Soulwinning Conference (Night 1) | February 11, 2026

Welcome to the Liberty Baptist Sermon Archives.

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

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

or contact us at my libertybaptist.org or just look

us up on Facebook. And now we hope that this

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

If you haven't already, there are these packets in the back

and if you'd go grab 1 instead of a prayer bulletin back there,

they're right there at the front door.

These are the notes for the conference that'll be coming up

for the next few days. Tonight are just blanks.

You'll know why because it's more of a preaching that we'll

be doing this evening as far as a session.

But then after that, you'll find there's a lot of practical

helps. We'll be going through those.

There's no blanks inside of them.

And I will say for those who are watching online, if you would

like to have a copy of these materials, you're not able to be

here tonight or this week. You're part of our church.

Just e-mail me at [email protected].

I'll send you a PDF of this so you can follow along as well.

We'll also have another handout that we'll be giving you the

next couple days on top of this. I don't have it in this packet

here because it's something that you can cut and fold and

actually put in your Bible to be able to help you to know where

to find verses to be able to share with people.

Maybe if you're talking about your faith, where you can find

verses about different subjects that might come up in those

conversations. But you ask yourself, what is

soul winning? What is this idea of soul

winning? Maybe you've never heard it

before and it just sounds kind of weird to you.

And that's maybe understandable. But the Bible says that he that

winneth souls is wise. The idea of being is that when

we share our faith with someone else that we can win them to

Christ. Now of course we are not the

ones who save people. It's only Jesus who can save

anyone. It's not us.

But God does want to use us and has chosen to use us to be able

to share our faith with other people.

It's always interesting to me after being involved as the Lord

has allowed me to several times over the years, to see someone

come to Christ. Sometimes later on they'll refer

to me as they're talking with someone else to say this is the

man who saved me or this is the pastor who saved me.

And of course, I understand as they are new to the faith that

they probably don't understand exactly what they mean.

But at the same time, I can't save someone.

You can't save someone this evening.

We couldn't save ourselves and we can't save someone else.

But God has chosen us to be his ambassadors.

God has called us to be the ones who would go and to be able to

give the message of the good news of Jesus Christ to everyone

we come in contact with. And so we want to help you with

that this week. And so I really want us to lay

down some philosophy of that this evening and really focus in

one key area. And so if you go to the front of

your packet here, you'll see that there's a lot of blanks and

it says how to have a greater burden for the lost.

And you can just write some notes as we go along this

evening. And then again tomorrow, I'll

probably be down in the pulpit on the floor and it'll be a

little bit more of a question and answer as we go through.

If you have questions, you'll certainly be able to ask those.

We'll try to make that time available to you as we go along

to be more interactive that it will be tonight.

And tonight, admittedly, will be more of a sermon like we would

normally have on a Wednesday night.

But I do feel it's important for us to set the table for what we

are going to talk about the next few days.

Really, the philosophical part is why should I do this?

Why should I even share my faith in the 1st place?

It's uncomfortable to share your faith with someone else.

You're putting yourself out there.

You don't know how they're going to respond.

You might even be worried. Will they still be friends with

me? Will they shut me out or shut me

down? Will they laugh at me?

Will they ask me questions that I don't know the answer to?

And there's a million and one reasons why we don't share our

faith with other people. But there's one overarching

reason that we should. And that's really where I want

us to focus on tonight. And so we're going to turn to

Revelation chapter #20 So if you'll do that, I want you to

turn to Revelation chapter #20 Why should we share our faith

with loss? Why should we overcome the fact

that we are uncomfortable? Why should we overcome the fact

that we might feel like we don't speak well?

Why should we overcome the fact that we may not know as much

about the Bible as someone else? Why is it important?

Why don't, why do we even go through all of this in the 1st

place? Well, there's a reason.

And the main reason that I want you to focus on tonight is this.

It's because the Lake of Fire is real.

This isn't a palatable message in a lot of churches today, even

those that would call themselves so-called fundamental.

There's a lot of churches that would not admit to you that the

Lake of Fire is a very real place.

And I want us to see this evening that in life the stakes

dictate the pace. What does that mean?

Well, I'll explain you here to just a second.

All right, that the stakes dictate the pace.

Now, can I give you a very unspiritual example?

We'll start there, and then we'll bring it to the much more

spiritual example as we go on through the Word of God.

You say what would be an unspiritual example?

Well, consider the National Football League.

