Help me to just preach this just clearly and in a way that people will be able to learn from this and maybe in the future, too, we'll be able to direct people to this series and help them to learn to be great soul winners. In Jesus' name, pray all this. Amen. Okay, so if you'd like to turn to Proverbs 11, keep a finger here though, keep a finger here and turn to the book of Proverbs and chapter 11. So it's just around the midpoint in your Bible, just after the book of Psalms, is the book of Proverbs. What is soul winning? So soul winning is the act of winning souls for Christ, okay, that's what soul winning is, because the default is that once someone is old enough to understand good from evil, the default is that they're lost, okay, they're lost and they're destined to eternity in hell. That's just the truth of the Bible, that's the truth of the Word of God. We want to win them for the Lord, that's what it's about. We're looking to win their souls for the Lord and we do that by preaching the gospel, okay, the gospel, the good news, the glad tidings. Proverbs 11 30, you're in the book of Proverbs, chapter 11 of verse 30 says, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that winneth souls is wise. He that winneth souls is wise, that the fruit or what comes out of a saved person's mouth has the ability to provide eternal life. So going out and winning souls is a biblical term and a wise thing to do, right, especially considering that it's something that God expects all of us to do. Okay, we're all expected, if you're saved, if you've put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, then you're expected to go out and win souls you've been given a job to do. Go to Romans chapter 10, we are going to be coming back to 2 Corinthians 5, go to Romans chapter 10, Proverbs 11 30 where you were said, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that winneth souls is wise. The Bible teaches that someone's salvation is a result of a saved person preaching and explaining the words of God to someone. Okay, that's how someone gets saved, it's someone who's saved with the Holy Spirit inside them, taking the words of God, preaching them, explaining them to someone to show them how to get saved, to show them how to put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the only way that people get saved, so just to make that clear from the beginning, the only way anyone is getting saved is by having the Word of God, the gospel, the good news preached unto them by someone else that's saved. That's the only way it's happening. Romans 10 14 says, how then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? So how do people get saved? How do they call on the name of the Lord? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how should I hear without a preacher? That's a rhetorical question, it requires someone to preach the gospel. Now that can be from behind a pulpit, that sometimes happens, someone might preach the gospel behind the pulpit and someone gets saved. It can be on someone's doorstep, going to someone's door, knocking on their door, preaching the gospel to them. It can be on a video, and there are many people that have been saved, there are people in this room that have been saved by hearing the gospel preached to them over YouTube or some sort of social media, on a video, on some sort of audio. It can even be on the phone, and there are people that have been saved by someone preaching the gospel to them on the telephone. Now there's various ways that we could preach the gospel to someone, but it requires someone to accept that command to go and preach the good news. So without God's children accepting that, without God's children responding to the command of going and preaching the gospel, in those various ways people aren't getting saved. Now there are people that look for the gospel, there are people that might go online, another place to try and find someone to preach the gospel, but there's equally just as many people that aren't looking, in fact there's only more people that aren't looking, but when someone comes to them and offers to show them the gospel, they get saved. So don't ever be conned into the whole, well if they're gonna get saved, they're gonna anyway. That's nonsense. That's anti-soul winning false doctrine. Verse 15 of Romans 10 says, And how shall they preach, except they be sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel, for as I sayeth, Lord, who hath believed I report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So souls are won by someone hearing the word of God preached to them, okay? That's a truth that we see many times in the Word of God. People don't get saved by reading tracts. Now something I do, for example, and we're going to talk about this as we go into the series, but and we're going to talk a lot about, next week we're going to talk about just getting it started, getting the conversation started, how to do things at the beginning, but something I will do is, if someone says they don't have YouTube, they don't have any of that, and they say, I'll just read your tracts, I will still try and just preach them a short verse, preach them something, give them some explanation, because even with it all written there, they're not gonna get saved. They're not just gonna read it and go, okay that's it, and then call the name of the Lord. They need it preached, faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. They're not gonna get saved by someone giving out tracts, they're not gonna get saved by reading their Bible. Now you might have come across people and go, I just read and then I got saved, and a lot of the time they end up being unsaved, okay? It ain't happening. Someone's preached you, someone's explained to you the gospel. So these people, oh I just need to go away and read and read and read, they ain't getting saved. And ultimately a lot of the time it's a pride issue, where they can't accept someone preaching them the gospel, okay? They're not getting saved like that, they're not getting saved working it all out for themselves, they just came to the conclusion themselves. No, they need someone to preach them the gospel, they need someone to explain the gospel to them. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, it's someone explaining the words of God to them. So it's a massively important job, it's an essential job, and it's a job that every single one of us has been given. If you're sitting here and you're saved, you've been given a job to preach the gospel. Go back to 2 Corinthians 5 where it says in verse 17, 2 Corinthians 5 17, therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things become new. So however introverted you may have been, however bad you may have been at communicating, some people just aren't natural at that. If you're saved, you're a new creature with the Holy Spirit, with the Holy Bible, and with a holy job to do. Okay, that's what it comes down to. Now, yeah, you might not get the results, you might be someone that maybe it's a lot harder for you, but you would still have a job to do. You can still find people that will hear the gospel from you. It's amazing, I've been with people over the years that maybe in various places, various areas that, you know, you'd think probably not their skill at this point in time, you know, they're not maybe given the clearest, most sort of, you know, well