Sermon

Soulwinning Conference (Night 2) | February 12, 2026

Sermon Podcast—LBC Easton

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  1. Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.

  2. The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist

  3. Church in Easton, MA. You can find out more about us

  4. or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look

  5. us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this

  6. message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.

  7. If you would turn into your next page here this evening, which is

  8. verses to help and encourage the soul winner.

  9. We'll start here this evening with several verses from God's

  10. Word just to be able to give you a little bit of an overview, a

  11. little bit of help here tonight. This is not the Romans Rd.

  12. We'll be looking at that more tomorrow night, but just some

  13. verses in general to be able to help and encourage you.

  14. As we talked about this issue of soul winning, remember last

  15. night we talked about the stakes, setting the pace.

  16. Remember, a firefighter is in a situation where there's property

  17. on the line, but perhaps there are no people that are on the

  18. line that they would react a certain way.

  19. But if there are souls in that building that's burning that

  20. need to be brought out, they're going to give their everything

  21. because they're going to do what they can to save those lives.

  22. And so in the same way, understanding that there is a

  23. lake of fire, understanding there's a heaven to be gained in

  24. the hell to be shunned, that it ought to be able to put a little

  25. pep in our step. It ought to give us some urgency

  26. when it comes to this issue of reaching the lost.

  27. And so we spent a lot of time looking at that last night

  28. because again, we can give you all kinds of tools tonight and

  29. tomorrow we can talk about all these things, but if you're not

  30. willing to be able to go out and use them, it really is not going

  31. to be a lot of help at all. So we want to see why is it so

  32. urgent that we do all that we can for the Lord.

  33. And so we'll start here with some of these verses.

  34. Proverbs 1130 is really where we get that term soul winning.

  35. We talked about it last night. I made reference to it very

  36. quickly, that the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and

  37. he that winneth souls is wise. One of the wisest things that

  38. you can do is being able to give the gospel to someone else.

  39. He that winneth souls is wise. Again.

  40. That's where we get the term sole winner.

  41. Matthew 2819. We just looked at this on

  42. Sunday. Go ye therefore and teach all

  43. nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the

  44. Son and the Holy Ghost. It's a reminder that this is the

  45. Great Commission. But a lot of times for churches,

  46. it's more of the great suggestion.

  47. It's the idea, hey, if you have some time, will you go out and

  48. reach some people for Christ? And a lot of times that's why

  49. churches are dying. It's because they're just

  50. literally not going out and trying to find the people who

  51. were out there. The lost are all around us.

  52. You can find them wherever you go.

  53. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

  54. They're literally right there. And again, not everyone is open

  55. to being able to hear about the gospel.

  56. Certainly not. But there's probably a whole lot

  57. more that are ready to hear than.

  58. The chances that we take to be able to go and give the gospel.

  59. And so this is the Great Commission.

  60. We have been commissioned. God has given the church the

  61. opportunity and has given us the great privilege to be able to

  62. reach the loss for Christ. This is what we do.

  63. Daniel 12 verse three. I like this.

  64. And they shall and they that be wise shall shine as the

  65. brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to

  66. righteousness as the stars forever and ever.

  67. And not to try to twist the scriptures here, but I do think

  68. it is interesting that but we call a lot of people stars today

  69. that are stars for doing, well, absolutely nothing.

  70. Or sometimes they're stars for doing something infamous more

  71. than anything by starring in a movie where they curse and they

  72. drink and they corrals and do these types of things.

  73. We call them a star because they can throw a pigskin a really

  74. long way or because they could shoot a basketball.

  75. All of a sudden they're a *. But what is the star in God's

  76. eyes? Well, it's the person who is

  77. willing to go and share their faith with someone else and

  78. God's economy, if you will. These are the ones who are the

  79. true stars. And I think of the people who

  80. have really impacted my life over the years.

  81. And the ones that have really impacted me are not those people

  82. in Hollywood, not those people wearing uniforms or jerseys for

  83. teams, but they are really just humble people that I've met in

  84. the churches that I've been a part of, not been a part of many

  85. over the years. I've had really opportunity to

  86. be in three churches, Westgate Baptist Church twice before

  87. college and after college, Southwest Baptist Church for

  88. four years while I was in college.

  89. And then the years that I've been here at Liberty.

  90. And I'll tell you, some of the people have impacted me the most

  91. have been humble soul winners, people who have taught me about

  92. how to go and win other people to Christ.

  93. I think of Sam Gore, I've mentioned many times here before

  94. back at Westgate Baptist Church and that he had Parkinson's

  95. disease. It was difficult for him to walk

  96. and he would go from door to door as many as he could to be

  97. able to tell people about Jesus Christ.

  98. And when he stopped being able to do that, you could count on

  99. Sam Gore praying when the church was out on visitation because he

  100. wanted to hear names. He wanted to know about

  101. different people that were going out because he wanted to go to

  102. the Lord in prayer on behalf of those who were going out.

  103. I'll tell you what, that's a real star more than Drake May.

  104. That's a real star more than Jayson Tatum.

  105. But why? Because these are people that

  106. are doing things for eternity. And by the way, Sam Gore was

  107. never a pastor. Sam Gore was never on a pastoral

  108. staff. He's not one of those people

  109. that have been held up on a pedestal.

  110. But at the same time, he affected me as a 17 year old and

  111. 18 year old who just gotten saved not that long ago.

  112. And if he can go and share the gospel, well then why can't I go

  113. and share the gospel? And so these are the stars, if

  114. you will, in God's economy. Romans 116 is ironic for me

  115. because it was given to me upon my confirmation, the Lutheran

  116. Church as my life first. So my Lutheran pastor, Doctor

  117. James R Gilzo gave me Romans chapter one verse 16 and I

  118. didn't really understand it until after got saved and I it's

  119. amazing to me for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

  120. For is the power of God unto salvation unto everyone that

  121. believeth to the Jew 1st and also to the Greece.

  122. What should we not be? We should not be ashamed of the

  123. gospel that which saved us. We should not then turn around

  124. and be ashamed to be able to share it with other people.

  125. Second Timothy 17 has really become for me that the true soul

  126. winners verse. It's the one that I really hold

  127. on to that I'll remind myself of on visitation quite a bit.

  128. I have it written down in various places.

  129. For God had not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and

  130. of love and of sound mind. And I'll tell you, if you're

  131. trying to win people to Christ, what more could you ask for than

  132. power and love and a sound mind? What do we need?

  133. We need the power of God when we're trying to witness to

  134. somebody because it's really not about ourselves.

  135. And that's something that we really need to remind ourselves

  136. in this whole thing. Well, Pastor, I can't do it

  137. again. The power we talked about on

  138. Sunday, the omnipotent power of Jesus Christ, His Spirit will

  139. help us because he has commissioned us to go.

  140. So he will empower us to do that which he's commissioned us to

  141. do. Of love.

  142. There are some people we talked about last night.

  143. They're unlovable in a lot of ways, but yet Jesus Christ loved

  144. them enough to die for them. Across and so we need to love

  145. them as well even some of those who might be considered unsavory

  146. even some of those who are trying to go out of their way to

  147. maybe even offend us knowing that we're Christians we need to

  148. have. Love.

  149. For them, the love of Jesus Christ and then a sound mind.

  150. You know, when I was a teenager, I've mentioned this.

  151. Before I loved. Debates.

  152. I was in a debate team and we went to nationals and we did

  153. really well. Me and Pastor David Corley, at

  154. least he's now he's a pastor. You know, my best friend, I

  155. loved it. Now I realize I don't love them

  156. nearly as much as I did back then.

  157. And one of the reasons why is that when I'm talking to

  158. somebody about Jesus Christ, it's not a debate.

  159. It's not, hey, let me talk about you.

  160. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to score points here.

  161. It's really not about that. We're talking about a life

  162. that's on the line, a soul that's on the line.

  163. This isn't about just winning some trophy at some competition.

  164. This is about someone whose soul hangs in the balance.

  165. You know what I need A sound mind.

  166. Because while they're talking, my mind.

  167. 'S going Bing Bing Bing Bing Bing Bing Bing.

