I'll tell you when the pastor's away, I considered it a
privilege when he goes. The reason is, is I learned a
long time ago that when you can share your pastor with the world
in the world, and I mean the Christian world and the
Christian world wants him, that's a privilege to us.
So I try not to miss him, but I miss him tonight.
I didn't miss him this morning, but I miss him tonight.
It's always a chore to to fill in for him and especially behind
this pulpit. I was telling somebody the other
day, if you put a podium down there, I would feel a lot more
comfortable. But it's this sacred desk that
is so important when it comes to the church because from it, the
Word of God is proclaimed to the church.
And for the next few minutes that that we have, I know that
there'll be a time when God holds me accountable for taking
your time. And everyone up here feels the
same way. But I thank God for our pastor.
I truly do. As some of you know, we have a
40 sermon challenge that we do twice a year and last year it
started on December the 1st and it ended on March the 31st.
And it is a 40 sermon outline challenge and all the young
people are taking part in it and they have to outline 40 messages
in those four months And at the end of those four months they
have a reward strip. And so this past April the 7th,
we took the reward strip for the last challenge and I got 3
pictures I want to put up. Lydia, if you can push those,
put those up. OK, That's we were at K1 speed
and we were pretty. We were there pretty much by
ourselves. And so that was at the beginning
before they ever got in. I think there's another one.
Lydia, what's the second one? I think that's the girls getting
ready. Yeah, they got skirts on them.
That's the girls. And then this is just a picture
of them on the inside. Now I will tell you something.
You saw those two beautiful, sweet little girls up here
singing this morning. I mean this afternoon it was dog
eat dog. Those two were rough.
I'm glad I didn't get on the track.
The only one rougher was really Miss Rebecca.
She was pretty tough. Of course, her daddy raced on
the dirt track. So so anyway, she must have
inherited that a little bit. But I just wanted to show you
those pictures. We have a whole lot more and
maybe sometime we'll get those and and let you see them.
But it was it was tough. And by the way, I say all of
that and say that the girls were tough, the guys were tough, the
guys were really tough. In fact, Pastor won.
He's the most competitive of all, most competitive, but the
kids had fun. I have fun watching them and I I
know that, but but I appreciate our, our young people.
I truly appreciate them. And may the first starts the
next challenge and it will go for May, June, July and August.
And then in September we will take another word rewards trip.
OK, so you guys be aware of that.
There's a couple that are not here.
Be sure to we'll get that word to them that they know what it
is. Tonight.
You know, we're getting into a time of the year where things
are warmer. In the past four weeks, I guess
we have seen more people stop in for Bibles and we saw all winter
long people are out and people, I think their attitudes change
just a little bit when it's a little bit warmer.
And tonight I would like to speak on a subject that we don't
really speak of too often. And tonight I, I just feel led
to be able to speak on this. And if I had to put a title on
it, it is hints of helping someone see the need for
salvation, to see the need for salvation.
There's an old saying that goes way back.
I, I don't know who coined it, but there's an old saying that
goes way back. You can't get them saved until
you get them lost and there's probably that is true.
And but I think that we sometimes forget that we have to
convince them or lead them, I should say, not convince.
We should lead them in a way that they understand that they
are lost and that's tough to do sometimes.
Sometimes we talk about, OK, let's just give them the Romans
roads. Well, you got to get them lost
before the Romans Rd. before they can understand the Romans
roads. And so often there was a lady
that came in the parking lot couple weeks ago, two or three
weeks ago, and I think brother Johnny was there and I was there
and Andrew was there and, and you know it, it was just very
difficult to get her lost, very difficult to get her lost.
And so tonight I've just got some points.
We're going to be flipping through the Bible a little bit.
But tonight I do have some points.
And it's just simply how to lead someone to a point to where that
they know that they're lost. And so we're going to start with
that, But let's pray first. Father, we do thank you, Lord,
that you are using US. We thank you God, Lord, we know
that you didn't have to use us, but God, you have chosen to use
this. And Lord, we need to be better
servants to you, especially when it comes to talking to people
and leading people to the Lord, leading people to you.
And so God, we pray tonight that maybe we'll glean something out
of this that will make us better servants for you as we talk to
people this summer in Jesus name we pray, Amen.
The before I get started, we're going to be talking a whole lot
about you and the person that you're talking to.
But we, I need to say this right now as we talk about that, we're
going to talk about a lot of that, but we can't forget that
the third, third person there, and that is the Holy Spirit, OK,
So a lot of this, as we talk about this, we may be even
talking about the psychology of how people think, but don't
forget the Holy Spirit is there. Now this, the individual may not
have the Holy Spirit in him, but the Holy Spirit's going to be
with you, OK, as you speak to them.
So just understand that. So the the first question that I
need to ask is why is it so difficult?
Why is it so difficult to show somebody that they're lost?