polished gospel presentation, but still get people saved. I've seen people saved by all sorts of people. Okay, you can get people saved. You're saved, you have the Holy Spirit, you have the Word of God, you can get someone saved. You know how you got saved, you just need to, and we're gonna talk about how to do it in a more effective way soon, but if you're able to explain it, you're able to use the Word of God, you're able to get someone saved. It said in verse 18, And you've probably heard me preach this before, but for those that haven't, who is the we? Who's the us? It's everyone that's saved. Clearly, when we look at verse 21, Who knew no sin, that we, it's the same us, the same we, might be made the righteousness of God in Him. If Jesus Christ's been made sin for you, if you put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you've been given a job. You are an ambassador. You've been given a ministry of reconciliation. We have a job to do. It's a massive job, and it's a job, like I said, we should take seriously. We should take this job seriously. It's not a job that we just wing it with. It's not a job, well I just do it my way, because that's the way I like to do it. No, do it properly, because you've been given a really important job, and people's souls are at stake. And of course there are many ways that we can and do win souls, okay. From a colleague in the workplace on the lunch hour, to a family member on the phone maybe, to a random person watching a recording on social media of a gospel presentation, but for the vast majority of soul winners, the vast majority of souls that get saved will be through good, old-fashioned, door-to-door soul winning. Door-to-door and in the highways and hedges, going out with a Bible in hand, in pairs, and finding people who want to hear the gospel. That's how the vast majority of people here will get people saved. That's how the vast majority of people get saved. From door to door, highways and hedges, men, women, and children, going out with a Bible in hand. If you're saved, you're able to get someone saved, okay. And with a Bible in hand, and a purpose to get people saved, okay. So our purpose when we go out isn't to, our purpose isn't really to invite people to church, yeah, it's a nice break of year, it's great to get people to church. Our purpose is to get people saved. That's what we're going, our purpose isn't just to leave tracks with people and quickly move on in case it's a bit awkward. Our purpose is to find people that want to get saved, which also is how we sharpen up for the other occasions. It's how we sharpen up for the loved ones. It's how we sharpen up for those in our personal life. It's by going out and preaching the gospel in pairs, going out being sent out by the church to do that. If you're not regularly soul winning, you will lose your edge in the other areas. So if you're not regularly going out and trying to preach the gospel and getting verses out and getting that conversation started and preaching and getting through the gospel now and again, when it comes to your family and friends, you're not going to be sharp for it. Because you get these people like, well I do it in this area of my life, well I find other people to preach the gospel to. I mean come on, like what on earth, let's face it, the vast majority of people, anyone here ends up preaching gospel to those that they're knocking on doors to, however much they do it in other areas of their life. Because that's, I mean, you knock your door, door, door, door, door, finding people in the street and everything else, you generally find people that might want to hear something, might want to hear some verses, might want to hear a little bit. You're constantly sharpening up, learning how to get that conversation started, getting bolder with it, having it on your mind, etc. And if you think about it, it's kind of the same with anything else isn't it? If you stop doing that, if you stop doing it regularly, you're just, you're going to lose your edge anyway. So you think, well yeah it's alright, because the only people I really care about are those in my personal life, you ain't going to be a sharp doing that. It's like, think about it like a sport, if you don't practice that sport, if you're not playing regularly, you're not just going to turn up and then be like you were, you know, a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, when you when you were training regularly. You need to be constantly improving. You can't either get, you get better at soul winning or you get worse at soul winning. That's basically what it comes down to. You don't soul win for three years, and then you come across someone in your life that you want to preach a gospel to, you ain't going to be like you were three years ago when you were knocking doors have many times a week. It's just not going to happen. You're not going to have those, those verse aren't going to come to mind so much, you're not going to be as sharp, you're not going to be as tuned in to where to go here, or when to, maybe when to stop, when it's, you're going far, they're done, or maybe when to carry on, when to try a different angle, etc. It's a spiritual thing isn't it? And it's not, and of course there's a structured way of doing it, but what we want to learn is, it is with time to learn to be able to be tuned in to people and understand them and know where to go and how to deal with them and how to explain things. Now what I'm going to do today though, is I want to explain some of the rules that we have here for our soul winning times at Strong Tower Baptist Church. So it's a serious job, it's an important job. I want to explain how we believe it's best to do it from our church and, and there's some, look, I've put time and effort and thought into what the rules we have here. They're not just inherited rules, some of them we did inherit and I've thought about it how I want things done at this church, which is important, right? This isn't a free-for-all, because some people get funny about this stuff, you know, oh well I should just be able to do it how I like to do it. No, no, you're representing our church and we don't just make up arbitrary rules just for a laugh, okay? The rules are for a reason and we want people doing things the right way. If you're representing our church, then you're expected to do things how our church does it and how they, how we do it at this church, not a church thousands of miles away in a completely different climate, in a different, completely different area, in a different culture. No, how do we do it at this church? This church in the UK, Strong Tower Baptist Church, and if you care about getting people saved and everything else, does it really matter if you have to shift a couple of things and change a couple of things to fit in with the way that we want to do it here? Surely not. And people that want to dig their hills in and everything else, a lot of the time it's just an excuse not to soul win. It's just like, just get on board with how we do it here, simple, we can go out and as we get more and more people saved and as we grow and God blesses this church, we'll just have more and more soul-winning times, there'll be more and more options, we'll just keep getting out some, we'll have missions, trips, we'll do more and more and more and more, but we need to do it the right way, right? 