  168. Thinking about what I'm going to say, the next thing thing

  169. they're about to say, and I could be missing what they're

  170. saying and what they're trying to communicate to me because I'm

  171. so busy trying to think of the next thing I'm going to tell

  172. them that I'm totally missing out on that which I'm supposed

  173. to be doing in the 1st place. What do you need?

  174. A sound mind Second Timothy 17 I'll tell you if you are one who

  175. marks in your Bible, just circle that whole verse, underline it,

  176. highlight it, whatever you need to do the Lord without giving us

  177. the spirit of fear. But of power and love and a

  178. sound mind. And the last thing I'll say

  179. about this, because I said I wasn't preaching tonight, but

  180. the last thing I'll say about this is this.

  181. If the Lord is not the one who gives, is the spirit of fear who

  182. is? See, pretty simple, doesn't it?

  183. It's Satan. Satan doesn't want us to open

  184. her mouth. Satan doesn't want us to hand

  185. out that track. Satan doesn't want us to win

  186. people to Christ. And so if the Lord has not given

  187. us the spirit of fear, it's pretty simple to figure out

  188. who's the one who gave it to us. Why?

  189. Because he wants you to be quiet when it comes to the gospel.

  190. First Corinthians 916, Paul Speaking of his calling here.

  191. But I think there's application for all of us.

  192. For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of.

  193. For necessity is laid, Yay. Woe is unto me if I preach not

  194. the gospel. Paul says, I have a calling upon

  195. me, and don't thank me for what I'm doing.

  196. I'm just doing that which I'm called to do.

  197. Now do we have the calling of Paul?

  198. No. Are we apostles?

  199. No. Are we missionaries in the way

  200. that Paul was? No, we are not.

  201. But yet God has laid the calling upon us to be able to reach

  202. people for Christ, and woe unto us if we preach not the gospel.

  203. In that sense, we can take that. For ourselves as well.

  204. Psalm 126, verse six. He that goeth forth and weepeth,

  205. bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with

  206. rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

  207. What I love about that verse is it talks about the burden that

  208. we're to have to be able to have tears for the lost, to truly be

  209. sorrowful for the sake of the lost.

  210. But it also gives us the idea of a harvest.

  211. Of course, Jesus said to lift your eyes because the fields are

  212. white and a harvest. But what do you recognize and

  213. realize about a harvest? It takes a long time between

  214. planting and reaping. It takes a while.

  215. I'm not saying that someone couldn't get saved the very

  216. first time you presented the gospel to them.

  217. I'm not saying that's not the case.

  218. But I think all of us would say whether it was ourselves or our.

  219. Experiences sharing the gospel with others.

  220. It takes a while, it takes a time, but at the end, when the

  221. time of reaping has come. There's great rejoicing.

  222. And so you. Stick with it, you stay at it

  223. and little bits of the time you were able to share the gospel

  224. with those who are lost. Jeremiah 20 verse 9 but his word

    Jeremiah 20:9

  225. was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I

  226. was weary with forbearing and I could not stay.

  227. Jeremiah said in the verses before I wanted to quit.

  228. I wanted to be done. Lord, just be done with me.

  229. I am done with the Israel. I am done with what they're

  230. doing. And then the Lord in his rebuke.

  231. Got to the. The place with Jeremiah says,

  232. you know what, actually, I got to preach the Word.

  233. I got to tell the people what they need.

  234. In fact, I feel like my heart's going to pound out of my chest

  235. if I don't do that, which I need to do.

  236. And I could tell you, I recognize that there are times

  237. in the study that it's a Thursday.

  238. A lot of times I start my messages for Sunday on a

  239. Thursday. And there are times that it's

  240. just like, man, if I could just go right now, man, I'd be glad

  241. to do it because I just want, I know what.

  242. The Lord is. Working on me and with those

  243. verses, and I know that the Lord can be impactful to you about it

  244. as well, but certainly even more so when it comes to the issue of

  245. salvation. So these are some verses.

  246. Maybe you can write these down in the flyleaf of your Bible.

  247. Maybe this is something that you can mark in your Bible.

  248. And again, I'm a big marker of Bibles.

  249. In fact, I have a a wide margin Bible so that I can write on

  250. either side, one column on one page, one column on the other.

  251. I love to be able to write notes and different things like that

  252. so I can remember later the things the Lord has taught me.

  253. But these are. Verses you could just go in and

  254. mark every single one of them down as a reminder to you of how

  255. important it is to win souls to Christ and how the Lord will

  256. help us as we win souls to Christ as well.

  257. All right, let's get to the nuts and bolts on the next page

  258. because it says I'm on visitation.

  259. What do I do now? Let me explain a few things to

  260. you before we get here. And we're going to cover both of

  261. these both tonight and tomorrow. There's really two different

  262. ways that we commonly win people to Christ.

  263. One would be corporately that would be on our church wide

  264. visitation. We've done this several ways

  265. over the years. There was a great while where we

  266. had visitation on a weekly basis.

  267. But I also recognize that people have different schedules and

  268. work obligations and things like that.

  269. And they got to the point for a long time that it was really

  270. myself, the family and maybe one other person, I think a brother,

  271. Vince, a lot of times that he and I would go on visits for a

  272. couple years, just me and him by ourselves.

  273. And so I recognize over time that maybe, perhaps it would be

  274. better for us to go monthly, have a Big Breakfast.

  275. Well, have a breakfast, have a continental breakfast.

  276. Those Jimmy Dean sausage sandwiches are pretty good,

  277. aren't the Dave. So the best microwave sandwiches

  278. you can find, we got them around here.

  279. Amen. But and then go out once a

  280. month. Now, we've had some difficulty

  281. with our scheduling the last couple months because the

  282. holidays and the weather and different things like that.

  283. But it's our desire to be able to go out at least once a month

  284. and do this corporately, to give ourselves an excuse to be able

  285. to go and tell people about the Lord.

  286. We also have different special days during the year.

  287. We'll have an open house or a friends and family Sunday.

  288. I think of Easter that's coming up here, Resurrection Sunday in

  289. a few weeks. These are all special

  290. opportunities for us. We have special tracks for

  291. Resurrection Sunday week to be able to hand out to people, to

  292. let people know that we have a Tuesday service.

  293. We have. Well, we don't tell them about

  294. the Tuesday service. It's the Lord's Supper.

  295. We have a Friday service. Now, I'm not of the belief that

  296. Jesus died on a Friday, but at the same time, there's a lot of

  297. people that think of Good Friday like the Catholic Church.

  298. And so you know what? We have a Friday service.

  299. I wouldn't argue with anybody over it, but we have a Friday

  300. service because we found that some people from that tradition

  301. will come over here and we get to talk to them about the

  302. Gospel. And so that's been a wonderful

  303. thing. We're doing that again here this

  304. year, but we have these opportunities where we can

  305. corporately go out. And so we want to learn how do

  306. we do that. So for instance, we're going to

  307. be going out on Saturday. I hope that you'll come on

  308. Saturday. And if you don't come this

  309. Saturday that you come the next time that we have opportunity.

  310. But you come in, we have breakfast.

  311. Everybody knows what to do about breakfast.

  312. Amen. But when do you do after

  313. breakfast? There's there's cards and cards

  314. laying in a table out here. There's three different sections

  315. that there are to be able to choose.

  316. From there's one with just a bunch of cards from people have

  317. visited over the last couple years.

  318. There's one section usually with door hangers and maps where you

  319. can go out and you can reach people just door to door.

  320. And there's another section where people can just write

  321. letters. Maybe they can't go out or not

  322. able to go out for whatever reason.

  323. They stay behind and write letters with tracks inside of

  324. them to people who've come in the past and just remind them

  325. the Liberty Baptist Church is here.

  326. We called all in outreach for reason.

  327. Everybody's got something to do. Everybody has an ability.

  328. So even if you physically cannot go out for whatever reason, you

  329. can still come here. If you're able, you can sit

  330. down, you can have some fellowship.

