For example, it seems sensible enough to us adults that we should sit down with a child and explain to that child that if he associates with bad company he is going to get into trouble, and that child should avoid bad company like the plague. But, it does not always work that way. You can tell some children these things, and while they are smart enough to figure the parents are warning them because they love them, they think they can go against the warning, even when they are not yet out of their teens, because they think they know more than both their parents put together. How much more must it frustrate God, the Father, Who tells His children things they need in their lives and they do not take His Word seriously. If we are smart we will take heed!
Let us look at the Word of God and see who is smart enough to be a soul winner. Let us look first at-
I. THE PERSONALITY OF A SOUL WINNER.
If God is going to use us to win the lost to Christ, we need to understand the importance of our personality. Lost people are reached, not by angels, but through mortals like you and I, mortals who have all kinds of personalities. A personality is the manner and disposition of a person as an individual. You do not have to have a flamboyant personality, but you have to let Christ shine out through your personality with some life and excitement if you are going to attract lost people to Christ. If you give in to a negative attitude, Christ will not be able to use you to draw men to Him. For example:
Illus: The receptionist with the personality of a sick cow sheds a very bad light on the company and even though the company may be a fine company, she could cause it to lose clients. Or, if you go to a store and are thinking of spending some of your hard-earned money there, you might choose to go somewhere else if the clerk is inattentive and rude.
When we think of people like that we are reminded of the Hollywood actor with so little personality that when he appeared in a colored television show, it came out in black and white... Consider these two things:
A. We need to develop our personality.
Do an objective self evaluation. If you have a "sour" personality, work at changing it, for many who are mean when they are young, tend to get meaner as they grow older.
Illus: Someone said, "Some folks must think they have a dynamic personality that they want to share with everyone because they are always exploding like grenades."
Illus: Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in a week!
Illus: Let me give you an example, two men went soul winning. One of them had a real aggressive personality. They went to a home and were invited in. After a few minutes one of them began to witness to the man of the house. When the man got through presenting Christ, the homeowner, very nicely, said, "I do not feel that I am ready to make that decision at this time in my life." The man with the aggressive nature would not accept the man's answer. He made another presentation. Again the man of the house stated he did not feel, at that time, he was ready to make such a major decision. The aggressive Christian then became very forceful in pressing the man, so the man told him off and asked him and the other man to leave. To this very day that lost man still gets upset about that incident - not because of the gospel, but because of the aggressive personality of the man who was determined to get him saved whether he liked it or not!
Listen, if you have a personality that causes people to think like that when you call or visit, you will never be a soul winner. Let the Lord help you change your personality. Go to an old-fashioned altar and pray, "Dear God, I want to be a soul winner, but this terrible personality I have makes it so no one wants to be around me. You are going to have to help me to have a pleasant personality that will draw people to you."
When we are persecuted for Christ's sake, we are blessed; but when we are persecuted because of our bad personality, and we deceive ourselves into thinking we are being persecuted for Christ's sake, we are not blessed.
Illus: Not long ago "street preachers" were in the headlines. Why? One report said that they would not even know if the people they preached to were saved or not and they would yell and point their Bibles at individuals and say, "God is going to send your soul to hell!" Peter did not do that on the day of pentecost. He proclaimed Christ. He revealed their sin. He told what God had done for them. He invited them to repent. Three thousand souls were saved. When persecution came it was at the hands of those who rejected the message of Christ, not because of the personalities of the men who proclaimed Him Lord.
We need to learn how to be pleasant. The pleasant person is like a breath of fresh air. He does not make people think they are trapped. He let's people see their need and invites them to Christ.
Look at what happened when the disciples did this, Acts 2:43-47, "And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continued daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and HAVING FAVOUR WITH ALL THE PEOPLE. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved."
Great soul winners do not drive people away with their personality. New Testament Christians gained "...favour with ALL THE PEOPLE. They allowed Christ to shine through them so that the lost world could see Christ in their lives.
Illus: We are reminded again of the well-worn story of the little girl who was attending church with her aunt one Sunday. As she sat there she looked at the beautiful stained-glass windows with St. Peter, St. Paul, etc., in them. She asked her aunt, "Aunt Mary, what is a saint?" Before her aunt Mary could answer, the sunlight began to shine through the beautiful stained glass and the little girl said, "Oh, I know what a saint is, it is a person who lets THE LIGHT shine through him!"
We are to be like that stained glass and let the Lord "shine out" through us. We need to ask God to help us develop a personality that will do this.
B. We need to design our personality.
You may ask, "What do you mean DESIGN OUR PERSONALITY"? The apostle Paul indicates that he did this. That is, he became ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN THAT HE MIGHT WIN SOME. Jesus also did this.
Illus: When Jesus, the Master soul winner, Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, Zacchaeus, etc., He approached them different ways. He offered the same faith and hope to all of them, but he approached each person in a different way.
Paul had that in mind when he became all things to all men as he worked at reaching the lost just as custom-designed clothes are made to fit specifc individuals. Please note - this by no means implies compromise. Paul would not, nor would he advocate any other Christian to, compromise his Christian principles and indulge in sin just to please the individuals he was trying to reach for Christ. It simply means that when he could custom DESIGN his personality to fit the lost person, he did.
