The part of the chapter that I wanted to focus on is the beginning of verse number 11. What I want to preach about this morning is the subject of having the right purpose for the things that you do, having the right purpose. A lot of times, people don’t understand why they do the things that they do and even God commanded us to do things that we don’t always understand the purpose why are we doing those things. If we’re doing things for the wrong reasons, we might get discouraged and stop doing them, because we’re misapplying the purposes that God has put for things that we’re doing.
For example, I want to start out by saying that the purpose of soul winning is to get people saved. That might sound like a really basic principle that you wouldn’t really need to drive all the way over here on a Sunday morning to hear the pastor get up and tell you, “Hey, by the way, the purpose of going out soul winning is to get people saved,” But there are a lot of people today who don’t understand that principle. Churches that are going soul winning for the wrong reason, as a result, most churches have stopped soul winning today, because they were doing it for the wrong reasons. Let me show you what I mean here.
Look at Luke chapter 17, verse 11. It says, “And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem and he passed through the midst of Sumeria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off and they lifted up their voices, and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." And when he saw them, he said unto them, "Go show yourselves unto the priests." And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, ‘Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?’ ‘There are not found that returned to give glory to God,’ save this stranger. And he said unto him, ‘Arise, go thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole.’”
We see in this passage is that Jesus Christ healed ten men of leprosy, but out of those ten, only one of them came back to thank him and to glorify God for what was done. The other nine were just excited about being healed. They were happy and they never came back to say thank you, they never glorified God, they just went their way. Jesus, you can see, is not pleased that only one came back. He says, “What? Where are the nine? Where are they? Why haven’t they come back?” This scripture shows us the reality of human nature. How many times people are not grateful for the gifts that they’re given or for the things that God does in their life. It’s just a reality that nine out of ten people aren’t really going to be grateful when they receive something great from the Lord.
If you think about soul winning, the Bible tells us over and over again in the bible to do it. He says, “Go ye therefore into all of the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” The Bible says, of the disciples in the early church, “Daily in the temple and in every house, they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.” Jesus said into his disciples, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” This is what God’s plan is for us as Christians and people in the church, is to be out there in the highways and hedges, knocking doors in every house, preaching the gospel, winning people to Christ. Let me tell you something, there are very few churches anymore who are soul winning, even amongst independent Baptists. This is becoming a thing of the past.
I did a little research just of our state of Arizona. I looked at just all the independent fundamental Baptist churches in the state of Arizona that had a website. Let me tell you something, very few of them are going soul winning. I noticed that a lot of them were scaling back their soul winning to once a month … Where they just had a soul winning time once a month or every other week, one short soul winning time or they just had one soul winning time per week, but it wasn’t even soul winning anymore. They said we’re going to be canvassing. When they say canvassing, they mean they’re just going to put flyers on the door.
You know what, we can use the mailman for that. We don’t have to be spirit filled to put something on a door; we can have the mailman do that. All you have to do is buy a bunch of postcards that tell all about your church and just stick them in the mail. Instead, they want to go through the motions and pretend that they are out in the highways and hedges, that they are preaching the gospel to every creature. No, the Bible says, “Open your mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.” It didn’t say just hand somebody a piece of paper and walk away or maybe just leave it on the door.
We need to be preaching the word of God. We need to be spirit filled and we need to be giving it to every creature. The only way you’re going to get the gospel to every creature is by going out door to door. You have to ask yourself, why have churches stopped soul winning? Even big successful, independent fundamental Baptist churches, they’re just scaling it back once a month, every other week or is just handing out tracks or it’s just visiting people who have already visited the church and not having an aggressive, bonafide soul winning program. There’s barely any churches left that have it.
I just looked at every website, there are few that had it and the vast majority have nothing or they were scaling it back. Why is that? The simple reason, if you would turn to Romans chapter number 10, the simple reason why churches are getting away from soul winning is because they don’t understand the purpose of soul winning and because they don’t understand the purpose of soul winning, they don’t think it works. It’s not that it’s not working, it’s just not working for what they wanted it to do, because they have the wrong purpose in the first place.
See, Romans chapter 10, the Bible reads in verse number nine, “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. 9 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. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, ‘Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.’”
“For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? 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 Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
In this passage, we see that according to the Bible, people need to be sent out to go out and preach the gospel. The Bible says, “How shall they preach except they be sent?” People are sent out to preach the word of God and, “then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” Those who believe in their heart, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and confess with their mouth the Lord Jesus shall be saved. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. The purpose of going out and being sent and going out and preaching the gospel and being in every house and going into all the work, is that people might be saved and I receive the gift of God which is eternal life.
You see, churches today, they say soul winning doesn’t work because it doesn’t bring people into the church in the numbers that they would expected to. We do have people come into our church through soul winning, but if you stop and look at the amount of soul winning that Faithful Word Baptist Church does, which is a lot of soul winning, almost every day or maybe even every single day, people from our church around knocking doors. There are all kinds of soul winning times that are official, others are unofficial times, where people are out doing a ton of soul winning.
If you look at how much soul winning is done and how few people come to the church, it really is staggering. If you don’t understand what I just said, you just don’t understand the mega man-hours of soul winnings that are happening in this church. We have a lot of people out soul winning in our church for a lot of hours every single week, so you would expect to just flood of visitors coming to the church, where are they all? Churches will look at this today and pastors would look at this and say, “Well, this isn’t working. This isn’t the best use of our time. Let’s make more postcards to mail out. Let’s go ahead and advertise here and advertise there, do this and do that.”