That's a great place to start for an unspiritual example,

isn't it? And I consider that they have

different games that they play throughout the year, but not all

the games are the same. I would give you the Pro Bowl.

The Pro Bowl has been played for years and years.

It is the All Star game of the NFL.

And for the most part, it really means, well, absolutely nothing.

Whether the National Conference wins or the American Football

Conference wins, NFC or AFC, nobody really remembers.

And because of that, it seems that the players don't play very

hard. In fact, if you've seen over the

years, there's absolutely no defense whatsoever because the

game is meaningless and they don't want to get hurt.

That's really all that it comes down to.

And so because of that, the last few years, the NFL has decided

to turn the Pro Bowl into a flag football game.

You can't even make this up because it says there's not

going to be a defense anyway, and they're not going to really

tackle each other. You might as well put flags on

the side of them and, you know, just kind of grab those flags.

All these guys are making millions and millions of

dollars, and they're grabbing flags off of each other.

Why they do it Because the game doesn't matter.

So we take that game. The Pro Bowl matters not at all.

What about the preseason? Three games of preseason?

I believe it is now that the National Football League plays

and you'll see some hustle in the preseason, particularly from

those who were on the edge of being on the team or not.

Some of them are afraid are being cut.

Maybe they were signed as free agents, they were undrafted.

Whatever it is, they're going to give a lot of hustle.

But I'll tell you, your mainline players, they're going at half

speed at best. And the reason why is they just

want to be good for the regular season.

They want to be able to go full strength and don't want to blow

out a knee, blood and ACL during the preseason.

So you'd have the Pro Bowl, which would be way down here,

and then you would have the preseason, which would be a

little bit higher than you have the regular season, right?

Well, now is the time to play ball.

Now is the time to really give it all your effort.

And as they're supposed to do, they would do so and that would

be the regular season. But then the stakes get even

higher in the regular season. What happens?

It's the playoffs. When you're in the playoffs,

what happens? You got to win every game.

If you don't win your last game, you're out.

In fact, someone just asked Mike Vrabel at a press conference

right before the Super Bowl. They asked him, do you think

this is a must win game? And I think This is why

Americans don't trust the press, all right?

Because if you have to ask the question in the Super Bowl, this

a must win game. Yes, you have to win.

If you lose, you're done. You understand what I'm saying?

Tonight, the stakes are high and So what are they doing?

They are going all out. They're leaving it all in the

field because the stakes are so high.

Listen, low stakes, what are you going to do?

You're not going to give a lot of effort.

As the stakes go up, the effort is greater.

Now, let's go to something that's maybe a little bit more

spiritual than the National Football League, but let's talk

about a firefighter. A firefighter is given an oath

that they are going to give their best to be able to protect

property and most importantly, protect people.

But if they get a call about a fire that's taking place in an

area and it seems like there's no property being endangered and

certainly no people are being endangered, they're going to

contain the fire, but they're not going to go to extreme

measures because, well, property and people are safe.

Now, what happens if there's a house fire but there's nobody

inside the house? Well, they're going to give a

lot more effort, but they're probably not going to give the

greatest amount of effort, which I would even say is over the top

effort, which would be someone's in that house and someone could

perish. If someone doesn't just rush in

there and do something that may be very dangerous but is

necessary to save the life of a person.

You see, when the stakes are low, the effort's low.

And as the stakes raise up, the effort is higher.

Now, let's get to a spiritual realm here now, because we're

not talking about the National Football League tonight.

Amen. We're not talking about the

firefighters here tonight. And I'm thankful for those

firefighters that serve so selflessly, but we're talking

about a soul winning conference. And so I want to spend some time

this evening really reminding us about what's at stake.

I think because we don't think about the stakes, our effort is

low. But when we truly understand

what is at stake, when someone trusts Jesus Christ their Savior

or when someone rejects Jesus Christ their Savior because we

forget the stakes for what they are, what happens?

Our effort is low. But if we truly understood, if

we truly had front of mind, that the lake of fire is a real

place, that eternal judgment is real.

And I know this is not a palatable subject.

I know this is not something that makes people excited.

You know how I know that I'm looking at you right now?

No one's jumping up and down about this.

No one's excited about it. But woe is it unto us if we

don't explore and examine and proclaim the fact that the lake

of fire is a real place. And those who reject Jesus

Christ as their Savior, those who refuse the gospel message,

will spend an eternity in that place, which should spur us to

action. Because the urgency is great.

Because the stakes are great, Our effort must also be great.