2 Corinthians 5 17 says this, Therefore if any man being Christ is a new creature, old things are passed away, behold all things have become new. And all things that have God have reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and and has given to us a ministry of reconciliation. So our ministry is reconciliation, that's our job. To wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation. I want to talk about rule number one, is that for our church all soul-winning is done with a King James Bible. All soul-winning is done in this church with a King James Bible, not a New King James Bible, not an NIV, not an ESV, not an RSV, not a, you name whatever false version perversions of the Bible out there, no, all our soul-winning is done with a King James Bible, we don't have to end it, but 1 Peter 1 23 says, being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. The word of God lives and abides forever, it can't live and abide forever through hundreds and hundreds of versions that all say slightly different. That's not the word of God, that's a load of different versions that all say something different. They all have to have a certain amount difference to be able to copyright them and make, it's all just about making money, well it's not just about making money, but a lot of it's about making money. Money, money, money, new version, new version, let's make some more money and just pervert the word of God more and more and more. All soul-winning is done from a King James Bible, we use the King James Bible because that's what gets people saved. Everyone here that's saved, got saved, if they got saved in the English language it was with a King James Bible and we all know that, don't we? We all know that's true, we all know that we got saved by either the King James Bible or the equivalent in another language and we've all always gone out and got people saved with a King James Bible. So we'll never change on that, I'll never ever change on that, I will never let anyone ever go out from this church preaching the gospel with some false version of the Bible, over my dead body, that will never happen, okay? Always with a King James Bible, with a King James Bible, but with a physical King James Bible. We take a physical King James Bible out soul-winning. Now of course it's great to memorize the verses, okay, it's great to be able to preach from memory. I have got people saved preaching the word of God from memory to them when I haven't had a King James Bible to hand or when someone's saying oh look, you know, I don't really have time, I don't want you to get a Bible if I've had it in a bag or maybe for whatever other reason, I've spoken to people over the phone before, when I'm driving, I've got them saved, people in my personal life without it, but it's by far better if you have that physical Bible. I don't make the choice to do that, that's been, as a necessity, it's great to memorize the verses to do that, but there is an extra edge to having it in black and white. So it's not, oh well I've got to memorize because then I don't need the Bible, no. There's a difference, there's a difference when you stand there and you say to them, what does the Bible say here? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. What does it say there? Believe on the Lord, did it say thou might be saved or did it say thou shalt be saved? There's a difference, it adds a certain amount of really command there doesn't it? It adds a validity that you're not going to get just quoting verses because what people want to do is they want to just find a way to excuse it, they want to maybe be able to say oh well that's probably in their mind, that's probably just him, you know, getting it slightly wrong. That's his interpretation. That's just, you know, their own kind of, their own beliefs there, not what does the Word of God say? Because that's ultimately what we're doing aren't we? We're going to preach to God, we're saying what does the Word of God say? Now just something with that, if we're going, if we're going to a door and we're preaching the Word of God to someone at the door and we want them to look down and see the Word of God and it does add something and you know what helps it go in a bit doesn't it? Mostly, you know, when we turn to verses I don't say turn to this verse for no reason. Now sometimes I say don't turn when I'm quoting maybe a verse that many people know I'm trying to put in a quickfire verse before you turn. I don't want the whole sermon to just be people going like this the whole time when I preach a sermon so sometimes I'll add in a verse in between maybe when you're turning somewhere maybe I'll just want to keep keep something going quickfire but the reason we turn to verses in a sermon is because it goes in more when you're looking at it doesn't it? Okay, otherwise I could just give you the references and go and you can go and check that I'm preaching for the Bible afterwards but it's not just to prove it's from the Word of God it's also because it goes in you take it in more you're looking at it you're hearing it you're understanding it more. Now if we're doing that on the door would it be sensible if I came with like I don't know like six-point type it wouldn't be sensible would it because can they even read what I'm saying and they're kind of squinting trying to look down and everything else personally look and again you know if you if all you've got is a really small print Bible you've got nothing else it's better than nothing but I personally think you should have something that's most people are able to look at I've had times that people said I'll just cannot read a thing of what you're showing me there you know and that happens and again have a big the type is but try to have something that people can see okay also by the way that's why I like to I like to actually highlight the verses I'm going to talk about that in a minute okay so something so going out with a physical Bible something that people are able to read it prevents them trying to explain it away there's an authority there that you will not get from a phone or tablet okay and you might have seen you get like the Jehovah's Witnesses and people like that with their kind of presentation that they're kind of electronic presentations we don't do that here okay so whatever your reason is and everything else it's just not happening you got from this church to preach the gospel you take physical Bible when you're showing your phone to people and everything else it just it's not the same and they in their mind then they can start to excuse it as well he's just kind of got some probably weird version of the Bible or something else no I've got the Holy Bible I've got my Holy Bible it's a King James Bible and my King James Bible says this not my phone says this my tablet says this or whatever else okay now unless you're very experienced okay please map your Bible okay please map your Bible now when you if you're wondering what do I mean by mapping your Bible okay if you're if you're going out to preach the gospel so like I said we're going out to show people how to get saved now when we're showing people how to get saved we're showing them that they're a sinner we're showing them that the wages of sin the what you get for sin is hell everyone's a sinner one sin takes you to hell okay it doesn't matter how holy you think you are how many sins you think you've