Wait a minute, they’ve missed the point that the purpose of going out soul winning is to get people saved! It’s not to bring a bunch of people into the church, because then if your purpose is to bring a bunch of people into the church, there’s a better way to do it than soul winning. If that is your definition, then soul winning doesn’t work, but I never set out to become a pastor just to see how many people I could put in the building, just to see how many people I can gather together and how many throngs … The goal is to get people saved. The goal is to reach the greater Phoenix area with the gospel of Jesus Christ and that the church would be a tool to send people out, to go preach the gospel.
That’s what we’re trying to do here, but a lot of people have it backwards. They think soul winning is a tool to build the church, when in reality, building the church is the tool to get people saved! What’s the final goal? The final goal is winning people to Christ, bringing forth fruit onto God. Jesus said, “Here in is my father glorified, that you bring forth much fruit.” That’s the goal. See, when we get to heaven, there is not going to be an award handed out at the judgment seat of Christ for biggest attendance. I just don’t believe it. I do not believe that Jesus Christ will hand … There’s no scripture to indicate that Jesus Christ going to have an attendance award and it goes to, to Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Bill Hivoss.
That’s not what it’s about. You got the car before the horse my friend. Our goal is to get the gospel to the world and the church is a place where we’re trained and equipped and send out to do that. It’s the place where we go to grow as Christians so that we can go out. What’s the point of having a whole bunch of bodies in here if we’re not going out and doing the soul winning? You can sit there and say, “Well Pastor Anderson, there’s a better way to get more people to come to church.” Of course there is, but when you cut out soul winning, you’re no longer getting the gospel to every creature, period.
While we’re reaching people, yeah, but are you reaching every creature? Well, we can’t get through the whole world, yeah, but we can get it to every creature in our area. It’s very possible. We’re doing it. Why? Think about it, we have today, what, a hundred and some people in here. I don’t know how many people are in here, but it is well over a hundred people that are here. Here’s the thing about it though. Let’s say our church had 300 people, that’s really not that much if you think about it in a city of four million. Just say, “Well, look at the 300 people we’ve reached, look at the 500 people we’ve reached.”
No, there are four million people in the city, but here we are at church over a little hundred and some people at this point, whatever the number, but these aren’t the hundred and some people that we’ve reached, because we’ve actually knocked the doors of almost a million people already, because we’re out knocking doors. There’s all kind of fruit that we’re reaping, that you don’t see here today. If you’re one of these people that say, “But if they didn’t come to church, then they didn’t really get saved.” Go join the Church of Christ down the street. If you’re one of these people that think you have to be baptized and join the church to go to heaven, you’ve stumbled into the wrong church. It’s a Baptist church where they get salvation and thy faith alone! If you believed that you have to be baptized into the church to be saved then the Church of Christ, the Pentecostal, tongue speaking church that’s believes that, down the street waiting for you.
Salvation is by believing on Jesus Christ. There are all kinds of reasons why people don’t come back. First of all, we see that nine people here just got healed and said cool and just went on with their life. Did they instantly get struck with leprosy again? Did they lose their salvation from leprosy? No. You can’t lose eternal salvation either. If you’re ungrateful, if you don’t care about joining the church or coming to the church, I always tell these people, whenever I win somebody to Christ, you know what I always say to them?
I always say, “You said you went to so and so the church right?” “Yep”, then they list that church.” I say to them, “Did that church ever tell you how to be saved? Did they ever give you a gospel like I just got right now? How long have you been going there? They never told you how to be saved, huh? Okay, maybe you should go to the church that actually told you how to be saved instead of the church that was going to let you go to hell.”
I don’t say it quite like that, but I do make that point to people. “Hey, did they ever tell you how to get saved?” You know as well as I do, a lot of people that you win to Christ are going to go to the church where their friends are. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve won to the Lord and as soon as they got saved, people who didn’t go to church anywhere, as soon as that person got saved, all their friends or relatives who were Christian? “Oh, you’re saved now? You’re coming to my church.” They’ll absorb them into their liberal, dead as a door nail, watered down church that failed to reach that person.
There are plenty of reasons why people don’t go to church. A lot of people that we win to the Lord are teenagers. They don’t even have control over their own destiny of whether they come to the church or not. A lot of them speak Spanish. 50% of the people that I personally win to the Lord speak Spanish. They don’t come here, because they don’t understand the word of the service. There are a lot of people that we win to the Lord 30 minutes from here. A lot of our soul winning takes place 20 or 30 minutes from here. They’re just now willing to drive that far. Plus, most people are too shy to just show up at a church where they don’t know anybody.
The vast majority of people go to a church where they already have friends and family and they know people. There are a lot of reasons I could sit here and go down the list of all the reasons why people wouldn’t come to Faithful Word Baptist Church. Maybe they’re scared of the five protesters that are out there this morning. I don’t know. That great legion of protesters, last week, there were 86, now we’re down to five. It’s growing exponentially folks. They will shut us down.
Here’s the thing, a lot of people are like, “Oh, Faithful Word …” It’s like in the book of Acts, it says of the local church, that great fear fell onto people and it talked about how a lot of people believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, but it said that a lot of people, “durst not join themselves onto them.” A lot of people did not dare to join with the Apostles just for fear of the Jews, fear of what people think and fear of just being in a church that’s on fire for the Lord. They just can’t handle it. They can’t take the heat, so they don’t come to the kitchen.