Revelation chapter #20 Let's begin in verse #10 It says in

the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and

brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall

be tormented day and night, forever and ever.

And I saw a great white throne in him that sat on it, whose

face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was no

place found, no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and

great, stand before God. And the books were open.

Another book was open, which is the Book of Life.

And the dead were judged out of those things which were written

in the books according to their works.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it.

And death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them.

And they were judged every man according to their works.

And death and hell were cast in the Lake of Fire.

This is the second death. And whosoever was not found

written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

Now drop down into chapter 21 and verse 8, and we'll read just

one verse. But the fearful and unbelieving

and the abominable, and murderers and whoremongers and

sorcerers and adulterers and all liars shall have their part in

the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the

second death. What we see before us is

sobering. What we see before us is serious

here tonight. In fact, it's so controversial,

if you will, that there are many who would just not talk about it

at all and not preach about it at all, hoping that that would

dim the reality of what we see here.

But yet the reality is tonight that what we see is real.

And whether we preach it or not, it is just as real.

And so it's incumbent upon me as a pastor, it's incumbent upon us

to church to open our eyes to what is here tonight and

recognize although the world takes the word hell and use it

as a curse word, and the world takes the word damn and use it

as a curse word to try to desensitize themselves to its

reality. The world tries to take Satan

and turn him into a cartoon character with a pitchfork and a

ale and a smoke and a cigar. And the world tries to give the

idea that if you go to hell, it's really just going to be 1

big kegger or one big party. That that's all it's going to

be. A bunch of your pals together,

rousing and carousing with one another for all eternity.

This is what the world tries to say to dull their senses to the

reality of what we see here tonight.

But yes, Hell is real. The lake of fire is real.

We see it right here in our text tonight.

But there are those who would simply say that the soul sleeps

and that there is no eternal judgement whatsoever.

There were some even in Christian circles who would

present that as reality tonight. Even Kirk Cameron, just a few

weeks ago, has gone online publicly moving away from the

belief of the Bible that there is eternal conscious torment in

hell. He's talked about the fact that

it seems like that's out of God's character, and it seems

like that would not be something that God would do.

And it's amazing to me that there are people that would try

to judge what God's character is.

When we have to recognize that, how are we able to judge who God

is at all apart from the word of God?

And God is love. In fact, greater love had no man

than this. The man laid down his life for

his friends. God is love, but God is holy and

God is just. And you can't take the holiness

of God without the love of God. You can't take the love of God

without the holiness and the justice of God.

It's two sides of the same coin. And so, yes, some even in

Christian circles, because of their uncomfortableness with the

message, because they don't want to think about this.

And I get it. I understand it here tonight.

I have compassion on it, But woe to me as a preacher and woe to

us as Christians if because of our uncomfortableness with a

subject that we cast a blind eye toward it and pretend it's not

there. And in fact, Satan would love

that. Because as our urgency goes

down, what happens? Our effort goes down.

When you truly believe that people will die and split hell

wide open after their death, if they don't know Jesus Christ

your Savior, it'll do something to you, to your urgency to tell

other people about Jesus Christ. So I don't like this pastor.

My answer is I don't like it either.

And that's why we're here, because we want to do something

about it. That God has given a remedy, and

that remedy is the blood of Jesus Christ.

That God has given a plan, and that plan is the gospel.

In fact, I'd submit to you tonight that nobody talked about

hell more than Jesus Christ. People don't think that.

People don't believe that. But Jesus doesn't just reference

hell, He goes into it in great detail.

Consider this short list here tonight.

He says It's a place of eternal torment in Luke 1623, of

unquenchable fire in Mark 943, a place where the worm dieth not

in Mark 948, a place where people will gnash their teeth

and anguish and regret in Matthew 1342.

A place from where there's no return even to warn their loved

ones in Luke 1619 through 31, a place in Luke 16 with the

parable rather the story of the rich man and Lazarus.

I've said before that I don't believe it's a parable.

It's a real story because parables don't use real names.

And the Bible doesn't just say that that Lazarus was in

torment. But if you read your King James

Bible, you will see that it says it's the plural, that he's in

torments. And he says if I could just have

a drip of water, a little drop of water to cool my tongue in

this flame. No, Jesus called a hell a place,

even outer darkness. In Matthew 25 verse 30, Jesus

Matthew 25:30

talks about hell more than he talks about heaven and describes

it much more vividly. There's no denying that Jesus

knew, believed, and warned people actively about a real

place called hell, which eternally will turn to the lake

of fire. And sometimes we use

colloquially that the term that someone will spend an eternity

in hell. And that's I understand why we

say that. But really it says here in verse

#14 and death in hell were cast in the lake of fire.