  331. It you can have a cup of coffee, you can write some letters.

  332. And it's amazing to me that we'll get out maybe 1520 or so

  333. cards, notes out every time we do it.

  334. And you say, pastor, what is the fruit of all the things that

  335. we're doing? And the answer is, I don't

  336. always know. I don't always know, because you

  337. would think if we go out on a Saturday, just a whole host of

  338. people just breaking down the door to come in on Sunday,

  339. That's the way it is, right? Well, if they're breaking down

  340. the door, it's probably because the frost heave at the door more

  341. than anything. But.

  342. But no, honestly, there are times we'll make visits and

  343. people will say, oh, yeah, I'm going to be there on Sunday,

  344. Pastor, and nobody shows up. In fact, I love one of the

  345. things I love about New England because in the South, everybody

  346. tells you they're going to come on Sunday.

  347. Oh, bless their heart. I'm going to be there on Sunday.

  348. And then none of them show up. A lot of times up here, they

  349. don't want to come. They'll just tell you, look, I

  350. don't want to come. And it's like, well, OK, I can

  351. appreciate your honesty and candor if nothing else.

  352. But still, even then we get people that will say they'll

  353. come and they don't come. So we'll get some of that.

  354. But I've always found that the Lord blesses our efforts.

  355. That's really what it comes down to, because we can't force

  356. people to come to church. We can't force people to come to

  357. Jesus Christ. But we can't control what we do.

  358. Just like the fishermen can't control how many fish jump on

  359. the line, the fishermen can't control how many times he goes

  360. out and fishes in the 1st place. And what are we supposed to be

  361. fishers of men, The Bible tells us?

  362. And so we have to have the same mentality.

  363. So you're going to have sometimes where we together as a

  364. church are going to come together and have a visitation

  365. program where we have all these different things.

  366. So the question on this side is what do we do in this case?

  367. But then on the other side, we have the issue of visitation.

  368. And really soul winning is not something that happens once a

  369. week or once a month for a couple hours a day.

  370. The real issue of salt winning is that it is not something

  371. that's put on the calendar. It's just something you do with

  372. your life. And so we have to ask ourselves

  373. this question, how do we win people to Christ when we have

  374. brief interactions with them? How do we win people to Christ

  375. when we see someone on a regular basis at a coffee shop, at the

  376. library, at a doctor's office? And again, I understand you're

  377. not going to win someone to Christ at a checkout line or

  378. they're going to beep, beep, beep.

  379. I mean, it's just not going to happen.

  380. Why? Because they got a beep, beep,

  381. beep. Keep getting that stuff across

  382. the belt, right? You're not going to have the

  383. time. But can you move them a little

  384. bit closer to the understanding of who Jesus Christ is by the

  385. way, that you handle yourself, maybe by handing them a track,

  386. Those types of things. These are the things that we

  387. want to talk about over the next few days.

  388. Those times when we have made purposeful effort as a church to

  389. be able to come together. What do we do?

  390. How do we do it on this organized visitation program, if

  391. you will? But then on the other side, and

  392. we'll handle this more tomorrow night as well.

  393. So what do we do on a day-to-day basis with those people?

  394. Do we come in contact with, even if it's family or friends, it

  395. doesn't have to be strangers. It's those people that we've

  396. really been wanting to talk to about the Lord, but we just

  397. don't know how to do it. So we'll be talking about both

  398. of these things. But first we're going to talk

  399. about visitation. What, what will we do on a

  400. Saturday? Because a lot of people want to

  401. be a part. They're just afraid to be a

  402. part. And he said, well, are you

  403. saying I'm afraid? Well, for a lot of us, yes.

  404. That's really what it comes down to.

  405. Let's just call it what it is. And interestingly enough, I've

  406. been doing this for a very long time.

  407. And I will tell you that there's still on a Saturday morning when

  408. I'm getting ready to get in the car and I got that first card.

  409. I'm thinking, I don't know how they're going to respond.

  410. And I'm the pastor. And sometimes that means they

  411. could respond really well, or sometimes that could be they

  412. respond really not well because they don't want the pastor

  413. showing up at their house. And so even for me, there's this

  414. trepidation of what exactly is going to happen.

  415. So I understand, don't think that I am above, I've reached a

  416. spiritual plateau when it comes to talking about Jesus or

  417. visiting people that all of a sudden that I'm just super

  418. comfortable with it. And you probably are not.

  419. Can I put it to you this way? We're all in the same boat

  420. because again, Satan doesn't want you to be comfortable with

  421. it. Satan doesn't want you to be

  422. able to do this. That's where we have to be able

  423. to push past that initial fear that we have and say the Lord

  424. has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love

  425. and of sound mind. So what are some principles that

  426. we use on visitation? Let me help you with this.

  427. We go 2 by two. First of all, we don't send

  428. anyone out by themselves on visitation.

  429. That's not something that we do really.

  430. If anyone ever goes out by themselves on visitation, it's

  431. me. And the reason why is because

  432. sometimes there's not enough pairs to be able to do so.

  433. And I do feel like a pastor can go up to someones house by

  434. himself and people are willing to answer.

  435. But even then I have to be careful because if it's a woman

  436. that I'm going to visit, I have to stand on the doorstep.

  437. I don't go inside. I have to really kind of think

  438. about those kind of things. But for the best, really going 2

  439. by 2 is the way to do it. And you see there it says, first

  440. of all, it's not required, but it is a biblical principle.

  441. Do you think there's a reason that Jesus sent the disciples

  442. out two by two? I think there's several reasons.

  443. Maybe. What would a reason that you

  444. would think that Jesus And you just speak up.

  445. The microphones will pick you up.

  446. Don't worry, everybody's watching hundreds of people.

  447. OK, I shouldn't have said that, all right, But what is the

  448. reason you think Jesus would have sent out the disciples 2 by

  449. two? Moral support?

  450. That's a big one. That's a big one because if

  451. somebody is not happy you're there, at least you got your

  452. buddy with you, you know what I'm saying?

  453. That's a big, that's a big deal right there.

  454. It's an important thing for us to be able to go out to do that.

  455. Now, would you say, John, that's a big one.

  456. That's a big one as well. We'll talk about the silent

  457. partner in a minute. And the silent partner is the

  458. one that really is not taking the lead route, but is in prayer

  459. the whole time, praying for the situation, praying for wisdom

  460. for the soul winner, praying that distractions are kept at

  461. Bay. That's a huge one as well.

  462. Were you going to say Dan? The work of the church is a

  463. group effort, right? It's.

  464. A group effort. Even in those situations, if you

  465. don't have two by two at times, you report back at the church,

  466. the church, correct? Absolutely.

  467. Yeah. And we can end up being a little

  468. bit of a lone wolf, have lone wolf syndrome.

  469. And so it's good to be able to go out together, to rejoice

  470. together. Also, if someone gets saved,

  471. guess what? You can't take all the credit,

  472. by the way. We can't take any of the credit.

  473. The credit goes to the Lord. But having someone else there is

  474. just a reminder. Hey, it wasn't just me.

  475. That's a very good point as well.

  476. All these things are good. What would you say, Lisa?

  477. Safety, Safety Boy, I tell you, nowadays that's true.

  478. Even then you consider how people would have been to be

  479. able to have someone else with you is an important thing.

  480. And so that's what we do to be able to go and we always have

  481. two by two. Again, I'm not saying that that

  482. it has to be this way. There's no biblical command, but

  483. we do see the principal and I do think it's a wise principle for

  484. us to follow. We just have right here.

  485. First of all, I could set the person at home at ease when they

  486. see two people there. Usually it would be a little,

  487. believe it or not, better than one person there.

  488. There have been times we've sent three people to a door because

  489. we've had odd numbers. And you get to the point where

  490. the group starts getting that big and it looks like, you know,

  491. a barbershop quartets coming to your house to sing.

  492. And it's it's not really something that you're going for.

  493. And so you do have to be careful that the group is not too big.

  494. But at the same time, it could set them at ease.

  495. Who was on the inside, Fend off possible distractions I have

  496. dealt with before having a dog come.