I’m telling you, there are a lot of reasons why people aren’t necessarily going to come to church, but they still need Jesus. What about people that are handicapped, can’t even get out of the house? I’ve given the gospel to people that were severely handicapped and can’t get out of the house. There are all kinds of reasons why you can’t just wait for them to come to you. There could be a church that’s running 300, 400 or 500 people, but what you see is all you get. That’s all they’re reaching. That’s the only people that they’re reaching.
Then there could be another church that is running hundred and some people, but going out and reaching hundreds of thousands of doors, not everybody’s going to get saved, but thousands do get saved my friend. They do get saved. This isn’t a question and answer session, so go ahead and put your hand down. Anyway, the second point I want to make is in Ephesians chapter four. Flip over the Ephesians chapter four. This ties in with what we have in Romans chapter 10 about being sent out. Not only do people misunderstand the purpose of soul winning, that it’s to get people saved, they think it’s to bring people into their church, but what goes hand in hand with that is they misunderstand what is the purpose of church. They get confused on the purpose of church.
Ephesians four actually explains to us what the purpose of church is, beginning in verse number 11, the Bible reads, “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers,” watch this, “For the perfecting of the saints …” let me ask you this, is that the saved or the unsaved, the saints? Why did God give us pastors and teachers? Was it for the unsaved or for the saved in the church? It says he did it, “For the perfecting of the saints.” Watch this, “for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” Who needs to be edified in the local church? The body, the saints, the saved.
He says this, “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part,” watch this, “Maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”
See, the Bible talks about us in the church as being members of the body of Christ. You hear of the word ‘church member’ a lot, but I think a lot of people have forgotten why they call it a church member, because actually, the word member in the Bible means body part. David talked about being formed and fashioned into his mother’s womb and he talked about how all of his members were being fashioned. The Bible says that we are the body of Christ and members in particular. He talks about one person being the nose or the ear or the hand or the foot.
We, as God’s people, are supposed to be like a functioning body part in the body of Christ. We are supposed to be a member of the church, not meaning that we join and carry a card and our name is on a list somewhere, but rather that we are the body parts. We have a function. Do we have any body part that has no function? Maybe some evolutionists will tell you that? Oh, they used to say there were a hundred some body parts that are the vestigial organs, the things you don’t need. They’re just leftovers from evolution. So they just keep finding out how they have a purpose.
Your tonsils have a purpose. Your appendix has a purpose. There are a lot of parts of the body that we don’t think are important, but they all have a purpose. Everything has a function that it’s performing. That’s how the church should be. Everybody should be here to perform a certain function and to have a job. Not to just come here and to just be a parasite of the body, but to actually be here to serve and to work and to operate. Not to just be a dead weight that we’re dragging around. This is just a leg that doesn’t work, just drag it. It’s slowing me down. It’s not helping me get anywhere.
That’s not what we need to be as a church member, dead weight, but the purpose of the preaching and the teaching, very clearly in the verses that we just read, is to edify the body of Christ, to edify the saints, to perfect the saints and so forth. Why is that important? Because today, people think that the goal of church is to basically bringing unsaved people and get them saved. They think … Remember, what’s the word church mean? Assembly or congregation. They think that we need to bring unsaved people into the congregation and get them saved and that’s the purpose of our service.
No, that is not the purpose of our church service. Our purpose on Sunday morning is to edify the saints. Our purpose on Sunday night is to edify the saints. Our purpose on Wednesday night is to edify the saints. Well then, how do you reach in the unsaved? Going out and reaching into … That’s why he said they are sent. That’s why he said, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preached the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings and good things,” because it’s always associated with goal. It’s always associated with the feet. It’s always associated with being sent. Why, because the church is a called out assembly of born again, baptized believers. It’s not just a cloud of people that gets preached to. That’s not a new testament church.
It’s funny how everybody will define it that way on paper, but then they keep talking about how we got to bring in all these unsaved people to church. No, if you know somebody who’s unsaved, win them to Christ them bring them in! Again, we’re totally fine with unsaved people visiting our church. The Bible does talk about, in 1 Corinthians 14 about how an unsaved person could come to church and be convinced of all and so forth, but that’s not the primary purpose. Just like when we go out soul winning, we’re also going to get people to come to our church, but that’s not our primary purpose.
My primary purpose when I go soul winning is not to bring people to this church. My primary purpose is to get people saved. My secondary purpose is to try to get them to come to church. Of course, I invite every person and try to get them to come, but that’s not the main purpose, because if that were the main purpose, there would be a better, more efficient way of doing it to bring people into the church, but then we just let our city go to hell? Just let the city go to hell, but we have more church members coming. Yeah, this is great. We grew by 20. I rather give the gospel to 20,000. That’s where we ought to be doing.
By the way, God said that he would build the church. He said upon us, “I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The Bible says there went with King Saul a band of men whose hearts God had touched. I let God worry about building the church. I’m going to do what he told me to do, which is to go out and preach the gospel to every creature. Go to Matthew 28. What have we learned so far? Number one, the purpose of soul winning is to get people saved. That’s why the fundamental Baptist churches in Arizona, a lot of them are either scaling this back or have eliminated it all together.
You are very hard pressed to find fundamental Baptist churches in Arizona that are aggressively soul winning. It’s rare. They’re out there. There are some out there and praise God for that. It’s rare, because they have the wrong purpose. They think, “We got to get with the times, we got to get more modern on how to bring people in.” You know what, I’m not against trying to bring in saved people into the church, because the more saved people coming to church, the more people that are going to be equipped and sent out and everything like that, but soul winning has another purpose that they’ve just completely missed.