repented of or anything else your sins will take you to hell okay unless you put your faith in Christ so we're showing them that they're a sinner we're showing them the wages for sin we're showing them who Jesus Christ is we're showing them what he did for us we're showing them the gospel we're showing them that that the only thing you got to do to be saved is to put your faith in Christ we're showing them that you cannot lose that salvation we're explaining some things with that for example chastisement of the believer etc that once you're saved you're always saved and we're showing them therefore they need to put their faith in Christ by calling on name the Lord today okay that's what we do when we go out and preach the gospel now with that in mind there's a nice structured way of doing that hence we mapping your Bible showing them those points and in that order for me is in my experience has been the the easiest way to get people saved so when I say mapping your Bible and again you don't have to don't worry about pens or anything now most people here experience so when it's anyway but regardless we'll be going through this each for the next several weeks but if the first place I want to go for myself I like to go to Romans 3 310 and say as it is written there is none righteous no not one so as long as I know and I have a and I make sure before I got so winning but I have a ribbon in Romans 3 after the Romans 310 all right go to Romans 3 23 fall of sin to come short the glory of God after Romans 3 23 go to Romans 6 23 so all I have to do is remember that first verse and after that if I've mapped my Bible then I've got an instruction where to go next now when I say map your Bible and I mean this when I say unless experience and I mean and if you experience I'm not saying therefore just go all over the place now you experience let's just start coming out with the most random verse we can that no one else is used because that makes me sound really good no still use the same structure you just won't you'll get to the point where you don't need to have it written after and you might have a new Bible and not really waste your time writing go to go to go to because you know where you're going next but but whether yet and even if you read some experience people will forget some people get a bit kind of anxious and stuff nothing wrong with having it written there but I want people to keep a structure please now there are times when you might go somewhere go off somewhere for it but it's very rare please structured soul winning map your Bibles have it clear don't just wing it don't just kind of preach a bit of this a bit of that and then ask them if they want to call the name of the Lord okay and we're going to go through that as we go through it over the next few weeks what our logical structure is and please avoid tangents we go out with a King James Bible we preach the gospel I ain't standing at the door preaching all sorts and everywhere else and and all sorts of things that people want and look see it's one of the end it's one of the one of the distraction targets is to try and pull your way to try and distract you to try and get you to go to a tangent people have like short attention spans nowadays you get pulled into trying to debate whatever it is that you want to debate with them you go back to the gospel and by then they're already switching off like don't get pulled into that nonsense you'll just end up not getting people saved you just end up with someone glazing and just agreeing with you and agreeing with you and you won't get legitimate salvation if they do claim to want to believe at the end don't get pulled off into tangents it's very rare that you'll need to go anywhere sometimes at the beginning sometimes you might think I think if I could explain this it might be willing to listen to the gospel other than that when I'm preaching what's the usual thing that we're most people will do when someone asks him a bizarre question in the middle of preaching gospel let me get back to that after because usually there's no reason to go off on tangents okay now like I said a lot highlighting verses because it draws the attention to them so if if you if you with your map you highlight those verse you want to show them it just it takes away that split second and people look people do funny things where you could go well it says here they haven't really noticed where you've pointed you're reading the Bible they've forgotten what you said or where you pointed there's nothing highlighted or anything else so they just people what people do is they just pretend that they're doing what you've asked them to oh right yeah and then you go so what does that word saying yeah I don't know if you've ever done this for even with it highlights you go what does that work and they go oh sorry where was it and they've been pretending they've been looking because people just do weird stuff like that don't make because they don't want to be rude and impolite and show that actually they weren't paying attention to what you said and everything else and the highlighted verses helped to just draw their attention to that I like highlighting verses yeah you don't have to but I think that's a good idea to do as well but if there's one if there's one job worth doing as a believer okay if there's one job if you're a believer and you're thinking I would like to get people saved okay whether you're a silent partner now or not it's preparing your Bible for soul-willing I mean what else what what could be more important than preparing your Bible for soul-willing for me that's more important than your daily Bible reading that's more important than anything else pretty much if you're saved get your Bible ready for soul-willing because who knows you might become a silent partner I haven't done much and then one of your family members says I just really want to know you know what you meant to do to go to heaven and you're actually okay I'm gonna give it a try if you haven't got it ready and you don't know where to go and you're not sure and you're a bit confused I don't really know what the logical procedure for this is and everything else well then you're stuffed get your Bible prepared and it doesn't take long and as we go through this series I'm going to show you how to do that said Corinthians 5 19 said to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them and if committed unto us the word of reconciliation so just as the work of has been committed unto us as a plural we also go out in teams to okay we go out in teams when we preach the gospel now turn to Luke chapter 10 the minimum number that we go out soul-willing in is a pair for a few reasons okay so there are a few reasons why I go out in a pair now I say minimum because the three is better than a pair and one on their own okay it's better to have a three than to have a pair of people and one person going out on their own and then of course there's often kids as well so sometimes it might be a pair of adults and a couple of kids in tow as well now Luke chapter 10 of verse 1 we see this example where the Lord sent out the 70 okay it says after these things the Lord appointed other 70 also this is Luke 10 1 and sent them to and to before his face into every city in place whether he himself would come so he could have maximized the area covered couldn't he by sending them out on their own