This is the second death for all eternity.

Those who die and go to hell will spend an eternity in the

lake of fire after the judgment. And we'll look at this here in

just a moment. There are those who try to

spiritualize the verses and say, well, this isn't what Jesus

meant. There's some who will say it's

just an analogy. Again, there were some who say

that's outside the character of God, but we have to take the

Word of God for what it is. And if heaven is real, then hell

is just as real. If hell is just a state of mind,

is heaven just a state of mind? If hell is or hell is something

that's just a concept but not a reality, is heaven just a

concept, not reality? But we find very firm teaching

that heaven is real that I would suggest you keep reading in

Revelation chapter 21 and beyond and you'll find that heaven is

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

real. But that means this, the lake of

fire is just as real as well. There's three things I want us

to see here tonight. And the first is this,

Understand the certainty of judgment of the unbeliever.

Understand the certainty of judgment of the unbeliever.

And again, you can write these down in your notes here tonight.

Understand the certainty of judgment of the unbeliever.

Look at verse #11 with me again, if you will.

And it says, I saw a great white throne, Him that sat on it, and

whose face the earth and the heavens fled away, and there was

found no place for them. And I saw the dead small and

great, stand before God. And the books were open, and

another book was open, which is the book of life.

And the dead were judged out of those things which were written

in the books according to their works.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and

hell delivered up the dead which were in them.

And they were judged, every man according to their works.

I see first of all here that when it comes to the issue of

judgement that it's complete, what does it say?

It says that no one has missed. It says that it's the small,

it's the great. It was the ones who remained

alive and those who were dead. It was all those of this great

white throne judgment, all those who rejected Jesus Christ as

their savior. It is a certainty that they are

here at this place. Remember book of Hebrews tells

us and I mentioned this. I feel like every other week

around here at liberty. It's been appointed unto man

once to die, and after this, the judgment, that's as certain as

you could find anything in the Word of God.

And it's certain here that there's a group of people that

come before the great White Throne judgment.

The great, those with money, those with power, those with

prestige, those with cachet, those who invented their own

religions. They are all there, the great

and the small. Those who felt like it really

didn't matter and that they didn't matter.

The small and the great, the small and the great.

That's the right way, all right. The small and the great, they're

all there standing before this Great White Throne judgment.

Really we find that the issue comes around what's called the

Book of life, the book of life. 7 different times in the Book of

Revelation, the book of life is mentioned.

I'm of the belief and I wouldn't argue with anyone over this.

OK, I'd argue with you about it, but I'd argue very nicely about

it. I'd argue that every single

person's name is found in the Book of life because there's a

time, it says in Revelation chapter 3, verse five, he that

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

overcometh. And if you study the seven

letters that were written to the seven pastors of the seven

churches there in Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3, you'll

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

find that the end of each of them, there's a section to the

overcomers. And it seems to me those are

people who have trusted Jesus Christ their Savior.

It's not saying that they overcome in the sense that you

have to work to be saved. We know that's not the gospel

message, but the way it's speaking is of those who have

already known Jesus Christ their Savior.

So it says he didn't overcome it.

The same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not

blot out His name out of the Book of Life.

But I will confess His name before my Father and before his

angels. It's of my understanding.

This is just me, but I do believe I'm standing on

scriptural ground here tonight to say that every person's name

is written into the book of life until they get to the place

where they depart from this life.

And their name is then blotted out for not having trusted Jesus

Christ as their Savior. I mean this, they had the

opportunity. They had the chance that

everyone, by the way, not even what the Calvinists would teach

that, well, their names were already blotted out before the

foundation of the world. No, no, that everyone had the

opportunity to be saved, but yet they came to the place where

they have rejected Jesus Christ. If your name is blotted out, as

it says here, the books were opened.

It says another book was open, which is the book of life.

The dead were judged out of those things which were written

in the books for their work. So there's a lot of books there,

isn't there? So we've already established

there's a book of life that's in the middle of that verse.

But it says there's also books that are open.

Understand that the Great White Throne judgment, this will be

for unbelievers, the unbelievers who will be here and they will

be judged. I could imagine that the

conversation will go something like this and I, I can't even

begin to imagine exactly what this scene in its holiness and

severity will be. But I can imagine that the book

of life is opened and that person's name is blotted out.