Secondly, the purpose of church is to train the saints and teach them. A lot of people would commonly complain about church. This is what they’ll say, “I stopped going to that church, because I wasn’t being fed there.” You heard people saying that before. I’ll tell you why that complaint is so common, because many churches, every Sunday morning service is a gospel or something. It’s the plan of salvation every Sunday morning. 98% of the church is saved. 97% of the people are saved and they’re just hearing the gospel every single one, gospel, gospel, gospel.
They’re not being fed, because they’re just hearing stuff they already know and they’re not getting the equipment and the training that they need, because they’re just being taught the same thing over. I’ve heard people say this where they went to church and they almost want to shout out to the pastor, “We’re all saved. We get it, you got to teach us something else!” I’ve heard these pastors say, “Well, if you get tired of hearing the gospel, then something’s wrong with you. You should want to hear the gospel every Sunday morning.”
Here’s the thing, if you want to hear the gospel, let’s go soul winning and we can hear it all day long to the people who actually need to hear it. Why would you come to church to hear the gospel again and again? I like people complain about [our church 00:24:29], “I went there and he never even preached the plan of salvation. I visited one time and there was no gospel.” That’s because I wasn’t preaching the gospel that Sunday, I’m preaching the rest of this big giant book that God gave us.
He didn’t give us a three by five card with a gospel on it. He gave us a whole book with 1,189 chapters to edify you and to perfect you so that you can grow, embrace in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Look at Matthew chapter 28 and see the great commission, very famous passage. “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying,” verse 18, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
What is our job as Christians, as believers, as a local church is to go out and teach all nations the gospel, yes, but then we’re also supposed to baptize people and we’re also supposed to teach them to observe all things whatsoever Christ commanded. It’s not just let’s just get people saved and baptized and stop there. No, part of the goal is to get people saved and baptized and to teach them all things whatsoever Christ commanded. You know where we’re going to teach them all things whatsoever Christ commanded? Right here, three times a week.
Class is in session three times a week, Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night to learn all things Christ commanded. Look, people are doing things for the wrong reasons. They get the wrong purpose. They think soul winning is to bring people to the church, when in reality, the main reason we’re going out soul winning is to bring people to the Lord. They miss that. They may get it backwards and they think, “Oh the church, that’s for winning people to the Lord.” No, church is primarily to teach the saints and then they get this backwards and they say, “Oh, teach them to observe all things whatsoever commanded, that’s done out on soul winning.”
How are we going to teach people to observe all things that Christ commanded out there? At each person’s house? How will we have time? Because we would just be stuck with one person for years teaching them all things that Christ taught us to observe. A lot of people would say, “You need to follow up with people and do in home Bible studies and teach them the word of God.” No, the Bible say, it’s right here, this is where the Bible studies at. If I go out and bring somebody the gospel and win them to Christ and they get saved, then it’s like, “You need to grow more. You need to learn more.”
Guess what, here’s where the church is, here’s what time it meets, you need to get down there and get some teaching and get training. If the person isn’t going to come to me, I’m not just going to keep going back to that person’s living room. I don’t have time to sit in the living room of person I win to the Lord and teach them all things that Christ commanded for hours and days and weeks and years, because you know what, I’m already doing it to a group here. It’s just so much more efficient to do it in the local church as God commanded.
These young babes in Christ need to be convinced to get down here and get the teaching. Here’s the thing, you can’t force people to come to church. If they don’t come, they’re not going to get the training unfortunately. They’re not going to get the teaching. “What kind of an discipleship program you have for these young converts?” Sunday morning, Saturday night and Wednesday night. Three times a week. Discipleship class meets three times a week. New believer’s classes, three times a week, because you and I know that a new believer can sit in this sermon right now and they’re going to learn something. They’re going to get some growth from hearing this sermon.
They’re going to learn about what it means to go out and give the gospel to people and be sent out and what the purpose of church is and so forth. Everybody needs to learn that. If you think about it and go to Jude, that’s where we’re going to go next, the book of Jude … Let me say this, because of this mistake of thinking that soul winning is for building a church and that we bring people to church to get them saved, it’s corrupted our churches today in that philosophy. Think about it, if our church is geared towards getting people saved, you know what we’re going to do then, bring in worldly music.
Think about it, if the goal is to get people saved and to bring unsaved people, because that’s what they say, when you bring unsaved people to church so they could get saved, then we would have to basically gear our service towards unsaved people. Let’s get the music that unsaved people want, let’s preach sermons that unsaved people are going to understand, let’s gear everything towards unsaved people. You know what, that’s why churches today are geared toward unsaved people instead of the saved. This whole movement of the seeker sensitive, purpose driven, [neededly 00:29:25] evangelical churches is to make the church palatable unto the unsaved.
“Oh, don’t preach too hard, because you’re going to offend the unsaved.” “Oh, they’ll sing the old hymns, that’s not what the unsaved are interested in.” “Oh, don’t do it this way, we want to make unsaved people feel comfortable.” No, I don’t, because the church is geared towards you. Don’t you like going to a church where it’s geared towards you? Where you’re not just an afterthought, where it’s all geared towards some unsaved person that’s never even going to come back anyway chances are and you’re just, “Oh, I guess you’re here too.” No, the church is for you to be taught. The preaching’s for you to learn and grow so that you can be an effective, useful part of the body.