yeah these are people that have been walking with the Lord Jesus Christ you could have sent them out one by one but he sent them in pairs didn't they he sent them in pairs why let me give you a few reasons why why we go out in pairs it makes you feel bolder you're much bolder when you have someone next year that's just reality isn't it okay however bold however confident you might be there's a massive difference when you have someone next to you you have a witness to whatever you might need a witness to a false accusation against you something maybe that person's done maybe there's an altercation whatever it is two witnesses as we see in the Bible two witnesses is a minimum number for for anything to be able to have two witnesses is obviously very important you have fellowship okay and that felt that's so winning time could be a great time to bond can't it it's a great time to be together you're out when you win a soul together that's a great feeling isn't it's a great experience you have that time together it's a lovely time that you could spend when you're out somebody you have someone to pray for you and maybe even help if needed as well and they can help you in various ways and that could God forbid in you know once every blue moon be be physical help but a lot of the time it just be it might be someone that you need to ask something or maybe they can help out you know with maybe an angle you haven't seen maybe they could deal with distractions obviously deal with other problems and issues as they come up now if you're not confident to talk okay so if you're sitting here thinking well I've never done this I don't even know what he's talking about so I would just say come out try soul winning as a silent partner come along if you if you're ever watching this online you're not with us look and you've been convicted by that message okay that he's given unto us a ministry of reconciliation that we're ambassadors for Christ come to our next opening marathon yeah is it I mean how far in this country if you live in this country what's the furthest you're going to travel to come and meet us several hours several hours to come and be a part of somebody be a silent partner now what's the silent partner that's just someone that's going to come and be silent okay then the the clues in the name there they're going to be silent and just be your support now they're going to help with gates they should help with that's something that's a great light some silent partners are better than others some silent partners are just opening up gates for you are getting getting on with stuff just help you in and out so you can do things quicker they can they can pray and we're going to talk about that in a bit but they can a silent partner should be praying okay when I say silent partner should be praying they should be praying for issues that they might see they should be paying attention to the soul winning okay so please remember that okay please silent partners don't be having a gas at the front gate with the person you're with children or with the third person the third cog or on your telephone because well I'm not doing anything so I might as well get on with a few messages and calls or something while I'm at it or just outside in the street just having a gaze and a wonder and everything else well they're preaching the gospel it's got nothing to do with me now no a silent partner is meant to be a partner be there please with them near them now the only caveat I'll give here is if sometimes and it can be men and women sometimes the men take out kids as well those with with kind of a few kids and sometimes you might have like four or five kids couple of people preaching as well you don't all have to go up to the door okay because that can be a bit weird for people when they open the door and suddenly there's like a team of six or seven there and we do try and it's not always possible we try and pair people up so there's not just a massive team of kids there but if that does happen and whatever that is I would still try and encourage at least you to at least be within earshot yeah you might step back a little bit and be kind of minding the other person's kids a bit but I would also encourage you know the eldest child to be because an oldest child could be a soul it could be a silent partner it is better to have adults but sometimes for numbers reason we'll have maybe one of us with the older kids will take one of our older children but encourage them to be at least close to the person preaching so they still have that second person there they still have that witness there a child can still be a witness okay etc but please as a silent partner pray for issues you might see coming up pray for you pray for no distractions to come be aware be ready to try and maybe intercept someone that comes trying to how many times you had a soul winning you know when you're trying to get someone saves it hijacked by someone and I've had it where I've thought my silent partner probably could have done better there they could have probably tried to stop him and try and talk to them I was right at the end I was about to preach the gospel and they're unable to do that okay which again is why it's better to have it as adults because that's quite a that's quite a responsibility for kids to try and beeline someone to stop them coming up and trying to distract distract it you know right at the end and try you know what is going on here and everything else but you can you go well actually we're just showing this I'll just show you what we're doing etc try your best to stop that distraction there's ways you can do that praying for for maybe you can see the stumbling blocks of the ways they're responding and you can pray for some of those issues pray for those problems pray just to pray for that person that's preaching the gospel to just be filled with the spirit to be accurate to say the right things to to be sensitive to the to the responses and everything else there's a lot you can pray for okay so praying is very important encouragement please silent partners encourage your partner okay now on that after we've gone through this series I would like people to also take responsibility a little bit and to be able to say to people you know and it's hard to do sometimes but just say I remember you know this is how we should be doing it in this church and you can gently reprove if needed in a polite way but don't just try and find things to find fault with and encourage people and encourage them with look for the good things that they've done maybe when they preach to someone because look you know it's a hard thing isn't it sometimes especially with people at the beginning there should be an encouragement as well but here's an important thing if you're a silent partner be silent be silent please don't interrupt please don't cut in please don't give your point of view suddenly in the middle of it please don't start adding in verses please don't try and double team people okay we're not trying to batter them into submission with different angles coming from every side okay just be quiet be silent the only time i'll interject is if it's massively important because i think this person is not going to get saved and i'm not saying just because oh well i think that i should add this verse in no i'm talking about when there's a when it's maybe someone who's not so experienced