  497. And this dog is just rambunctious, honestly, the

  498. silent partner, that person, excuse me, we'll talk more about

  499. that in a minute. Could play with the dog you say,

  500. well, that's that's kind of dumb No, it's not because if that dog

  501. is barking the whole time you're not getting anything across and

  502. so that dog can that person can talk to the dog that person can

  503. talk to the child maybe there's a child that's kind of there.

  504. And I think of a visit we had just recently from the back to

  505. school bash with a family that's here right now and I could sense

  506. as we were talking that my wife was really making the connection

  507. with the family. I'm not saying that I wasn't,

  508. but I could just tell that she was kind of zeroing in on some

  509. of the needs and they were talking about special needs and

  510. those kind of things. And then the kid comes out and

  511. he is, he's excited. Like he's excited, we're there,

  512. he's excited, the pastor's there, the pastor's wife there,

  513. and he's full of energy. And so the next thing I know,

  514. I'm on the ground playing toys with him.

  515. Here's the pastor and I'm playing.

  516. You know why? Because somebody needs to talk

  517. to him about the Lord. And if one of us didn't take the

  518. step back, then what was going to happen?

  519. Nobody was going to be talking about the Lord at all.

  520. And so there's a recognition that that is part of it as well.

  521. And then again, can be in prayer, the silent partner and

  522. you probably had training in this before, John and and that

  523. your experiences before is that typically we'll look at this in

  524. a second. There is someone who takes the

  525. lead because if not, it's two people talking over one person.

  526. That can be intimidating. I've also found that if I'm

  527. talking more primarily, but then someone else starts talking as

  528. well, I could be going One Direction and that other person

  529. go the other direction and all of a sudden maybe the groundwork

  530. that we're laying gets overturned because of the other

  531. person's random thought that comes in.

  532. And so it's always good to be able to have a lead even as you

  533. go 2 by two. Now ask yourself this, what kind

  534. of visit are you making on visitation?

  535. We have all kinds of different visits that need to be made.

  536. All of them can be about Jesus Christ.

  537. All of them should be about Jesus Christ.

  538. But there are different kind of cards that you will find on the

  539. table. If you are making a visitation

  540. visit. You have to ask yourself this

  541. question, is this someone who you know has a testimony of

  542. salvation? Because on this table could be

  543. someone that is saved, but maybe it's been out of church for a

  544. while. We do have benevolence visits,

  545. the type of visits where someone is sick, someone has been laid

  546. up and they just need someone to come by and just encourage them.

  547. We have those kind of visits. But sometimes, especially those

  548. visits we have from the Back to School Bash.

  549. We have 40 some families that came to the Back to School Bash

  550. in August. We've already visited them all

  551. one time, but, or at least we've attempted to visit them all one

  552. time, but the idea is we have no assurance that these people are

  553. saved. So what are we gonna do?

  554. We're gonna go to them and talk to them about the church.

  555. But that really is a way because for us to talk about the Lord.

  556. Because I wanna remind you, the visitation is not about Liberty

  557. Baptist Church recruitment. It is not about, hey, let's get

  558. a bigger church and let's just get some people to come over

  559. here. If we're going to do that, we

  560. might as well just join Amway because that's probably the best

  561. thing that we can do. This is an Amway.

  562. You know what this is? If we're building anything,

  563. we're building the Kingdom and if the Lord sees fit to build

  564. Liberty Baptist Church at the same time, we thank the Lord for

  565. that. But it's all about their soul.

  566. But we do talk to them about the church and we don't apologize

  567. for that because we want them to be able to come and hear the

  568. gospel on a regular basis and we want them to be able to come

  569. here to do that. So you ask yourself, is this

  570. someone that I know has a testimony of salvation and take

  571. the card. Talk the card over with your

  572. soul winning partner. Don't just consider the card

  573. when you pull in the driveway. One of things that I love about

  574. Marsha, for instance, is not able to be here tonight as an

  575. appointment, but one of the things I love about her is that

  576. she'll get her cards and she'll ask me.

  577. Pastor, tell me about this one. Pastor, tell me about this one.

  578. She wants to know before she gets there a little bit more

  579. about that person. Because you imagine just walking

  580. up and I try to put notes on the cards about who you're going to

  581. visit. But Can you imagine?

  582. Just go in there and you have no clue who they are.

  583. You've never seen them before. You don't know if they came to

  584. the church last month or 10 years ago.

  585. Hey, I'm from Liberty Baptist Church.

  586. Now if someones been here 10 years ago, we still go visit

  587. those people. Sometimes I'll put cold call on

  588. there. And the reason why is because,

  589. well, it's, it's going to be cold possibly.

  590. But we've had people from cold calls who have said, you know

  591. what, you came at just the right time.

  592. I've been going through some difficulty right now and, and

  593. the Lord, you know, I've been thinking about going back to

  594. church. So we got a name, we got an

  595. address. Until they tell us, don't come

  596. back. Guess what?

  597. We're going to keep coming because we want to at least be

  598. able as the spirit allows for us to visit those people.

  599. Don't if you got a visitation card, don't just pull up in the

  600. driveway and say, all right, now who's, what's their name?

  601. What are, what are we visit them for?

  602. It's a little bit late because you're going to see as soon as

  603. you pull up in their driveway in front of their house, they're

  604. already looking at you. They're wondering who you are.

  605. They're wondering why you're there.

  606. This is a conversation you have way before and at times when I

  607. have neglected that, I'll pull over maybe a block away before

  608. and I'll have the conversation with my wife is usually who I

  609. visit with. But I visit with pretty much

  610. everyone here at some point or another and I have a

  611. conversation about that visit before that time takes place.

  612. Are you going door knocking? This is different procedure

  613. altogether. If you're just going door to

  614. door, a lot of times we do door hangers instead of actually

  615. knocking on doors. But I would love for us to get

  616. to the place where some people, not everybody can do this, but

  617. where we actually go and knock on some doors.

  618. I think that's a blessing to be able to do.

  619. I know it's hard in 2026, there's so many people just

  620. won't open their door. Even 20 years ago, you'd have

  621. someone knock on your door almost every day.

  622. You'd have a salesman, you'd have a kid selling magazines.

  623. You have a kid, you know, girl selling Thin Mints, you know,

  624. those kind of things that would be happening all the time

  625. nowadays, unless it's Jehovah Witness or a Mormon, nobody's at

  626. your door. And so a lot of people are very

  627. hesitant to open the door. And so that's been a little bit

  628. of a difficulty for us even in Easton from us door knocking the

  629. first few years that we were here.

  630. But if you're just going and laying a door hanger, a lot of

  631. times we like doing that because if nothing else, you see people

  632. in the outside in the warmer months, you're able to interact

  633. with them and talk with them. And we'll talk about more about

  634. how you would interact in those areas a little bit differently.

  635. And then the soul winners appearance, say, pastor, you're

  636. going to talk about how I'm dressing.

  637. Well, yes. And the only reason I'm going to

  638. talk about it is this is because when you are going up to

  639. someone's door, they're looking at you, they're staring at you,

  640. they're wondering who you are. You say, pastor, are you saying

  641. I have to wear a three piece suit to be able to go visit

  642. somebody? Oh, I sure don't wear a three

  643. piece suit. I go visit somebody because they

  644. won't answer the door. If I do, they'll probably think

  645. I'm the funeral director trying to check them out for who knows

  646. what what. So no, we don't do that.

  647. But I say this dress to represent the Lord in your

  648. church. When you go out, you just make

  649. sure that you're wearing something that you know is

  650. clean. You're making sure you're

  651. wearing something that's pressed at least or something that's not

  652. too wrinkly. Because when we're going out, we

  653. are literally ambassadors of Christ.

  654. And I'm not trying to tell you how you were supposed to look,

  655. but I'm just saying that when you think about what you were

  656. doing, just consider that as you're going to represent the

  657. Lord. That's all I'm saying with that.

  658. But do dress to be comfortable. If you're going out from doing

  659. door hangers and those kind of things, make sure you're wearing

  660. the right kind of shoes to be able to go out.