What’s the purpose of even coming to church? Not to just take in, but to learn and grow and be edified and perfected so that you can become a functional part of the body that is serving in the local church, that is actually performing a role and a function in the church to go out also so that you can be equipped to go out and give people the gospel and see people saved. These are the right purposes. Not only do people get confused about what the purpose of soul winning is and they get confused about what the purpose of the church is, but they’re also getting confused about what the purpose of getting saved is, getting saved.
Again, these sound really simple, but people are missing it today. The purpose of getting saved is to avoid hell, to escape hell. That’s the purpose. Before I get on that point, let me say this, on the point about church being geared towards unsaved people, this is why everybody is flipping out right now about my no homos allowed policy at the church here, because I made it clear. I said no homos will ever be allowed in this church as long as I’m the pastor. I would never back down on that. I will go to the grave saying that. I will never allow any homo in this church.
“Oh, but Pastor Anderson, how are the filthy homos going to get saved?” That’s what they say, “How are the homos are going to get saved if you won’t let them come into your church?” First of all, if you actually studied and read the Bible and read Romans 1, you realized that the homos have already been given over to the a reprobate mind. [How are they going to 00:31:41] get saved anyway according to Romans 1? Even if you did believe, let’s just say for a second that you actually believed that these homos could get saved, that they’re not already reprobate according to Romans 1.
Let’s say you believe that homos will get saved, they would still not have … We would still would not to bring violent pedophiles into the church to get them saved, because if you say homos can be saved too, we need to get them going, then go give them the gospel. Who’s stopping you? You say, “Pastor Anderson, you’re wrong, these homos can be saved.” Okay, go get them saved. I will not stop you. I have never stopped you and say, “Get it back, don’t go give gospel to homos.” Have I ever stopped anyone from getting the gospel to these perverts? Go ahead. If you believe that, go ahead and give them the gospel, but don’t bring them here, because there’s no homos allowed.
By the way, in the Old Testament, they didn’t even let the homos be next door to the church. King Asa, he got rid of the homos. The Sodomites had their houses near the house of the Lord and he got rid of that. Today, it’s like, “Come on in homos.” No, we’re not going to bring violent pedophiles into the church. That’s what the Bible teaches that homosexuals are, predators and rapists. Every time they’re mentioned, that’s what they are, they’re doing, whether it be Genesis 9, Genesis 19, Judges 19, Romans 1, but people have been so brainwashed that church is the place to get saved that they think, “What’s the poor little faggot going to do if you won't let him come to church? How is ever going to be saved?”
Even if he could get saved, you can go out and get them saved, how is everybody else gets saved that we went to the Lord? Out there, but we’re not going to bring around our children, all these freaks and transvestites and everything. All these pastors in the area, a lot of them don’t want to back me up. Thank God for pastor Tim Coleman at 35th Avenue Baptist Church, called me up and he backed up my policy 100%. He said, “I’m Tim Coleman, I approve this message.” He even publically from his pulpit defended my sermon and defended it to many people. God bless him for having the guts to stand up in this wicked and adulterous generation.
Here’s the thing, let’s get off that point though, getting saved, what’s the purpose of getting saved? A lot of people are mixed up on this. The purpose of getting saved is escaping hell. Look at Jude verse number 22, the Bible reads, “And of 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.” You see, it’s the fear of hell that actually motivates people to get saved. It’s the fear of the Lord that caused them to actually want to be saved.
I know that when I got saved as a six year old boy, it was because I did not want to go to hell. Even the term itself ‘saved’ implies that there must be some danger that you’re being saved from. Think about it, if I said, "Brother Kevin saved me". What’s the obvious question? “From what? What did he save you from? Did he save you from drowning or are you in a burning building, were you going to be killed and he stepped in and took care of it?” There is an obvious question, whenever you say the word ‘saved’, from what? What are you being saved from?
Imagine someone drowning for example, they need to be saved. We’re not talking about heaven and hell, we’re saying in a physical sense, a drowning man needs salvation, just physically. You need someone to throw him the life raft or give him a life jacket or to pull him in or whatever. Imagine this, a man is drowning and we come to him and tell him, “You know, you have this life jacket shaped hole in your heart and only a life jacket can fill that.” What are you talking about? “Don’t you feel unfulfilled right now in your life? Don’t you want to have real purpose in your life?” No, it’s more like you’re dying, grab a life raft or die.
The thing is the Bible said when we go out preaching gospel, we are to warn all men, warning all men. The Bible said it Colossians 4. We’re warning people. Imagine, someone is in a burning house, they’re asleep, they don’t know that the lower floors is completely engulfed in flames. Let’s say the upstairs and smoke rises up. Let’s be a little more realistic here. Let’s say the top of the house is burning and on fire. Somebody is asleep in the downstairs bedroom, they don’t even realize that there’s any danger. They’re sleeping like a baby.
You go in and, “Hey, wake up … Do you really feel loved right now? Because I want to tell you how you can feel a love that you’ve never felt anywhere else. Listen, I’m your neighbor and if you’ll let me pick you up and carry you out of here, you’re going to feel really loved in a few minutes.” What are you talking about? I don’t need that. They would probably would feel pretty wild if you carried him out and as you carried him out, the whole thing caved in, “Well, you saved my life.” Here’s the thing, what’s the primary purpose of going there? You need to be saved. Let me get you out of here before you die. The place is on fire.