and i think we're losing that person or at the end if there's something that i think that could have been changed or something that maybe needs to be added then once they've finished preaching gospel i might then say oh can i just add this or can i talk about this otherwise do your best to stay silent please yeah and when i say do your best be silent unless it's essential okay please be silent as a site and you don't need to amen and stuff like that people that do weird stuff like that most people find that weird that you might not find it weird because you sit in a baptist church but most people when when they hear you preach the gospel suddenly the guy next goes amen they're just so on earth okay you don't have to amen them you've heard the gospel thousands of times okay i don't no one needs amens while they're preaching the gospel okay just please keep quiet with it okay so be silent and that's whether you're a talker or not okay so remember when you're when you're a talk when two talkers go out one of you becomes a silent partner until it's your time to be the talker okay and we do the way we do it like most churches do it you just wait until you get an answer wait until someone responds wait until someone says something even if it's literally go away your goes over now you might be well that's a bit unfair yeah but you're gonna get you go again it all it all goes around if you're looking at someone for the rest of your life like i hope everyone is then look it'll all just work out in the end okay all right so um okay if you don't talk please don't knock doors i don't like that okay i don't like this world you've never talked before so why don't you just try knocking the doors no that's not a good idea if they never talked before they could get to the point where they can talk by learning by practicing by listening by being a silent partner then get to the point where you are ready to knock doors i'll tell you why in case you go well this sounds a bit strict why not i don't like kids doing it either unless they're actually at a point where they're able to preach the gospel why because what do we do when we knock a door what's the beginning part your information gathering from the second i knock on someone from before i knock on their door i'm looking at the silly stickers of like jesus loves you or something or whatever else thinking oh no it's one of these pentecostal types something else and and i'm already information gathering thinking okay what sort of angle am i going to need to go in when i'm asking them questions and introducing and talking about the church i'm information gathering when someone else does it they're not doing they're not information gathering for how i want them to because you have a train of thought and everything else it's it's completely pointless okay so please don't try and go oh well i'm meant to be a silent part of i'll just knock the doors and say hi and then pass it over to you okay and again it's a bit weird as well isn't it so why did you knock on my door if you didn't want to talk to me so please none of that stuff i know some people do that i know probably some church do that i don't like that i don't want that done here i think it's just it just it just becomes a problem okay so so as a silent partner like i said you you're there to deal with distractions intercept friends lead people away if needed even if you think this guy is a complete problem still lead him away and just talk to them a bit about the gospel because that might just give you some that other buy some time for them to seal the deal and get someone saved like i said don't use it as an opportunity to have a gas with with anyone at the end um when you're a silent partner now last bit with with partners with pairs okay we don't pair men and women unless they're a married couple okay we don't pair men and women together unless they're a married couple and if you're going well it doesn't matter they're both single it's soul winning it's not date time okay we're not there for it it's not like there for a day and you're distracted and we're trying to be in the spirit and go soul winning we're not distracted by trying to you know get to know people better someone get to know people better not soul winning yeah soul winning soul winning okay so we we pair together married couples or otherwise you pair with people of the same gender okay and there are only two genders in case anyone's wondering about that okay um we we try to like i said we try to pair adults pairing with an older child of yours is an option now and then your older child yeah i don't want people taking out other people's children so we okay we had all that nonsense before absolute madness let me tell you when i'm the worst at looking after my children when i'm so winning because i'm trying to get someone saved when i'm preaching the gospel to someone what my children are doing unfortunately is a hard one to keep track of and we're trying to train our kids up aren't we so winning they're my responsibility i'm trying to gauge that and what's safe and everything else i don't want someone else's kid to be responsible for that's craziness yeah and and please don't start mixing and matching sending kids out with other just look after your own kids when you're so winning please okay right secretary is 520 said now then we are ambassadors for christ as though god did beseech you by us we pray you in christ stead be ye reconciled to god so we're ambassadors doing an amazingly important job okay more important than some ambassador trying to get a better trade deal with a nation or something this is more important you're trying to save someone from an eternity in hell yet those ambassadors treat their jobs seriously and with respect don't they the ones the international ambassadors they they they appreciate they have an important job you have an important job as well and that's how we we treat soul winning at this church it's an important job it's more important than any of those other ambassadors jobs and just like the international ambassador we want to dress appropriately for soul winning please okay and would you go out soul winning with your top off men anyone here would go out someone in the top of no okay you wouldn't go out in a pair of shorts with your top off hello love you know hello mate can i tell you how to get saved okay obviously okay clearly not you would want to look respectable so therefore everyone agrees there's a line don't they because you wouldn't do it because is it sinful to walk around with your top on well it's probably a bit lame but okay probably i wouldn't say there's no vow shower not necessarily there so okay and if you think well no i think it might be a bit okay how about in your pajamas anyone here would go soul winning out knocking doors in their pajamas i know some of the mums like taking their kids to school and around here in their pajamas but most people wouldn't okay so there is a line right would would men and women here choose a top trousers whatever covered in food stains probably not yeah most people would would have some self-respect and think no that's not a good thing and maybe even respect for the job you're doing as well so there's a line and our line here okay our line isn't the same as the world's line okay our line here is it if you're a talker can i just make that clear if you're a talker if someone