  661. I've seen more slip and falls over the years.

  662. That's why even I'm hesitant to send people out on Saturday

  663. because we've had people that have said, oh, it's OK, the ice

  664. is melting or whatnot. And we had people slip and fall

  665. and it's been a bad thing. And so we do want to be careful,

  666. but dress to be comfortable. And I put this for the men

  667. specifically, wear colorful clothing if at all possible.

  668. You know what, you ought not to wear a short sleeved dress white

  669. shirt. Now, why would I say that?

  670. Because every single person, what was that?

  671. Sweat stains. That's it.

  672. Oh, that's true. Like, is it hot here?

  673. Is it just me, but Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, I mean,

  674. that's that, that's the look right there.

  675. You know, Elder Rivero, come by on my bicycle to come see you.

  676. And so I, I, I don't wear a tie on visitation.

  677. The reason I don't is I just try to be more casual.

  678. Wear a polo shirt. A lot of times I wear a polo

  679. shirt with the church's name on it that I have because it just

  680. identifies me. But at the same time, you don't

  681. have that. That's OK, but you don't want to

  682. look like a Mormon. You you just don't want to.

  683. We don't want to be the the Jehovah Witnesses do wear some

  684. more colorful clothing at times, but the Mormons are usually

  685. white shirt dress, you know, slacks, khakis, those kind of

  686. things. And so we avoid that all

  687. together. All right, just a little bit of

  688. overview. Why don't you go ahead and go to

  689. the next page? Anybody any questions about that

  690. before we move on? We have any questions just

  691. talking about the very basics of other than AJ.

  692. All right, so we're not talking about witnessing to your cats.

  693. All right, What do you do when you go visit somebody at the

  694. door? You know, this has changed so

  695. much over the years. This has changed so much.

  696. And I'll be honest with you, I've had some very interesting

  697. stories about this. I'm going to go ahead and tell

  698. the story because Dan Dave wants me to go ahead and tell the

  699. story. I could see it on his face.

  700. Dave has a very interesting way of visiting people, including

  701. visiting vets, because he could talk to them in a way he doesn't

  702. talk to other people. We went to see a gentleman who's

  703. been here several times before, went to go visit him about a

  704. year or so ago. And I remember knocking on the

  705. door. We drove probably about 30

  706. minutes to get there and we knocked on the door and he

  707. didn't answer. And I said, well, you know, I

  708. guess he's not here or whatever. He says, Pastor, stop that, hold

  709. on a second. And so he pulls out the phone

  710. and he calls this guy and he calls him by name.

  711. He says, hey, hey, are you home? And he says, he says, I'm, I'm

  712. home. He goes open the door.

  713. The preacher's here. And the guy comes out and just

  714. starts talking to me. I'm thinking if I do that,

  715. somebody smacked me right across the jaw.

  716. This guy does it because he's in the military.

  717. And all of a sudden people are like, oh, yes, Sir, OK,

  718. whatever. You know, look, we all can't do

  719. that, you know what I'm saying? We got to have some kind of

  720. ability at the door. What do we do?

  721. Well, we make a good impression before the door opens.

  722. Before the door opens, recognize that people were probably

  723. watching you come up the sidewalk.

  724. I'll tell you this, and I live in an apartment building, but if

  725. I had someone coming up my driveway, you can be sure as

  726. soon as I saw them, I'm going to be staring a hole right through

  727. them from behind a curtain or something because I want to know

  728. who they are and what they're doing.

  729. And so just recognize that as soon as you walk on somebody's

  730. property that there's probably somebody watching you the minute

  731. you're on their property. Be constantly aware of that.

  732. And this is really the big game changer right here.

  733. Understand the reality of doorbell cameras today.

  734. That's the game changer. Going up and doing door hangers.

  735. It's not unusual for me to go up to see a camera.

  736. I'll put a door hanger there and I'll look at the camera and I'll

  737. wave, I'll give a thumbs up, something like that to let them

  738. know I'm non threatening. But there have been times I have

  739. been walking up to put a door hanger up and I'll hear who is

  740. this? They've already patched in

  741. through their phones and are talking to me through the

  742. doorbell before it. It is weird, let me tell you,

  743. but I would say probably about one out of every 5 or 6 houses

  744. in Easton will have a Ring doorbell or some kind of

  745. equivalent. And so you have to be aware of

  746. that, that even if somebody's not watching you go up, there's

  747. probably video evidence of you walking up to their door that

  748. they're going to look at. And so you want to make sure

  749. that you are handling yourself well.

  750. Another thing, don't walk across the lawn.

  751. Never walk across somebody's lawn.

  752. Make sure you're using their sidewalk.

  753. Make sure you're using their driveway.

  754. You really don't want to do something to be offensive.

  755. You say, well, that grass doesn't look like they've cut it

  756. for about 3 months. Well, listen, they probably

  757. don't care about it until you walk across it.

  758. And now all of a sudden they care about it again.

  759. We're trying to find reasons to not be offensive.

  760. Why? Because the gospel is already

  761. going to offend people. And if somebody's offended, I

  762. want them to be offended because we gave them the truth and the

  763. right spirit, not because I walked across their lawn and

  764. they're already mad because I got there.

  765. That's not what I want. If look, if they're upset at the

  766. gospel, that's on them. But if they're upset because I

  767. did not respect their property at the beginning, then that's

  768. something. I'll say this as well.

  769. If you get to a house and there's a thing that says no

  770. soliciting there, we typically don't knock on those doors.

  771. If you have a visit and it says no soliciting, go back to your

  772. car, give them a call first, shoot them a text.

  773. The reason why is if you say, you say, well, we're not

  774. soliciting anything and we're not soliciting.

  775. The the Supreme Court has been clear over the years that we are

  776. not soliciting in the traditional sense of trying to

  777. sell Amway or Girl Scout cookies.

  778. I'm not the Avon lady. OK, so this is not who we are.

  779. But at the same time, if it says no soliciting and someone knocks

  780. on the door, you think you're going to be happier there?

  781. Nope, probably not. The best thing you could do is

  782. leave a track there and then move on or leave a track, go out

  783. to the car. I was making a visit.

  784. You know, we're from Liberty Baptist Church.

  785. We saw you visit a couple weeks ago.

  786. We just wanted to talk to you. So there's no soliciting sign.

  787. Is it OK if we come see you? That's what I would do in those

  788. kind of situations. A smile at the door again.

  789. They'll probably be looking at you through the peephole or

  790. camera. Don't just stand there doing

  791. this, Frank. I hope they don't answer the

  792. door. I hope they don't answer the

  793. door. I hope they don't answer the

  794. door. And don't tell me you don't do

  795. that, because I've done that, too.

  796. All right? You're not going to.

  797. I hope they don't answer the door.

  798. I hope they don't answer the door.

  799. Like that's going to wear on your face.

  800. OK. Be pleasant there.

  801. When you're at the door, keep the conversation between you and

  802. your partner to a minimum. I'll be honest with you, I've

  803. been with brother Vince for a very long time.

  804. We have a good rapport with one another.

  805. We talk with one another, and it's very easy at the door for

  806. us. Just continue the conversation

  807. that we had in the car all the way up the driveway, all the way

  808. up the door. We knocked the door.

  809. We're still talking about. Yeah.

  810. You know, the veal parmesan over at AJ's Grill is really good,

  811. you know, and he's like, yeah, no, I don't think so.

  812. I think that's trash. You know, And I'd say, and we're

  813. talking, then they open the door like, oh, hey, Liberty Baptist

  814. Church, we're here. Just kind of keep that to a

  815. minimum and understand that you're focused on what you're

  816. trying to do in that moment and decide before the door opens,

  817. who's talking. You need to know before you get

  818. to the door who is the one that is going to be the primary

  819. speaker. Of course, you both want to

  820. speak in the sense that you don't want the other person to

  821. think that you can't speak or not able to speak.

  822. But the one that's going to be the primary, I've always done

  823. it, either you take turns one between the other, or if you're

  824. with somebody who's new or somebody's not done it before,

  825. then you just tell them, well, you'll be the silent partner

  826. today. Why don't you pray and you'll

  827. observe and let the other person do that.