People in this world, a lot of them don’t know that the building’s on fire. They don’t know that they’re drowning, they don’t know that they’re going to die and go to hell. They’ve never been warned of the consequences of not acknowledging the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, people today think that we’re going to get people saved by just going around town, “Hey, I just want to tell you how can you have a relationship with Jesus.” I’m going to tell you how to have a relationship with … You know what they’re thinking? I don’t need a relationship with Jesus. I got all these other friends. I got all these other things going on. I already got something to do on Sunday mornings. I already have fulfillment in my life.
Then [with00:38:04], “Oh, every unsaved person has this God shaped hole in their heart and nothing can fill it …” You know what, that’s not really true. There are lot of people who are just enjoying their wicked human life, but that does not prevent them from going to hell when they die. There are a lot of people who are eating and drinking and being merry according to the Bible and they know not until the flood comes. They eat, they drink, they merry, they’re giving in marriage and there are people today who are just marching toward the cliff today just as happy as can be. You know what, they don’t have a God shaped hole in their heart.
A lot of people have mixed up on what the purpose of being saved is. The purpose of being saved is to go to heaven and escape hell. That’s the purpose. Don’t you get a lot of other benefits too by being saved? Of course you do, you do get purpose and direction in your life. You do experience the love of God and have a capacity to love others now. You do have the quickening of the Holy Spirit and you do get enlightenment and you do get joy and peace and you get all these wonderful benefits of being saved, but what’s the primary reason of being ‘saved’?
If it wasn’t about escaping hell, it wouldn’t be called being saved. You just call it something else. It would just be called being enlightened or being fulfilled or being initiated into a relationship. That’s not what it’s called. It’s called being saved for a reason. It’s called salvation for a reason. It’s called eternal life for a reason because what’s the opposite of eternal life? Death, dying. Why do you need everlasting life, eternal life as opposed to death? What are we escaping? Death. What are we escaping? Hell. What are we escaping? Punishment. What are we escaping? The wrath of God today.
That is what we need to preach to people that they might be saved. We go out and tell people that God’s wrath is there, that hell is there, that there is punishment for saying, but thanks be to God, there’s good news. Jesus paid it all. The good news is that, “whosoever believe within him should not perish, but have eternal life.” When you get that right purpose now, you’re going to be a more effective soul winner. A lot of people would criticize the way that we go soul winning, because the fact that they don’t understand the purpose. They’re mixed up. They want to do a purpose where they go around telling people that they’re going to get more fulfilled and better relationship. It doesn’t make any sense folks. It’s not really the right way to go soul winning.
Go to James 4. There are a million things I can preach on in this sermon, about just having the right purpose for the things that we do and asking ourselves why do we do the things we do. For example, when we go to work, we should have the right purpose when we go to work. You know my purpose for going to work is? Making money. That’s always been my purpose. Why did I originally get a job? “I’m just looking for fulfillment …” I was looking for money when I get a job. Oh, that’s a horrible reason to go to work. That’s why we go to work, is to make money because of the fact that we have to provide for our families and provide for our wives and children and provide for our needs. I go to work …
This wasn’t in my notes originally, this is just popped in my head. I go to work to make money. You say, “Why is it important to keep that in perspective?” because a lot of people go to work and as soon as their job just isn’t super fun and they’re asking them to do stuff that’s not exactly what they like doing and they have to get a little bit their hands dirty digging in the mud or they have to start cleaning toilets. “This isn’t what I signed out for.” They have this prima donna attitude, a lot of workers, because they forget, “Hey, I’m here to make money and if the money’s green, as long as you don’t ask me to do something sinful, I’ll do it, because I’m here to get paid.”
You’ve seen workers that have both mentalities. I’m not going to go to work, I’m an electrician, and they say, “Hey, unclog this toilet.” I’m not a plumber. I’m an electrician. No, I’ll unclog it, if that’s what I’m being told to do as long as I’m getting paid to do it. I’ll do it. Why do you go to work? To make money. There are people also, there are men out there who will take a really easy job, a really cushy, comfortable, not challenging job that pays very little because they don’t want to take a job that pays more, that actually makes them work a little bit harder and put a little more effort.
They have lost sight of the purpose of going to work. Being a provider is a purpose. You go out and you work and it’s hard. Thank God when you have a job that you like. It’s great to have a job … I like some jobs that I really liked and enjoyed and then I have jobs that I hated, but I went where the money was, as long as it wasn’t sinful or immoral, because that’s my responsibility with my family, is to provide. When it came to … I remember I have one alarm job that I love, but I switched to another one, because I needed to make more money.
I needed to provide more. It’s a lot harder, it wasn’t fun, but I needed to make the money that I needed, because it’s hard to provide. Today, it is hard. I’m not saying it’s easy guys. In 2014, it’s hard to live on one income, because of the way things are set up now where men and women both go to work. If you’re going to go out and earn it on one income, it’s a challenge, it’s hard, but you got to get into perspective of, “Hey, I’m here to bring home the bacon. I’m here to work hard and get paid. That’s why I’m here,” and that will help you be a good worker in your job when you realize that.
Look at James chapter 4, I want to say this. A lot of people misunderstand the purpose of prayer. You’re going to quit doing it, because they miss the purpose of what prayer accomplishes. Why do they quit soul winning? Wrong purpose. Why is the church quit being a place of trains and equips God’s people? Because they have the wrong purpose. Why do people quit giving the gospel properly and soul winning properly? They’re missing the purpose of what salvation is for. Why do people quit a good high paying job? Because they forgot that the purpose of the job is to make money and they’re looking for a little more fun and enjoyment.