comes along to our church they're a silent partner as long as they're not it's not ridiculous okay whatever they're dressing however they want to dress you know that's okay but if you're a talker you're representing our church you're preaching the gospel as a member of strong tower baptist church we ask you to please dress appropriately okay please dress appropriately men in collars okay that's that's our rule men in collars please now you don't have to wear a tie you don't have to wear a straight shirt some believe me there's a lot of especially especially a few decades ago churches that would have said shirt and tie only in fact even now there are churches like that okay i'm sure out there okay we're not asking that but i do ask for a collar i do ask for some level of respectability not grubby work clothes now if you're if you're like rushing along rushing to go soul winning after work or rushing to go so for me it's more important that you spend probably two minutes i reckon stopping somewhere after work maybe five minutes stopping somewhere after work and putting on something that's not covered in paint and filth and everything else and putting on something with a collar and putting on some trousers that just look fairly normal that for me is more important than you getting to soul when you're five minute early you go why because we're ambassadors for christ i said you wouldn't go in your pajamas you probably wouldn't go if your stuff was ripped to shred so there's a line and our line here is please be clean be prepared please look like someone who's represented the lord jesus christ as you're going out and trying to get people saved and that then includes ladies in appropriate length skirts and dresses that's what we expect if you're representing our church you're going out to preach your gospel if you're representing again if you're a silent partner and and you're learning and you're coming along you know we don't have a rule with that beyond it just being you know obscene or something like that okay however we we want ladies to be dressed in appropriate length skirts and dresses and look like people dressed for their gender representing the lord now as an ambassador we want to be prepared for the work ahead as well the best way is to have a soul winning bag okay please have a soul winning bag with you when you go out and preach the gospel now it doesn't have to be a big backpack it doesn't have to it could be whatever you get a carrier bag if you want it could be a carrier bag but you need you need some invites not just rely on your partner to carry everything for you i've been out with people who just come out with absolutely nothing sometimes not even their bible you know okay you need some invites you need to give away bibles when we get someone saved we give them the word of god and we don't not give them the word of god because i just couldn't be bothered to get a bag you know bring some giveaway bibles bring some follow-up materials we give a follow-up sheet after we get people saved please bring them with you there's no excuse there's no reason to be coming out soul winning from this church and not having giveaway bibles not having flyers not having follow-up materials contact cards we bring contact cards and our our policy at this church is to now get a contact card filled out when you get someone saved bring it back here and you send something off afterwards again i'll be talking about that later in the series a pen if you've got all that stuff you need a pen yeah so your back should have a should have invites giveaway bibles follow-up materials contact cards a pen and here's a good little hack for you a carrier bag or bin liner for wet weather and i'll tell you why because when it starts chucking it down put everything inside that bin liner inside your bag and you won't end up trashing all the bibles all the flyers and everything you had ends up having to get binned because it all gets stuck together and all gets wrecked yeah because sometimes it goes hard and your bag gets soaked okay sometimes doesn't it okay so please um please yeah bring something like that is a great idea as well if you just have one of those in your soul winning bag good if you could just earmark a bag for soul winning and like i said it could be a carrier bag if you want just something for some winning sun hat in the sun could be a good idea sun cream if you if you you know if you wear that sort of stuff if you're the type that burns okay because sometimes it can get pretty pretty hot out there can't it and especially look by the way some of this is obviously applies to when you're going in hot places as well i mean uh so many in south africa you need hats and you need sun cream you need stuff like that a drink in fact you need it in sacramento as well just just standing around okay but um a drink okay is a good idea have a drink with you sometimes your mouth starts getting dry you preach special marathons but even you preach for a couple of hours an umbrella can be a good idea to have with you at least a something with a hood etc a warm hat gloves in the cold weather we want to be prepared right we're going out and doing an important job be prepared to the job best if you're standing there you're like i just can't do this anymore because i'm just so cold and your soul winning partner standing there with his hat on his gloves he's got five layers on he's like well i'm happy to keep going and you stop that so when you're you were ill prepared for your job as an ambassador you were the problem if you can't turn the pages because your fingers are frozen solid because you got because you're too cold well you were the problem yeah you look we're you know uh be prepared dress appropriately and last thing on that think about your kids with that as well obviously okay so we need to consider our kids because if our kids are like this i can't go any further well then they were ill prepared as well and sometimes sometimes it's so cold sometimes so hard that it's not sensible to bring our kids out as well we need to be sensible about that as well now also at our church we're trying to knock every door of the roads that surround the church okay so our goal as a church is to do everything surrounding our church okay that means you need to be careful to fill the map correctly and and you go well it's not the end of the world you know oh yeah i forgot about the map etc okay it is the end of the world if me or someone else ends up knocking a load of doors on our map that have already been knocked last week or two weeks before and suddenly we're knocking doors where people have already rejected or maybe have already had the gospel bridge or whatever else and it's just completely wasted 10 20 minutes half an hour now we're like we don't know where to go now we're trying to get in contact with other people they're getting pulled in all because someone hasn't put enough effort into the map now look we're all going to make mistakes okay not everyone is kind of you know maybe that's not their skill filling out maps and things like that let me give you a good way of doing it okay you get your map and the maps that we print out pretty much or whether they're printed or online are all basically um i'm trying to think of the right word for it but they're basically done as as you would see it on the map yeah get your phone and on your phone you just