Dead-Beat Christians (Sermon On Soul Winning)

He won a young fellow to the Lord who became the well-known D. L. Moody.

After evangelizing America, D. L. Moody started to evangelize England.

There in England Frederick B. Meyer heard his message. One of the illustrations that Moody used did not at first stir Brother Meyer. Then one of his Sunday school teachers came to him and said, "Brother Meyer, the illustration that that preacher gave in our church the other day stirred my girls so much that there has been a lot of weeping, confession and testimony. We are sure that the Holy Spirit has come among us; and we have had an experience in our class that you won’t believe!"

F. B. Meyer was so affected by the testimony of that teacher his ministry began to open up and spread, and as it did, he was invited to come to America.

In America he went to Furman University to preach.

One young fellow in the student body had decided to quit the ministry and go back to a secular job. But the message by F. B. Meyer was given with such fervor and flame that the young fellow stepped out, came forward and renewed his vow to his calling. He became the great R. G. Lee.

Then F. B. Meyer went on to preach at another location. In that service a young fellow caught fire and began to evangelize. J. Wilbur Chapman, set on fire of God through the preaching of F. B. Meyer, began to stir up the whole northeastern coast.

Then, because of Chapman’s preaching, he was invited to speak at a certain place. His ministry was changing, and he needed someone to move in on those citywide crusades that he was holding. Someone said, "The man you want is the young convert, Billy Sunday."

Billy Sunday, influenced by J. Wilbur Chapman, got into the ministry and went to Charlotte, North Carolina. There a group of laymen got so inspired and so stirred up that they organized a committee to invite other evangelists back. One of the men invited was Mordecai Ham from Louisville, Kentucky.

He preached in a meeting, and Billy Graham got saved. Billy Graham became a renowned evangelist around the world.

Because Edward Kimball, a Sunday school teacher, won another to the Lord.

? Millions were saved in Moody’s ministry,

? Hundreds of thousands in Meyer’s ministry,

? Hundreds of thousands more in Chapman’s ministry,

? Hundreds of thousands more in Lee’s ministry,

? And hundreds of thousands more in Graham’s ministry.

All because one fellow won one soul to Christ!

CAN you imagine the reward this Sunday school teacher, Edward Kimball, is going to receive when he stands before the Lord and God reveals to him how literally thousands of people have been won to Christ because of him?

ON THE OTHER HAND, can you imagine how some will feel when they stand before the Lord and they will see the people they could have won to Christ but they did not because they never made any attempt to win anyone to Christ.

We all are going to be held responsible for soul winning.

The Bible teaches in Acts 1:8, "...Ye shall be witnesses unto me..."

Let me share with you THREE things concerning our responsibility of winning the lost to Christ.

Before we can win anyone to the Lord we need to understand-

I. RESPONSIBILITY COMES FROM KNOWLEDGE.

II Timothy 2:15 says, "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

That is, before we can tell anyone about the Lord we have to have knowledge of WHO HE IS?

The difference between the cults and us is that we know WHO HE IS!

Now we hear folks talking about all these revelations they have, listen, I could care less about their revelation.

This Bible is the only REVELATION we need!

The only way you can have knowledge of WHO HE IS…. IS THROUGH GOD’S WORD.

This is why God does not want us to just read His Word, but to STUDY His Word!

This is the only way we can know God and know what He would have us do.

We have two kinds of people in God's church today:

(1.) Those who do not know the slightest thing about God's Word, (and)

(2.) Those who do know His Word, but are not practicing what His Word tells them they should be doing.

Illus: Many can intellectually debate God's Word. They can:

• Tell you how they stand dispensationally,

• Argue the distinctives of their doctrine,

• Quote, in chronological order, events of the end time.

• Read the Greek language fluently,

• Tell you what the Hebrew means as well,

• Define correctly all the theological terms,