There are jobs out there that are giving you a massage at the job. I’ve known people who worked in offices where a guy went around and was performing chair massages and chiropractic adjustments and they have a nap time. I think if you’re working on Google or Apple or whatever in the Bay Area of California, you get a nap time every afternoon, they turn out the lights, everybody gets on their beanbag and takes a little nap. That’s great. I’ve never had a job like that.
Every job I was at, I worked hard, get screamed and cussed at, but you know what, the money was green. People would quit their job because they missed the point. Why they’re there? They’re not there to get a pedicure while you’re working. You’re there to bring home the paycheck, but it says in James chapter 4. I’m not criticizing you if you have an easy job. God bless you. It’s wonderful What’s the purpose of praying? Let’s see what James 4 says. It says in verse one, “From whence come wars and fighting’s among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”
According to this, the Bible says you have not because you asked not. That tells me that the purpose of prayer is to receive something. That I would not have received had I not asked. A lot of people today misunderstand prayer. They think prayer is just like an exercise. They are going to the motions. “We just prayed because God told us to and it’s a ritual.” That’s what Calvinism teaches by the way. Calvinism teaches you just pray out of obedience, but God’s going to do what he’s going to do anyway. At the end of the day, you can’t really change everything, because whatever will be will be, this fatalistic, Calvinistic mentality.
Yet the Bible teaches, you have not because you asked not. That tells me that if I don’t pray, I’m going to miss out on good things that God has for me, that are according to His will, not things to just fulfill the flesh, but actually good things and blessings that God has in store for me that if I don’t ask for him, I’m not going to get them. That’s what the Bible is teaching. What’s the purpose of me praying as a Christian? What is going to motivate me to take the time to pray? Here’s what’s going to motivate me. I want to get what God has for me. I want to receive. Praying is asking and receiving. It’s not just, “Oh, I go through the motions.”
Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord, my soul you keep. Dear Jesus, bless us through our bodies, in Jesus name. Amen. Just going through the motions, but rather, we actually want to express real sincere praise and thanks to God, but that’s not even prayer, that’s thanksgiving. The word ‘pray’ means to ask. You don’t even see people in the Bible say I pray thee, meaning I’m asking you to do something. Not even to God, but to even to the fellow man there who pray them.
What does it mean to pray? If you say, “Dear Jesus, thank you for this food, Amen,” you haven’t prayed, because you didn’t ask for anything. If you say, “God, bless the food that we’re about to partake of and let it nourish us,” now you’re actually asking to something to happen. Now you’ve prayed. Otherwise, you’re just giving thanks. Giving thanks is important, but prayer is also important. Why is prayer important? To receive help from the Lord. God’s not just automatically going to help you. God’s not just automatically going to give you all good things that he asks for you. No, you have not, because you asked not. If you want to get everything that God has for you in life, you must …
He will give good things for those who ask him, the Bible says. It’s that simple. It’s not just going to give it to everybody. There are so many other ways that we can go on this sermon, but I think you get the idea, is that we need to understand the purpose for the things we do. Everything that we do in life, why are we doing it? Why do we eat meals? Why do we eat breakfast, why do we eat lunch, why do we eat dinner? What does the Bible say? We eat for strength. You know what, some people will eat for, going the same verse, drunkenness. The Bible says that we should eat for strength and not for drunkenness. A lot of people have mistaken the purpose of food.
They think food is to have a party in their mouth three times a day, but in reality, the purpose of food is to provide strength, nourishment and health. Don’t you think people would eat differently if that was the purpose in their mind? When we have the right purpose, soul winning becomes different. Even doing the same activity, but doing it for the right reason, understanding why we’re doing it. Soul winning changes when you have the right purpose. Church services are different when you have the purpose. What’s my purpose this morning? To edify saved Christians. That’s what I’m doing. It’s going to cause me to preach different.
If my goal were going, just in case somebody’s here that’s not saved. I’ll have a totally different sermon. I’ve been to a church service where I knew what the pastor said he was going to preach about. I showed up at that service, two visitors came on a Wednesday night; he tossed aside his sermon and preached the gospel for an hour. Well, nuts to all the rest of us who came out to actually learn something on a Wednesday night, he's just going to spend an hour preaching the gospel to two people.
What ought to happen is you take those two people outside after the service and give them the gospel. It’s way more effective anyway, because people are less likely to zone out when you’re one on one than just sitting in service. It’s for the body of Christ. That will change your preaching. When you realize the purpose of getting saved, that will change your soul winning too. That will change the way you present the gospel. You’ll present it properly. When you realize the purpose of going to work, you’re going to be a better worker because you’re actually going to work hard to bring home the bacon and do what you needed to do.
When you realized the purpose of prayer, you’re not going to quit praying. You’re going to pray in the right way. You’re going to pray with an intent to receive. Why do you read the Bible? Just ask yourself, why? What’s the purpose of reading the Bible every day? I can give you some great reasons to read the Bible every day. Number one, it’s commanded, the Bible does command that we should read there in all the days of our life and we should meditate there in all the days in our life. It is a command. Another major reason to read the Bible is to search for scriptures daily whether these things be so. It’s to make sure that we believe right.
We search the scripture to make sure that everything that we’re hearing preached at church is right and that we believe right. Why else do we read the Bible? To grow in knowledge. A lot of people think that reading the Bible is just a pick me up. It’s like a little … “Read until you get something out of it.” You read a few verses, “Oh man, that’s really encouraging.” That’s great to be encouraged, but what’s the primary purpose of reading? To search and figure out whether these things are so, to learn, to get knowledge, to grow in knowledge. Just look up the word knowledge in the Bible and see how important it is to God, knowledge, knowledge, knowledge.