  828. That's really what you can do. Either of those.

  829. Any questions about any of those, Any comments, maybe a

  830. situation that you've had before, Anthony?

  831. Another thing is when you knock on the door, keep looking at the

  832. door. Don't turn around, look at the

  833. yard. Don't.

  834. Because then they open the door and he's not, you're not facing

  835. them anymore. It's like, oh, you didn't even

  836. care. Yeah.

  837. Yeah. We're looking at the door, wait

  838. for them to come out. One of the things I love doing

  839. is looking at that peephole because I love when the peephole

  840. goes dark. I know they're looking at me and

  841. then it goes light again and they don't answer.

  842. It's like, I know you're home, man.

  843. OK, so, and I'll add this as well, I understand there's some

  844. people who are uncomfortable. I'm just showing up to somebody

  845. house. What if they're mad?

  846. What if they get angry? I just show up.

  847. Should I, should I call first? Shouldn't I text them first?

  848. Here's what I do, and this is what I encourage you to do.

  849. This mindset is helpful. These are people that have

  850. already come to Liberty Baptist Church.

  851. We're not just going through a phone book, not that we can find

  852. one, but we're not just going through a phone book and say,

  853. hey, who can we go visit today and just randomly visit people.

  854. The people that we give you visits for here are people that

  855. come to Liberty Baptist Church before they've given us their

  856. name. They give their address, they

  857. give us their phone number. If they didn't give it to us, we

  858. wouldn't be able to go see them. So they've already said in

  859. essence, you know, we don't mind you coming at some point.

  860. But in your mind, I've said people, people told me, but a

  861. pastor, they might be offended. They won't it.

  862. Here's the thing, just go to the door, knock.

  863. If they don't answer, then you don't be offended about it.

  864. Don't worry about it. We'll go back another time.

  865. It's not a big deal. Maybe you caught them.

  866. They just woke up, they had a long night shift.

  867. They know they're home, but they're not going to answer

  868. because they just got up. I get that we, I, I barged into

  869. your territory. I get that.

  870. I'm not going to be offended by it.

  871. Maybe it's a bad day. Maybe they're not feeling well.

  872. Maybe they just don't feel like answering the door.

  873. They don't know who I am. That's OK.

  874. Don't be, don't you be offended by that.

  875. That's the way I handle is like, look, if you answer or you don't

  876. answer, I'm not offended. I'm just, I'm just happened to

  877. be in the area want to come see you and we leave it at that.

  878. And so that's a way that I have. But yeah, keeping your face

  879. forward is, is definitely a good thing because you don't want to

  880. be turning around. Go.

  881. Well, look at that. Yeah, look at those.

  882. Look at those. Look at those petunias over

  883. there. They turn around.

  884. They're standing there one foot away from you, just staring at

  885. you. So be aware of your surroundings

  886. because safety is a key nowadays.

  887. It's a it's a big deal. I guess it always has been, but

  888. even more so now. You need to be aware of your

  889. surroundings. What to do when the door opens

  890. again? Immediately identify yourself

  891. and where you are from. You don't want them to guess who

  892. you are, you know, Are you selling solar panels?

  893. You know who Who are you? Oh wait, I know that guy, but so

  894. are you are you selling solar panels?

  895. Are you are you with the the Boy Scouts of America?

  896. Are you from doing a fundraiser? Your kid is over at the local

  897. elementary school. Hey from Liberty Baptist Church.

  898. My name is Adam. This is my wife Diane.

  899. You know we're from Liberty and we want to come by and see you

  900. today. Honestly, if soon as if this is

  901. something that you have met through a visit here, they've

  902. been here before, there's immediately going to be a

  903. connection. I'm not saying it's always going

  904. to go well, it usually does at least, you know, for the most

  905. part, but you got to identify yourself or who you are.

  906. And that's why I loved having church polo shirts.

  907. We really should probably do that again.

  908. Dave and I were working on that and then I kind of dropped the

  909. ball on that. But it's nice to be able to go

  910. to somebody's house and have that right on your chest to be

  911. able to identify you're from Liberty Baptist Church and not

  912. from Verizon or not from Bill Pay Company or Bill Collection

  913. company. You're not the repo man or

  914. anything like that. Let them know immediately why

  915. you're there. We're in the area inviting

  916. people to church. That's true.

  917. Maybe if you're just doing door hangers, you're going from door

  918. to door. Somebody's out in the garden,

  919. they're working. Don't if we're doing door

  920. hangers and those kind of things and you're trying to, if

  921. someones in their garden, don't just walk past them and go to

  922. the door and then walk away. Okay, That is the opposite of

  923. you want to do. In fact, we're praying for those

  924. people to be out. That's why I love doing that

  925. outdoors once it's warmer, because people are outside the

  926. gardens. People are outside doing

  927. different things. Don't say why.

  928. I really don't want to interrupt you, you know, so I'm not going

  929. to, I'm just going to leave something on the door and walk

  930. away. They're going to think you're a

  931. creep. All right, Don't do that.

  932. Say hey, hey, I'm I'm sorry to interrupt you.

  933. Being a garden's beautiful. You're doing a great job here.

  934. But you know, I'm, I'm from Liberty Baptist Church and we're

  935. just inviting folks to church in the area today.

  936. I'll just wonder if you have a church that you go to, you'll be

  937. able to strike up a conversation just from that.

  938. These are things that you could do.

  939. I we're in the area inviting people to church.

  940. You could say, hey, we, you came to visit our back to school bash

  941. and we just want to come visit and see how your family's doing.

  942. Want to see if there's anything we could pray for you all about.

  943. That's a wonderful thing to be. You know, a lot of people can be

  944. offended about a lot of things, but when you tell someone you're

  945. going to pray for them, all of a sudden the defenses go down and,

  946. and, and I want to be careful how I say this.

  947. This is not a trick like let's let's ask them.

  948. About praying for them so we could.

  949. Well, if you say that, you really need to pray for them.

  950. Right then and there on the doorstep.

  951. But a great way to be able to talk to people about spiritual

  952. things. Hey, we, we, we noticed you came

  953. to the back to school back bashed in August.

  954. You know, it's been a few months since the beginning of the year.

  955. Our church is stopping by. We want to see if there's

  956. something we can pray for you about today.

  957. And of course they might say, well, you know, I have, I have

  958. someone who's very sick, my grandmother's and not in good

  959. shape. Well, what's her name?

  960. If do you mind if we could pray for her right now?

  961. We would like to do that. And you can do that.

  962. And then as the defenses have gone down and you show that

  963. you've cared about them, you could say there's one other

  964. thing I mentioned because really the greatest thing that anyone

  965. could really have is the gift of salvation.

  966. You can start by that or just ask them, you know, while we're

  967. here, you know, I would love to be able to talk to you about

  968. Jesus And if you were certain you're going to heaven someday,

  969. these are the ways that you can actually open up a conversation.

  970. A lot of times people don't want to make the ask because they

  971. feel like they can say, hi, I'm from Liberty Baptist Church.

  972. Are you going to heaven someday? You start talking to people like

  973. that, they're thinking, are you going to send me there?

  974. Why are you, Why are you asking me this question?

  975. You know something I don't know. And so these are things you

  976. could say, hey, you visited church last Sunday.

  977. We really try to make sure that everyone who visits who gives us

  978. a card. And a lot of times we don't get

  979. a card back from people. But if someone gives us a card,

  980. the next time we have visitation, we want to go see

  981. them and just tell them, hey, we're glad you visited.

  982. Do you have any questions? And of course, the real issue we

  983. want to get to is do they know Jesus Christ their Savior?

  984. Because again, we're not just the welcome wagon going by and

  985. saying, hey, isn't liberty great?

  986. And you like liberty? We like liberty.

  987. OK, well, see you at Liberty sometime.

  988. Well, we've completely missed the boat of what we're trying to

  989. do again. Do we want them to come back?