And the question will then be, by what of your, your own works

should you enter into the Kingdom of heaven?

If not by what Jesus Christ did in the cross, by what of your

works will you enter in? And that person will make a plea

upon their life, the plea upon the good things that they've

done, the money that they've given, how philanthropic they

were, how caring they were for the poor, how they're a member

of a church, how they were partaking of the sacraments.

But yet I believe it says when the books were open, the answer

to what those books are is at the end of the verse out of

those things which were written in the books according to their

works. So your name is not in the book

of life. Well, then you will be judged

upon your own works. We could even put it this way.

If you can't be saved by the righteousness of Christ, which

is the only way to be saved, Amen.

If you can't be saved by the righteousness of Christ, you

have to prove that you could be saved by your own righteousness.

And the absolute horror of that is that every single person will

be guilty. Why?

Because all of sin had come short of the glory of God.

Isaiah 64 six. But we were all as an unclean

thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags, and we all

do fate as a leaf. Our iniquities, like the wind,

have taken us away. God saw me as a teenager who

would swear and like to cause trouble, like to not listen to

his parents. No, I wasn't the worst teenager

on the planet, but I was trying to get there if I could.

I was trying to do what I could wrong.

I thank the Lord on that road that was leading straight to

hell, a road that was paved with good intentions and Lutheran

works, that I found Jesus Christ, that he saved me.

I'm thankful for that, but God commendeth His love toward us in

that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, for the

unbeliever. There is no escaping this day.

The small and the great, they all stood there, those alive and

those who had died previously, they all stood there.

It says death and hell were cast rather right verse #13 right

above it. And the sea gave up the dead

which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which

were in them, and they were judged every man again according

to their works. There's no escaping this day.

But I should be a little bit more precise than that.

There's no escaping this day on your own.

John 336. He that believeth on the Son

hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall

not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.

That word wrath, if you look at the 1828 dictionary, is this

because we use the term wrath today?

If I'm filled with wrath, I can tell you nothing wholly about

it. In fact, it's probably filled

with my own anger, my own emotions.

The wrath of God is not like the wrath of man.

The wrath of God is a holy wrath, if you will.

In fact, again, that definition, His holy and just indignation

for sin. The wrath of God abideth on the

unsaved, but he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting

life. John 336 Romans 59 just

mentioned Romans 58. Much more than being justified

now by what is blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

So #1 understand the certainty of judgment for the unbeliever

that I'll put a pep in our step when it comes to the issue of

soul winning. Understand the certainty of

judgment of the unbeliever. But #2 tonight, understand this

the clear reality of the lake of fire.

Understand the clear reality of the Lake of fire.

Now we understand this evening, the thought of the lake of fire

is unpleasant, but yet we see it's a reality.

In our text. We just read verses 11 through

13 where it said that this is what's going to take place in

that great White Throne judgment, but it says in verse

14 and death and hell again, hell being that temporary hold

in place, it is appropriate for us to say that someone can die

and go to hell if they don't accept Jesus Christ as their

Savior. However, they will not spend an

eternity in hell. If we're being technical about

what the Bible says, and we ought to try to be biblical and

what the Bible says, it says that they were cast in the lake

of fire. This is the second death, and

this is where they will abide for all eternity.

That's why it goes to verse #8 But the fearful and unbelieving

and the abominable, and murders and whoremongers and sorcerers,

idolterers and all liars shall have their part in the lake of

fire, which in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone,

which is the second death. I mentioned just a few moments

ago, Luke chapter #16 he said that he was in torments.

I'm tormented in this flame. It says in verse #24 of Luke

chapter #16 there are many arguments for a literal fiery

hell, and I'm not going to go through all of them this

evening. That's not the point of the

message. But I will say the Bible is

clear on the issue. And it's uncomfortable to be

able to get to the place where you say this is what the Bible

says, particularly when you're looking at someone else who, if

they don't get saved, is going there.

But again, I want to make clear, the fact that you are

uncomfortable with what the Bible says should not suppress

you from giving the gospel. It actually should encourage us

to go again, Why? The stakes are high.

In fact, they couldn't be any higher.

We're not talking about this life alone.

We're talking about the life to come.

And so we must do all that we can to let people know about the

reality of the Lake of Fire. It is a place of real torment.

It is a place of real flame. It is a place of outer darkness.

