He That Winneth Souls Is Wise No. 13

Everything about His marvelous life teaches us about soul winning.

Illus: For example, when Jesus wanted to let the world know that He loved them, He did not yell from Heaven, "I love all of you! Come to Me, and I will save you" Now He could have done that, but He didn't. Notice what He did do.

The Bible tells us, John 1:14, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us..."

What was the Lord teaching us about soul winning when He "...became flesh..."?

He was teaching us that if we want to be effective soul winners the gospel of Christ has to become flesh and bones - that is, the gospel has to get into our flesh - into our innermost being!. We have to become the gospel, wrapped up in flesh and blood.

Christ was the master soul winner. He was the "...Word..." that became "flesh, and dwelt among us..."

Oh, may the Lord so fill our lives with this gospel that we become the gospel wrapped in flesh.

Illus: With this in mind we can understand what Martin Luther meant when he said, "Every Christian ought to be a Christ to his neighbor."

In John 20:21, We read, "...as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you."

We can not be effective witnesses for Christ unless we become the incarnation of the Word of God in the world today.

Illus: Henry Drummond said, "God's truth will not go into a word, you must put it in an image. God Himself could not put truth in a word, there He made the Word flesh."

One thing we are often guilty of is preaching a great deal on the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and second coming, and rightfully so. We need to preach on these subjects time and time again, but at the same time we need to preach on the incarnation because most folks do not know the importance of Christ's coming in the flesh, and what that means.

Let us look at THREE things about Christ's incarnation that will help us become soul sinners like Christ.

I. WE SEE THE VISITATION OF A SOUL WINNER.

If the incarnation teaches us anything, it teaches us that God wanted to identify Himself with humans by becoming flesh like they are. Thus He visited us!

This was prophesied in the Old Testament by Isaiah when he said (Isa. 7:14), "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

The word Immanuel here means: "God with us." God took on human flesh and dwelt among us. He wanted to identify Himself with mankind and so He had to visit us personally.

Again, for us to be effective soul winners we must be the incarnation of all that Christ was, and experience what lost mankind experience.

Illus: John Wesley VISITED Savannah, Georgia. He preached to a congregation of 517 people. Among them were the rich, Indians, slaves, and many just plain poor folks. He noticed that many of the people wore no shoes. For the rest of his time there he preached with no shoes.

Why? He wanted to be gospel in the flesh, and in order to IDENTIFY with those people, he had to become as they were.

Illus: John R. Stott said, "All true evangelism demands a kind of incarnation, an entering into other people's worlds, into their pain and suffering, into their loneliness and lostness, and even into their thought world."

Illus: It is said that Father Deamien never was effective in dealing with the lepers until he became leperous himself, then he could say, "We lepers..."

If we are going to pattern our lives after the Master Soul Winner we are going to have to become the gospel incarnated, as He was.

Illus: The Indians have an old saying that still applies to us today. It goes like this, "One man should say nothing to another until he has walked in his moccasins."

This was exactly what the Lord did. He was the gospel in the flesh and this is exactly what we must be if we are going to be soul winners.

He voluntarily limited Himself to human flesh.

He became a PARTICULAR MAN, for a PARTICULAR PLACE, for a PARTICULAR TIME.

If we hope to win souls to him we have to do the same thing. We have to become the "temple" for Him to live in and work His work through.

His incarnation teaches us to do this. His incarnation was His visitation to mankind. His incarnation shows us something else...

II. WE SEE THE VISIBILITY OF A SOUL WINNER.

His incarnation made God visible to mankind. When He became flesh and dwelt among us, men could SEE, TOUCH, and FEEL Him. Before His incarnation no man had ever seen what God was like. But when He took on human flesh He could say, "...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father..." What did Jesus mean when He said, "...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father..."? Probably the closest we can come to explaining that paradox is to consider a woman who carries within her an unborn child. The paradox is that the TWO are ONE.