  990. Absolutely. We want to come back.

  991. But they could come here for 20 years.

  992. They don't accept the gospel. They're no better off.

  993. And so the real issue is that they need to understand the

  994. Gospel. Invite them back to church.

  995. This is a great question to ask people.

  996. Do you go to church anywhere? Do you go to church anywhere?

  997. It's a great question to ask because you will find that

  998. people will immediately answer in a variety of different ways.

  999. They'll tell you why I'm a Catholic.

  1000. I'm a Catholic. That doesn't answer the

  1001. question. They'll say I'm a Jew.

  1002. Now, remember how I answered that a few weeks ago?

  1003. Somebody says they're a Jew. You say, oh, you're 1 of God's

  1004. chosen people. Our church loves the Jewish

  1005. people. And all of a sudden, once their

  1006. heart, you know, starts beating again because they're so

  1007. surprised that you would say something like that, you might

  1008. be able to have a conversation with them.

  1009. But a lot of times people will say, oh, yeah, I go to church

  1010. Ohio. Which?

  1011. Which church do you go to? It's that one over.

  1012. It's over. I'm 44.

  1013. No, it should be maybe a one O 6.

  1014. It's amazing to me. People will tell you they go to

  1015. church and they couldn't even tell you what the name of the

  1016. church is. But I've met people like that so

  1017. many times. You go to Liberty, like what's

  1018. the name of the pastor? I don't remember.

  1019. I've been going for six months. I don't remember his name.

  1020. You know, Revivio, I don't know something like that, but you

  1021. say, hey, do you go to church anyway?

  1022. That's a very non threatening question, honestly, to ask you

  1023. go to church anywhere. You know, they know you go to

  1024. church, you go to church anywhere and you know they'll

  1025. answer that a host different ways and you can respond

  1026. accordingly. Hey, we're not trying to take

  1027. you from your church. I say that to people sometimes

  1028. and we're really not trying to steal people from churches.

  1029. If they're going to a good Bible preaching church, I'm not.

  1030. I don't want them to come here just because of that.

  1031. Really. I want people to know Jesus

  1032. Christ their savior. Now, if someone is going to

  1033. some, you know, Pagan church or something like that, I guess you

  1034. could say I do want them to steal them from the church

  1035. because we want them to get saved.

  1036. Amen. But so, so be honest about it.

  1037. But, but you could say we're not trying to steal you from your

  1038. church or take you from your church.

  1039. We love to have you visit our church this Sunday.

  1040. If possible, strike up a conversation while you're

  1041. talking to them. What I try to do is I'm walking

  1042. up the I'm not very observant about a lot of things.

  1043. There have been several guys here who have shaved a beard off

  1044. and I didn't notice like until two months later or changed a

  1045. haircut and I didn't realize it till a couple months later.

  1046. That's just the way I am. But I would tell you, I zero in

  1047. when I'm making a visit. I want to know the cars that are

  1048. there. I want to know what they're

  1049. driving. I want to know what's on the the

  1050. porch that they have, if I'm able to go in the house and make

  1051. a visit. I'm kind of looking around now.

  1052. I'm not trying to be a Snoop. I'm not Colombo or anything like

  1053. that. But the idea is I do find things

  1054. to make conversation and listen. Sometimes you'll swing and

  1055. sometimes you'll miss. It's OK.

  1056. I remember going into a visit several months ago.

  1057. It was actually the same visit I was talking to you about a

  1058. little bit earlier with the child and I saw one of the cars

  1059. had a veteran plate on it. And so I thought, here's a great

  1060. point of conversation right here.

  1061. And so the gentleman was in there and I said to him and part

  1062. of conversation I said, I saw you're a veteran.

  1063. I just want to thank you for your service.

  1064. And he goes, I'm not a veteran. And I said, well, I saw the

  1065. veteran and, and, and, and the woman there, she says, well, I'm

  1066. a veteran. And I was like, Oh, well, I

  1067. guess I just assumed the man was a veteran.

  1068. So thank you for your service. I was like, wow, I felt about

  1069. this big. I really did.

  1070. But I would tell you, and I say this to say, Pastor, this is not

  1071. a good illustration to tell us about why we should be more

  1072. personal people. When you work with people, you

  1073. can either just clam up because you might make a mistake, or you

  1074. can just do your best and people will appreciate you.

  1075. Do your best. There are times I get people's

  1076. names wrong because I'm trying to remember their name.

  1077. So I could just say, hey man, hey buddy, hey brother, buddy.

  1078. But you know, you can do that. That's the cover for everything

  1079. is hey buddy, how you doing? Or you can swing and you can

  1080. miss and you can make a joke about it.

  1081. You can laugh about it and then hopefully the next time you do

  1082. get. Now, if you just keep swinging 3

  1083. or 4 times in a row and missing like you got to, you got to get

  1084. a better system. But I think a lot of people are

  1085. afraid to make the mistake in being conversational with people

  1086. so they don't make conversation. But you're better off just

  1087. trying your best. You know what's funny about that

  1088. family? That we still I've laughed about

  1089. that with them several times since.

  1090. And honestly, talk about observance.

  1091. As I left, I looked at the license plate again and it had a

  1092. pink frame around it, and so I probably should have noticed

  1093. that pink frame probably doesn't belong to him and it probably

  1094. belongs to her being a veteran. But I swung and I missed.

  1095. But you know what? I still showed that I cared and

  1096. I tried. And that's what you need to do

  1097. as well. Don't let your fear of not being

  1098. able to make a connection or doing something wrong stop you

  1099. from trying to make that connection Now.

  1100. If possible, transition to talking about salvation.

  1101. You'll be able to tell how the conversation is going fairly

  1102. quickly. I've been at people's doors

  1103. before and the door is closing as I'm talking to them, and

  1104. unless I put my foot in the door, that door is going to

  1105. close on me. I can tell pretty certainly that

  1106. I'm not going to be able to make a gospel presentation there.

  1107. In fact, I would be better not to in the sense that maybe if I

  1108. can give them a track or something to hold on to, but if

  1109. I try not to handle myself like a fool there, that the next

  1110. person who does talk to about Jesus will have an opportunity

  1111. as long as I don't make it harder for that next one to come

  1112. by. Again, I'm not talking about

  1113. being not being emphatic. I think it's important that

  1114. we're passionate about what we're in, but we also need to

  1115. understand that, you know, some plant, some water, but God gives

  1116. the increase. There's many people along that

  1117. journey, Lord willing, who'll be able to impact them for the

  1118. Lord. And so you want to make sure

  1119. that you do do your best with that.

  1120. Very quickly. We'll go to the next page.

  1121. We'll we'll stop in the middle of this here.

  1122. And then we're going to get to really the nuts and bolts of the

  1123. verses and talking to people by the handout.

  1124. I want to give you tomorrow. It's not in here.

  1125. I mentioned it before because it's the perfect size to be able

  1126. to cut and put in front of the flyleaf of your Bible to be able

  1127. to answer questions. And I want to give that to you

  1128. tomorrow. But we'll get through some of

  1129. this. I'm going to give you a story,

  1130. then I'm going to be done here for tonight.

  1131. And then we'll take some questions if we have any, a

  1132. transition from your previous conversation, once we get to the

  1133. place, want to talk to people about the Lord.

  1134. Now you're not talking about veterans and now you're not

  1135. talking about the teams, and now you're not talking about those

  1136. different things. Now you want to really get to

  1137. the place we're talking about the Lord.

  1138. Because what if you're there for 30 minutes and you're just

  1139. talking about all these other random things and you never talk

  1140. about Jesus? We kind of missed the boat.

  1141. So you want to make sure you transition that conversation.

  1142. You can't ask. Do you mind if I ask you a

  1143. personal question? But it's not necessary.

  1144. You don't have to be able to do that, but I know some people

  1145. that do. And you can say something like

  1146. this. Even more important than church

  1147. is having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

  1148. I find that that's a good way for me to transition because I'm

  1149. talking about the church. I'm talking about the church

  1150. like, hey, we would love to have you at Liberty Baptist Church,

  1151. But you know, there's something more important than coming to

  1152. church, and that's having a relationship with Jesus Christ.