I've heard people say, well, well, how can it be flames and

outer darkness at the same time? And, and certainly the way that

we look at things in this life, we would see that that might not

be possible. But I've also heard that there

are sunspots on the sun that are dark that actually could be the

hottest parts of the sun. So certainly scientifically that

could be the case, but may also remind you that God's in control

of all of those things. And if God says there's outer

darkness and God says there's flames at the same time, I have

a feeling God can do that, That we just take the word of God for

what it is instead of trying to square the circle and trying to

make it into what we want it to be.

There's a lot of things about heaven that don't make sense,

but we see it there. How are there 12 gates of 12

pearls? You know, sometimes we read it

as gates of Pearl, the pearly gates, you know, that there's

just these pearls that are studded over.

It says 12 gates and 12 pearls. That means 12 oysters that are

really big. All right, that don't make

sense, but that's what the Bible says.

But nobody blinks at that. Why?

Because it's heaven and it makes us feel good.

Nobody questions what the Bible says about heaven because it

gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling.

And to be honest with you, it ought to.

But there's a different kind of warm feeling that should be

given to us about hell. It should be a burning within

our bosom to be able to tell as many people to avoid this place

because Jesus Christ does not want them to go there.

That's why he came to this earth.

That's why he died on the cross. That's why he rose again so that

all could be saved. That's his desire to seek and to

save that which was lost. And I would argue as well that

perhaps the greatest reality of hell is not the flame itself.

The flame is real. I think I've made that clear

over the last 2025 minutes. I'm not discounting that, but

the fact that is eternal separation from God for all

eternity. Separation from God for all

eternity. See, the lost can't even

understand that because they have the common graces of this

earth. The rain falls upon the just and

the unjust. They receive the kindness of God

and they don't even realize it. But imagine for all eternity no

longer receiving that kindness. They can't even fathom what it

would be. You understand, to the lost,

this world is as close to heaven as they'll ever get.

That's a sobering thought. To the believer, this world is

close to hell as we'll ever get. And thank the Lord for that,

because this world's still pretty amazing.

The heavens declare the glory of God in the firmament.

Show this handiwork. But what I'm saying is, for the

believer, it just gets better from here.

But for the unsafe, this is as good as it gets.

And then that common grace that they have now, the idea that God

does rain upon the just, the unjust that will be gone.

How do we in words articulate that?

I don't know that I can. I just know that it's real.

And I also know this, that those who would spend an eternity in

hell, that was their desire because God kept saying come and

they kept saying no, and he will give them what they want.

In just a few moments, they'll realize it's not what I wanted

at all. Do I understand it all?

I don't. I understand enough from what

the word of God says. That ought to put some urgency

into telling other people about Jesus Christ.

Number one, we need to understand the certainty of

judgment of the unbeliever #2 we need to understand the clear

reality of the lake of fire, and #3 we need to understand the

choice of all mankind. We're all guilty before God, all

deserving of eternal punishment. But again, the good news is that

Christ desires for all to be saved.

John 317 and 18 For God sent not his Son into the world to

condemn the world, but the world through Him might be saved.

He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he had believeth

not is condemned already, because he had not believed in

the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Luke 19, verse 10 For the Son of man has come to seek and to save

Luke 19:10

that which was lost. I referenced that a few moments

ago. John 129 For the next day, John

seeth Jesus coming unto him, and behold the Lamb of God, which

taketh away the sin of the world.

The choice is real. Now if this was a Sunday

morning, I would make a little bit more of an appeal to those

who are here that don't know Jesus Christ their Savior.

And I want them to wake up to the reality that judgment is

real. Now, I'll say this on a

Wednesday night, I don't know people's individual state before

the Lord, and I'm not trying to talk people out of being saved.

That's not my desire. But I will say I don't know the

hearts of every person here tonight necessarily from the

inside out, which you might be struggling with.

I don't know who's watching tonight or listening to this

later. I will say this, if you have

questions, it is not worth taking a chance for all eternity

because of your pride, because of your fear, because of the

thought of what will other people think?

What will other people think? They thought I was saved

already. You know, I can't imagine that

if you were struggling with your salvation and you truly were

born again and you came before the church and you announced

this or we announced it for you on your behalf that someone

would come up and say, I can't believe you.

You walked around here for years and you were you said you were

saved. I don't want anything to do with

you. Who are you're a charlatan.

You're you're not. We don't want you here anymore.

That's what Satan wants you to think.

The Bible says you get saved, the angels will rejoice, and I

imagine the angels ought to rejoice and we ought to too.