Illus: Let me give you a contemporary example. A Christian man, who has no desire to go hunting whatsoever, has gone on few occasions. He had always said that the only time anyone could get him to go hunting was when someone would pay him $100.00 an hour or when he knew of a lost man who loved to hunt, then he would go along for the purpose of having something in common with him so he might win his friendship and ultimately win him to the Lord.
When we become ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN in order to win them to Christ, we have custom designed our personality to FIT THEIRS. Why do this? Because the sinner is not going to custom design his personality to fit ours so that we might win him to the Lord. THE PERSONALITY OF A SOUL WINNER has to be one that is favorable to sinners, otherwise there would be no hope of winning them to the Lord.
II. THE POWER OF A SOUL WINNER.
We have to always remember as we go soul winning that we are engaging in spiritual warfare.
In II Corin. 10:3-4, Paul tells us, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Also, Ephesians 6:12, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." So, from Scripture we see that the force we come up against in the Spirit is not "flesh and blood." We cannot fight this war in our strength! We are not to enter the sinner's home like we are about to engage in a flesh and blood war. We are to love that sinner. It is his sin we seek to have him delivered from, and that battle is-
• Against "principalities,
• Against powers,
• Against rulers of darkness of this world,
• Against spiritual wickedness in high places!
It would be far easier to win someone to Christ by wrestling with flesh and blood, but there is not a thing humanly possible that we can do within ourselves.
If we are going to be effective soul winners it will be because of the POWERFUL WORD OF GOD! The Word of God is our weapon. What we say or what we think amounts to nothing when it comes to delivering a person from sin. It is what SAITH THE LORD that gets the job done! The effective soul winner places great value upon the Word of God. It is the same thing that the gun is to the soldier on a battlefield. He keeps it near him because he knows he might need it at any moment.
Illus: George Mueller, one of the great soul winners of his time, read the Bible through over a hundred times after he was converted. He wanted to know how to use this powerful weapon, and because he did God used him mightily to reach the lost.
So often people try to win souls, but they place little value on God's Word. The message they deliver is, "I think this, what do you think?" We do not need to know the Bible from cover to cover to win the lost to Christ, but we do need to know where those passages are that tell them how to know Jesus, like
In Romans 10:9, We read, "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, THOU SHALT BE SAVED."
• We do not want to leave any lost person thinking there are many ways to be saved because the Bible teaches us there is only one way.
• We do not want to leave any lost person wondering if he can know that he is saved.
God tells us in I John 4:13, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may KNOW that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God."
God's Word is POWERFUL and regardless how deep a person may be in sin, God's Word will show him how he can be saved.
III. THE PARTNER OF A SOUL WINNER.
Even though we have the POWERFUL WORD OF GOD we certainly cannot expect to win anyone to Christ without the aid of the Holy Spirit of God.
Illus: D. L. Moody said, "When will men learn that they cannot do God's work without God's power?"
Illus: John Timothy Stone said, "Man cannot be used simply through his abilities. His very gifts may retard his influence. Genius without spirituality becomes a mere exhibition." He illustrated this with the story of two men who went to the city of New York for a weekend. They planned to hear two of the greatest preachers in the nation preach that weekend. After they both heard one speak, one decided he would go back that evening and hear him again. The other man went to hear the second preacher preach. The next day they were talking and one said to the other, "Did you hear our friend preach again last night" He said, "Yes, I did! and if it is possible the evening sermon was superior to the morning sermon." He summed it up by saying, "I never heard such a man or such a sermon! What did you think of the preacher you heard last night?" He said, "I do not know just what I thought of the sermon, or of the man; but after I heard him preach I went back to my room in my hotel room and fell on my knees and asked God to forgive me and make me a better Christian!"
If the church could only recognize our need for the Holy Spirit in individual's lives today we would make room for Him and see spiritual victories comparable to the victories of the early disciples. Ephesians 5:18 says, "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." Acts 1:8 says, "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." A Christian can have the greatest personality in all the world, know the Scriptures forward and backwards, but if he does not have the Holy Spirit of God leading in his efforts to win souls his efforts are a waste of time.
Illus: B. H. Carroll expressed it this way, "Over the soul of that man whom you wish to lead to Christ there is an adversary whose intelligence so far surpasses yours that it cannot be mentioned in comparison, whose power transcenDs yours so far that they ought never to be placed side by side, who has the experience of six thousand years of conflict, who has been in direct and personal conflict with God Himself, who has placed his foot upon the hearts of ten thousand foes, who has brought to naught the physical strength of Samson, the intellectual culture of Solomon, the piety of David, and millions more of men and women - the devil."
God sent the Holy Spirit to indue us with power so that our soul winning efforts will be successful. He did not send the Holy Spirit so that we could strut around like the big rooster in the chicken yard.
Illus: Dr. E. J. Daniels said, "Do you suppose a railroad engineer would sit on the side tracks and keep feeding the flames to his boiler to make steam just to hear the steam pop off or to blow the whistle? God is no fool! He is not going to put the steam in your life if He knows you will not do anything but blow the whistles and pop off."
Conclusion/Summary: We, as Christians who desire to be soul winners, need to realize the importance of-
I. THE PERSONALITY OF A SOUL WINNER.
A. We need to develop our personality.
B. We need to design our personality.
II. THE POWER OF A SOUL WINNER.
III. THE PARTNER OF A SOUL WINNER.