  1153. He said, well, that doesn't sound very natural.

  1154. It doesn't sound natural if you've ever said it before.

  1155. But if you get to the place where you are able to have a

  1156. conversation with somebody, you will find that it will become

  1157. more natural than it has before You could even say this.

  1158. I used to have some of the same doubts, but I've asked Christ to

  1159. be my Savior. My life has changed.

  1160. You can relate to them. Really, the best way that you

  1161. can relate to somebody is to tell them your testimony is to

  1162. be able to talk to them about what the Lord did to you.

  1163. I think of being outside really the first time I met you guys, I

  1164. think with Bill, with your dad, and we were outside talking and

  1165. you could tell the Lord was really working in his heart.

  1166. But at the same time, he just really wasn't want to make that

  1167. next step. And so, you know, you can only

  1168. ask somebody, you know, do you want to get saved?

  1169. You want to get saved so many times.

  1170. And they say no. But I really just felt like in

  1171. my spirit that there this conversation shouldn't be done

  1172. yet. And So what I did was instead of

  1173. just asking him the same question over and over again

  1174. from different angles, I just said, you know what, I kind of,

  1175. I was in a situation very similar to you.

  1176. I mean, I was only 16 years old, but, and what I did is I just

  1177. started, I just gave them a testimony.

  1178. And I've found that being a Lutheran, I can talk to a lot of

  1179. people, have a high church background, a Protestant

  1180. background, even a Catholic background and talk about the

  1181. sacraments and those kind of things.

  1182. And then able to do that. And it's amazing how many people

  1183. don't want to have the personal question about them, but they

  1184. will let you talk about you. And so that's a great place to

  1185. start about how the Lord has worked in your heart and in your

  1186. life. And there are two very important

  1187. questions to really understand where somebody is spiritually.

  1188. I think this is where we'll lay off here in just a moment.

  1189. And the first is this. If you were to die today, are

  1190. you 100% sure that you would go to heaven?

  1191. There's a lot of people that will say no to that question.

  1192. They'll say, I hope so. I think so.

  1193. I want to listen. Those are not the same as yes,

  1194. hope. So salvation is not what the

  1195. Bible says when it talks about having the hope of eternal life.

  1196. That's a firm confidence in eternal life.

  1197. That's not what this is talking about.

  1198. I, I, I hope so. I, I might, I, I, I don't know

  1199. that I can. I've done too many things.

  1200. These are things that I've had people say to me in the past,

  1201. but there are a decent amount of people who say absolutely,

  1202. absolutely. And now if you're not careful,

  1203. you'll automatically think, well, they're saved.

  1204. But there's more to it than that because you have to understand

  1205. if they actually understand the gospel message or not.

  1206. What if they've been in the Catholic Church all their life

  1207. and they firmly now, I don't know how they could in the

  1208. Catholic Church because they never have assurance.

  1209. That's why they keep working. But I have heard people say of

  1210. that fate, Well, yeah, well, I'm, I'm sure I'm going to

  1211. heaven. But they're relying on their

  1212. works. So the next question that I ask

  1213. is, well, you know, I imagine that you got to the gates of

  1214. heaven. I said, you know, it doesn't

  1215. work this way. It's not this way in the Bible,

  1216. but but just for us to be able to talk about this today,

  1217. imagine you got to the gates of heaven and there was someone

  1218. standing there and says, why should I let you into heaven?

  1219. What would you say? And that answer to the second

  1220. question is the most revealing of all because that's when

  1221. they'll say, well, I've been a good person.

  1222. Well, I've I've tried to help people.

  1223. I was in a church for 40 years, I was a founding member, and

  1224. that's when you could all of a sudden get to the point of, OK,

  1225. now I understand where they're coming from and I can better

  1226. understand how I can give them the gospel in their situation.

  1227. And we'll talk more about that tomorrow.

  1228. I will readily admit this is not an easy process and you may not

  1229. always have all the answers, but I'll tell you the one thing that

  1230. will overarchingly help everything is to love people.

  1231. Because if you love people, you will find that there will be

  1232. more opportunities that you can imagine.

  1233. And if you love people as Christ loved people, that you will be

  1234. able to, even if you don't have an answer for them right away,

  1235. that they'll be open enough for you to follow up with them and

  1236. talk to them again in the future.

  1237. Because people will ask you some very weird questions and you may

  1238. not have the answer. You say, again, Pastor, this is

  1239. not a good thing to tell us about wanting to share our

  1240. faith. What I'm telling you is this is

  1241. reality and don't let the fact that you don't have all the

  1242. answers stop you from giving the gospel.

  1243. I, I appreciate so much. I appreciate Charlie Kirk and,

  1244. and the videos and the things that he stood for.

  1245. Very much so his mind worked in a, a way that it's hard for me

  1246. to even fathom. People would ask him very

  1247. difficult questions and he could answer with grace and authority.

  1248. In a second. I don't get it.

  1249. I don't understand how we did it, but I think a lot of times

  1250. we think that the only way we can be a real soul winner is

  1251. that we have to be the exact same way.

  1252. I have to answer every question, every moment the right way.

  1253. And if I don't, no one will ever get saved.

  1254. Now what you really need to do is just let the spirit lead love

  1255. on people. And if you don't have the

  1256. answer, say I don't have the answer to that, but we can talk

  1257. again. I know where the answer is for

  1258. the Anthony. I have some fellowship today and

  1259. he asked me a question. I'm almost embarrassed about

  1260. this. I've been a pastor for 12,

  1261. almost 13 years. I've been in the full time

  1262. ministry over 20 years. He asked me a question,

  1263. obviously came from some some soul winning that he's doing

  1264. with some working with somebody and he want to get my opinion on

  1265. it. He asked me this question and I

  1266. just sat there for about 15 seconds and I kind of felt dumb,

  1267. to be honest with you, Anthony, because they're like, why don't

  1268. I have an answer to this? Because it was a little bit kind

  1269. of out there. I don't know that anyone had

  1270. ever framed that thought in that way to me before.

  1271. And I kind of worked through it. After a few minutes, I just kept

  1272. talking until I finally was like, Oh no, that's it.

  1273. I think that's it. That's what I would do.

  1274. It took me a few minutes. But if I study the Bible for a

  1275. living, not just getting sermons, but then also for

  1276. study, for personal and just my own edification.

  1277. And I could admit to you tonight that there are times that I

  1278. don't just have the right answer right away.

  1279. It's true for all of us. Don't let that stop you from

  1280. being a witness. That's Satan trying to tell you

  1281. now. One, we can sharpen our tools.

  1282. We can learn more. There's some of the stuff we

  1283. talked about today. It's like I got to dig into that

  1284. after I dig into some of the other stuff that I have on my

  1285. list of things I need to dig into.

  1286. But at the same time, you can look at somebody in the eye and

  1287. say, I don't know the answer to that today, but I know where the

  1288. answer is. And if we can meet another time,

  1289. we can meet next week. If I can call you during the

  1290. week, I'd be glad to tell you what the Bible says.

  1291. But I'm not going to try to pretend to give you an answer

  1292. that I don't know. I'd much rather be honest and

  1293. tell you I don't know. Because The thing is, when it

  1294. comes to soul winning, this is again not, we'll go full circle

  1295. here. This is not a debate to win.

  1296. Well, I answered the question fastest and most articulate.

  1297. So I win. Though this is an issue of truth

  1298. against error. Truth always went, and so we

  1299. need to make sure that we are being truthful in what we say

  1300. and how we say it. And if you don't have the answer

  1301. right away, don't be embarrassed, don't be ashamed.

  1302. You're not a failure. You should never go share the

  1303. gospel again. You just go back to the word,

  1304. find out where you missed it, find out what the answer is.

  1305. Go to another soul winner. By the way, it's another reason

  1306. to have two by two, because the other person might have the

  1307. answer when you don't, but you can go and get the help that

  1308. they need. Thank you for listening to the

  1309. sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.

  1310. If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we

  1311. can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at

  1312. [email protected]. Or you can visit us this Sunday

  1313. at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.

  1314. May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.