Amen. If you're struggling with that

and you need to get saved and get saved, there's no person in

this room that would say anything other than praise the

Lord. You got it right.

You got it taken care of. Don't worry about that.

Don't. These are the things that Satan

puts in the minds of people to be able to keep them in the Pew

or to be able to keep them from kneeling down and accepting

Christ as their Savior. These are the things, but truly

I want us to just talk for ourselves here for the next few

moments here tonight because we're the ones that understand

this truth. You understand this truth

because you're saved. So you have to understand that

this is real. But here's the problem is that

we understand theologically that it's real.

It's a lot like we talked about with omnipotence on Sunday.

Theologically we understand it's real, but if we're not careful

has no practical application in our day-to-day life.

Well, I'm not going there. I guess I'll go on my merry way.

And by the way, thank the Lord we're not going there.

But that doesn't mean that it should never cross our thought

process for the rest of our lives.

It ought to be able to govern the way we think about the lost.

It ought to govern the burden that we have to be able to share

our faith with other people. Why are we doing what we're

doing this week? Because we all need, first of

all, to learn how to share our faith.

But #2 we all need to be reminded why it's so important

to share our faith. Because we get to the point with

this world that it just annoys us more than anything, and we

just want to be done with them. Am I the only one here tonight

like that? OK, Good.

I'm not the only real person here tonight.

OK. Because you see what's going on

out there. And it's almost to the point

that you could say something like this.

Just let them go to hell. And I don't say that flippantly.

I'm saying that that can be the attitude.

If that's what they want, let them go.

But Charles Spurgeon said this. He said, if sinners be damned,

at least let them leap to hell over our dead bodies.

If they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about

their knees, imploring them to stay.

If hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our

exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unpraed.

For he's saying this, if they go, If they go, it's not because

of our lack of doing what we can to tell them everything we can

about Jesus. Now understand, that doesn't

mean that every time you come in contact with someone, you give

them a gospel presentation. You're going to have a hard time

getting through the day if you do that every time you meet

somebody. That doesn't mean everybody you

meet at work, you give a gospel presentation every time you're

with them. You may not work at that job for

very long, but it does mean this.

It means that you are to show Christ to everyone you come in

contact with. It means that you may be the

only Bible they ever read. I'll run that by you one more

time. You may be the only Bible they

ever read. I mean, what they know about

Christianity doesn't come from this book because they haven't

opened it. It comes from how you handle

yourself. That ought to be a sobering

thought for us tonight because when we're just done with this

world, and again, this world is crazy and people are crazy and

it's amazing to me when I preach messages like this.

That seems like the day that I preach messages like this, the

Lord brings every cuckoo bird out of the out of the Bush to

come in contact with me to remind me, well, yeah, they need

to be saved too. They need to be saved too.

Because all I'm thinking is that person on customer service that

is not getting it. I don't care whether they go to

heaven or not. That person that cut me off, I

don't care if they go to heaven or not.

But the problem is I have to care whether they go to heaven

or not. Can I show Jesus to that person

who cut me off? No, you can show a lot of

ungodliness for sure. But you know, I can show in the

way I handle myself and keep my spirit, right, so that when I

get out of the car, I'm not so messed up that I'm not able to

be able to minister to someone else because I'm so agitated in

my spirit. It all goes together.

And the idea is, is that you and I have to truly believe and

understand. I know that you believe tonight.

We have to have deep within our heart that this place is so real

that we will do anything we can to make sure we tell as many

people as we can so that they can be saved.

That's why we're here now. We're here to fulfill the Great

Commission. We saw that on Sunday, Matthew

28, and God will empower us to fill the Great Commission.

But the same time, what's the very first part of the Great

Commission got to win people to Christ.

We got to be able to share the gospel with the people around

us. And I'm just afraid that for us

as believers, we weigh out the pros and the cons of sharing our

faith and the cons of awkwardness, uncertainty, social

stigma, All of those things weigh out the fact of that

person will spend an eternity in the lake of fire if they don't

get saved. And it shows that we have a real

misunderstanding when we're more worried about our temporary

miscomfort than we are about someone's eternal discomfort.

I'm speaking to myself here tonight.

I am. I have friends, I have family

that I have not given the gospel as I should.

I'm not saying I never have, but I have not as I should.

And again, you have to be careful because if you give it

to them every time you talk to them and never love on them,

then they're not going to listen to the message either.

So you do have to be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove.