got a little button which is like a compass button make sure that it's not just the angle that you're standing at and it's exactly how it's seen on the map and you should be able to line up your phone what you're looking at on google maps with exactly what your map says once you've done that that should now be easy to know where you're going and if you walk for 20 meters and you suddenly are going further up on that map you okay now i know which way i'm going which way i'm meant to go that's the way you do it please have your maps out i have my map in my pocket when i'm soul winning so i'm ready to keep checking it make sure i don't miss the turning i'm meant to go or go somewhere not meant to go and look we're all going to make mistakes sometimes but we want to minimize those because that can affect that can affect salvations right it's an important job the maps is an important thing to be on top of please everyone um okay secretary 520 said now then we're ambassadors for christ so god did beseech you by us we pray you in christ stead be ye reconciled to god now we pray in christ stead but he hasn't left us alone being such an important job you know he wants to help you with it as well god wants to help you with the job so make sure that you pray please make sure you pray before you go soul winning okay whether it's two of you before and before you knock that first door whether if we've all prayed together great if we haven't and even if we have or haven't pray and keep praying so i'll pray when it when we get somewhere to go soul winning you know habit i have is i always just pray with the people i'm with but then after that keep praying pray in your head now i'm not saying like suddenly stop on someone's doorstep and do like a muslim style hey look at me get down on your knees and you know aim it towards jerusalem or something okay you don't have to do that but keep praying pray in your head pray like i i mean i've been preaching gospel to someone it's been a tough one and i've prayed in the middle of it and and something's worked out and i've gone the right verse got someone saved like praying is effective okay don't ever think it's just something that oh yeah we're just doing that's it no pray because god wants to help you he wants you to call on him to help you with it pray during pray before and it's a spiritual task okay soul winning is a spiritual exercise so make sure that you're spiritual try your best to be filled with the spirit before you go soul winning okay really it does make a difference if what you don't want to be doing is turning up soul winning after having decided that was a good time on the drive there to have a contentious conversation with your spouse that was a good time to like rebuke one of your children for something and to you know whatever else it is now sometimes these things need to happen but ideally you'll avoid them on the way to soul winning it's not the time to ring someone up and have some work problem or issue or something else when you're going so when you want to try and be spiritual yeah you want to be in prayer you want to be thinking about the things of god you'll be listening to a hymn singing hymn whatever it is try and be spiritual and when you're soul winning you want to try and be spiritual and another way you could do that is make sure you're not so willing to be seen of men so if in your mind you're like i finally i could get some salvation to tell people about you ain't in the spirit if in your mind you're like i hope so-and-so sees that i went so winning today for like the fifth time this week i said you ain't okay you ain't in the spirit okay so you've got to avoid that sort of stuff if you're thinking oh my partner's gonna see something today wait till they see this verse you ain't in the spirit so you want to make sure that your focus is getting people saved as it is is you're you're doing it for the right reasons it's a spiritual thing get your heart right for soul winning okay make sure your heart's right for like i said i want to get these done quickly so i'm just going to give you this list here and i'm going to finish up there so that was 10 instructions there 10 rules that we have for soul winning number one was a physical king james bible number two was to use a logical structure number three was minimum pairs number four is when a silent partner be silent number five is when a silent partner be a partner i just want to add to that as well and look i i've done this the wrong side as well if you're in a partner even if you're in a receptive place even if it looks like this is a surefire salvation here don't get tempted oh look at that receptive looking person across the road let's leave my partner to it please don't do that okay stay with your partner you never know when they might have needed you there for that and i know there are other times when we've talked about when things like that happen and then that salvations end up being ruined because of that because of trying to talk to someone else when that person was getting someone saying that person you try and talk to could turn into a massive problem and you've just ruined that salvation so please stay in your pairs the only time i think it's okay to do that and i have done this is when i've got my kids and the older kids and i might say for example to ellen or to jack can you go and stand with brother so and so and and just stay there as a partner because i'm feeling you know like i want to i can get this person saved now and again just be careful with that i'm not saying go and send your toddler off to start pulling on their trousers while they're trying to preach to gospel yeah okay but there are times when that can work but other than that try please just stay in your partners okay and i think in a long one that'll be much better um so when the silent partner be a partner number six dress appropriately number seven come prepared number eight put time into the map number nine pray before and during and number 10 get in the spirit okay get in the spirit be led by the spirit when you're so winning so that's that's an introduction to soul winning okay so that's our introduction um the the um the next several uh sessions the next several um parts of this series we're going to go into just getting the conversation started next all the many ways we can do that ways to approach ways to talk things to do things not to do etc then we're going to go into all the points of soul winning after that um i hope that's been a help to you that was the introduction on that we're going to finish in a word of prayer father thank you for uh well the ministry of reconciliation uh thank you that you've entrusted us with such important job helps to take that seriously lord help us to just do our best to be the best soul winners we can uh help us to um to please just um you know as we go through this series just really just just think about you know the best way that we can get people saved why it's important why it's important to be on the same sort of page with each other with it all as well to just have a good culture of soul winning in this church lord uh help me to just just plan and preach these in the right way i hope everyone to have attentive ears lord as the week goes on help everyone to get home safe and sound this evening and to return on wednesday for the midweek service in jesus name for all of this amen