When Jesus rebuked, people for not reading the Bible, He said, “You err not knowing the scriptures.” He said, “How read is that? Don’t you know the commandments? Don’t you remember what …” He said that the reason why you don’t know the right doctrine and why you believe the wrong things is because you didn’t read. What’s part of the purpose of reading it? To get the right doctrine, to know the truth and the truth shall make you free, to search the scriptures daily. Also, the Bible says, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”
It’s also to keep us clean of sin. If we stop and think about it, what’s the goal? What am I trying to accomplish on Sunday morning? What am I trying to accomplish on Sunday night? What am I trying to accomplish when I go to the Lord in prayer? What am I trying to accomplish when I go soul winning? What am I trying to accomplish, when I get on my knees to pray? What am I trying to accomplish when I go to work each day? What am I here for? What am I doing? It will affect the way you …
Think about this, what about dating? What’s the purpose of dating? Find a wife or find a husband, but a lot of people are dating for the wrong reasons, just to have a good time, stringing somebody along. That’s garbage. I never believe that. Any girl that I had the thought in my mind, “Well, I’m never going to marry this girl,” then you shouldn’t be dating that girl. “I’m never going to marry that guy,” then you shouldn’t be dating that guy, because that’s not the purpose. The whole purpose of dating is to get married. That’s the purpose. It should be geared toward marriage.
A lot of people will call it courtship. I just think courtship is a weird word. Whatever I talk to these courtship people and I tell them my standards of dating and what I believe about dating, they always approve of this message. They think that I’m fine. I use the word dating. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the word dating. That guy, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, is so full of baloney, his book. That’s a whole another sermon exposing that book, for all the false teaching in it. What I’m saying today is that people need to understand what they’re doing, what’s your purpose …
By the way, if you’re not going to marry a non-believer, you shouldn’t date a non-believer at all. I will never condone of it, I will never approve of this thing, of dating people that aren’t saved to try to get them to … Get them saved before you become involved with that person or dating that person or thinking about having a relationship with that person, because you know what, it’s a lot of people fall in love with an unbeliever and mess up their life. You need to say, “Hey, I’m not interested in somebody who’s not saved and who doesn’t want to live for the Lord.”
What’s the purpose of dating? What’s your point in dating if it’s not to get married? What’s the point? There’s no point, but the wicked world has a point besides getting married, fornicating. That’s their purpose, just to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season. That’s why they’re dating, but God’s people should be dating only just to get to know people as possible future wives or husbands respectively. That is what the purpose is. We can go down the list of all the things that we do, every activity in our life, whether we eat, whether we drink, whether we’re going to church, reading our Bibles, praying, whatever you do.
Playing sports, what’s your purpose? You know what you’re going to find probably? A lot of the stuff that you do in your life has no purpose or no legitimate purpose and probably just needs to be put out in your life. A lot of things we can … There’s a lot of it is just garbage. I think you just get rid of them. Is it really benefiting you to pop down in front of the TV and watch TV? What is the purpose? “I just need this to unwind,” that’s what all people say, “It’s just to relax and unwind.” Yeah, but it’s been scientifically proven that that’s not a good way to relax and unwind, because you know what, if you sit in front of the TV, it’s harder to go to sleep at night.
If you want to relax and unwind, read a book, because if you read a book, who’s ever noticed this, that if you read a book right before bed, you would fall right asleep? If I ever can’t go to sleep at night, I’m struggling to fall asleep because maybe I’m worked up or upset or thinking about things, I would even do one of two things, I either go running, get real tired and then come back and go to sleep or I will pick up a book and start reading it. When you read, you’ll start getting drowsy and I will put the book away.
TV and computer can have the opposite effect. I don’t know if it’s the flickering screen or what it is, but you know and I know that the more time you spend in front of the video game, TV, computer, even if you’re doing legitimate things on a computer, it’s not a good activity to do right before bed. You go to bed, you close your eyes, it’s like you still see the screen. You can’t go to sleep. It’s a stupid way to unwind. Why are you doing it? “I just watch TV to spend time with my family.” There’s a lot better way to spend time with your family.
You’ll find that a lot of activities in your life are completely worthless. In fact, not only is TV worthless, it’s harmful, because it’s also filling your mind with garbage and trash. I’m saying, what’s the goal? What’s the purpose? What’s the point? You need to think about these things and have the right purpose. There’s a time … To everything, there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.
Let’s [inaudible 00:56:40] on a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for our church Lord and for the people that are here Lord. I believe that most people in church today are actually here for the right reason and the reason they came here is to grow and to learn more and to be edified by each other and they know that irons sharpens irons so they’re here to be with their Christian friends and to hear some Bible preaching and to get edified and to get perfected and to grow and learn and become a better Christian Lord.
Father, I pray that when we go out soul winning this week Lord, we go out motivated to get people out of hell Lord and actually get people saved and not really worried too much about who’s going to come to church and who’s not Lord, because then we’d skip the house where there’s disabled, we’d skip the house where they don’t speak English. We skip the house where it’s a young teenager that has no ride
Lord, help us to be motivated just to get that person saved and that should be enough Lord. Help us in every area of our life to examine the purposes for what we do and to cut out the junk in our life that has no purpose and to do good things for the right reason. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