If you're hitting them with the gospel gun every time you see

them, they're going to be like, hey, layoff, do you even care

about me as a person? And you want to say, well, I do

care about you as a person. This is why I'm telling you

this. But sometimes people need to see

how much you care before they want to hear that message.

I'm getting into some other part of philosophy here tonight, so I

don't want to get too far off. But I will say there's so many

people that are out there. And just because we get

aggravated or don't like them or because of any of those things,

we don't want to give them the gospel.

But I will tell you this, the best thing you can do is to keep

deep within your heart the reality of what we've spoken

here tonight because it will push you through doing a lot of

things you normally wouldn't do. You know, there are types of in

certain situations where maybe I don't want to have a

confrontation. I'm just talking about in

general. I'm even talking about the

gospel. Y'all just let something go.

If there's a situation at a restaurant, they bring me the

wrong food or maybe it's not as hot as I wanted to be.

Maybe just because of time or whatever, I'll just say, you

know, whatever, it's fine. I'll just, I'll eat it.

I'll, I'll leave it alone, whatever.

The stakes are low. But I think about, you know, if

you mess with my kids or you mess with my wife, all of a

sudden, the whole idea of not being comfortable with

confrontation, I'm going to be able to overcome that real

quickly. You know why?

Because I love them. My part, you know the food big

deal. I need to protect them.

I'm going to do what I need to do.

There are people that need you to protect them and they don't

even realize there are trouble. They don't even realize what's

up ahead. And here we are.

We have the greatest gift but there ever could be, and it's

almost as if when we get it, we're satisfied.

Well, I'm good. Aren't you glad someone didn't

do that to you and got out of their comfort zone a little bit

to talk to you about salvation? I could go on.

I'm going to, I'm going to stop here in just a moment.

But I do want you to consider for just a moment there was a

message that was preached here in New England 300 so years ago

by Jonathan Edwards, called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry

God. That message sparked what would

later be called the First Great Awakening here in the United

States. I'd encourage you to read it if

you never have before. You can find it on PDF form

online. There's no live stream of it

back then, sorry, 300 years ago, but you'll have to read it.

It was said that as Jonathan Edwards preached A sermon,

interestingly enough, he read it in a manuscript form.

We're not talking about a man who, you know, doing all this

kind of stuff. That's.

Yeah, that's. I'm glad you're back, Rick.

Thank you for the. I'm glad someone finds me

entertaining. But, you know, just, you know,

it wasn't a carnival show, is what I'm saying.

He literally just read it. But the power of God was so real

and the people's hearts were so tender.

The the Bible history says that people started to grab onto the

pews in front of them during the message.

People started to call out to the Lord during the message.

There were some who were in such terror.

They literally grabbed the pillars on the side of the of

the building, believing that the earth could have opened up in

that moment and swallowed them up and they would spend an

eternity in the lake of fire. Now we are such so desensitized

as a as a world now, I feel like people wouldn't respond that

way. People see so many things

online, people see so many videos and all these things.

People are desensitized. But I will say this is that the

idea, not the idea. The reality of hell as it was

preached and as it was considered by the people got

people to think. And for us, we got to think

about it. I don't like it.

If hell opened up for five seconds and we were able to

hear, to see, to smell that which was in that temporary

place before the lake of fire, we would be the greatest soul

winners this world has ever seen. 5 seconds.

But because we haven't, but because all we have is in this

book and we can easily just turn away and just let it not Pierce

our soul and conscience, then we can have very little desire to

reach the lost. I think you do have a desire to

reach the lost. You're here tonight.

I think you have a desire to reach the lost because you're

part of Liberty Baptist Church. I'm thankful for that.

Over the next couple days, we're going to help you, but I really

struggle with how we're going to start this evening because we

can give you all the tools that you want, but if you have no

desire to use them, then why do we even give you the tools in

the first place? So I'd rather invest a night

just preaching on this to be able to make the most of the

next two days that we have so that when you do go out, you

say, well, I'm not going to do it right.

You may not do it the best. You know what?

I've been doing this as a pastor for a lot of years now.

And I walk away from interactions with people about

the gospel and I go, man, why did I say this?

And why did I say this? And I replayed in my mind, I'm

thinking, how long do I have to do this until I get it right?

But you don't. You just give the word of God.

Let the Holy Spirit do it. Only the Holy Spirit could do

and trust that He can use you. He can use you, but you have to

want to be used. Thank you for listening to the

sermon from the pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.

If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we

can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at

[email protected]. Or you can visit us this Sunday

at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.

May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.