And I think you'll agree with me that it's getting more and more
difficult to get people to the point where they think they're
lost. And we're going to look at 3
areas in in that tonight. But it's very difficult for them
to get this, get to a point where they say, well, don't you
turn on the 1st Corinthian, Corinthians 214, First
Corinthians 214. We'll look at why it is so
difficult today. A couple of reasons why First
Corinthians two 14214 says But the natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolish unto him,
neither can he know them because they are spiritually, because
for they are foolish and unto him, neither can he know them
because they are spiritually discerned.
OK, did I get that right? Did I read that All right?
But anyway, you get the point. The natural man does not
understand that he's lost. When you're talking to someone,
you have to have empathy. Now, if you have been saved all
of your life, you may not understand completely what it
means to be unsaved. This is why I really do like
listening to people who have testimonies who got saved later
on in years. I was saved at a very early age.
I really I can imagine what I felt like before I got saved.
But it's hard to have empathy for someone or to to see things
from their standpoint if you can't remember when you were
unsaved. Now we can get a lot from the
scripture of what it was like, but I would encourage you,
there's nothing wrong with finding good godly Christian men
who have had that kind of testimony and listen to them or
read behind them. Why?
Because it is going to help you as you talk to these folks that
may be unsaved or that are unsaved and don't even know
they're unsaved and really don't even want to know they're
unsaved. Because if you read this
scripture right, he doesn't even know he wants to be saved.
So we have to understand that as we talk to them, whether it's
knocking on a door and talking to someone, whether it's talking
to a Co worker, whether it's talking to somebody that comes
into the parking lot, we don't know.
Turn over to Romans chapter 8 and we're going to read 5 and 8,
five through 8, Romans 8, five through 8.
The Bible says, For they that are after the flesh do mind the
things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit, the
things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is
death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace,
because the carnal mind is enmity against God.
For it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it
be. So then they that are in the
flesh cannot please God. Now if you, if you think about
that, what that tells us is this.
We have a tough job of explaining to them that they're
lost. So let's just admit it from the
very beginning. In a world like we are today,
that we have today, it's very difficult to lead somebody to
the point that they are lost. But you can't get them saved if
they're not lost. If they don't think they're
lost, they're not going to get saved.
So what I'd like to do tonight, I've got three areas.
And I want to talk about a little bit about needs.
Because needs are where we, it's where they don't see, they don't
need salvation. So let's talk about how their
carnal mind considers what a need is.
OK, that's what I want to do. And I've got a little object
lesson here for you tonight that I want to show you.
Just just a little object lesson, that's all.
I've got a pair of old, old water shoes and they are very
old. They're several years old.
They're torn in the sides. If you can see torn in that
side. The insoles are are pretty much
gone in them. They're very old.
OK. And if I told you I want to sell
you these for 50 bucks, you're not going to do it, OK?
It in fact, if you even took AI want to make sure Brian is OK?
He didn't go any farther than this, did he?
Want to make sure you see them? OK, 50 bucks, you're going to
look at me and you're going to say, well, no way, I don't want
those. But now I have no need for them.
But now let's suppose that you and I were walking barefooted on
the beach. And let's suppose we were
walking up the beach, and this was a beautiful island coral
just outside the coast. I mean, outside the breakwater,
just a beautiful beach. And let's suppose that we were
walking down that beach, beautiful sand.
And then all of a sudden a storm came up and we looked behind us
and the waves had covered the beach behind us.
And the only way that we could go was forward.
But as we begin to go forward, we can see it was clear beach,
but it was full of pieces of coral.
You ever seen a beach full of pieces of coral?
They're sharp. And I came up to you and I said
we have got to go through that. Would you like to have these
water shoes? Well, you're going to say yes,
because I have a need for them. So needs in a carnal man's life
can change needs. What you see and what you have
today is not necessary in the carnal mind.
He may not see that need. So that's where we have to be
good guides in teaching them this.
Now here's three areas of how the carnal man figures out
needs. He he's motivated to see a need
because of three things. Fear is 1.
The second one, the second thing that he sees is, is
sustainability. He will consider a
sustainability. And the third one is really
secure relationships. If you look into a psychologist
and, and you, you ask him, so how do people figure out if they
need something, he'll say they'll fit in one of those 3
carat categories for the most part.
So let's look at each one of those and see how the carnal man
does see it and see what the Bible says about it.
The first one we're going to talk about is fear.
I want you to turn over to first Timothy 17, the second Timothy
17, I'm sorry, Second Timothy 17 verse 7 says, for God hath not
given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a
Psalm 9. Now who is he talking to here?
The saved or the unsaved saved, saved.
OK, I want you to turn over to Proverbs 2925.
Verse 25 says the fear of man bringeth A snare.
But whoso putteth this trust in the Lord shall be safe.
Now there's a distinction here, isn't there?
There's a distinction that as a saved person we have a different
attitude towards fear than a carnal man before he gets saved.
Fear is really a motivating factor in a person's wisdom as
to whether he actually needs something.
So fear, if some of you older folks may remember this, but
back years ago, you would see people, it was fire and
brimstone. You're going to hell, OK?
It was all to get people to fear enough to know that they're that
they're, that they're unsaved, OK, but Satan has a device to
take care of that fear in people.
Do you know that people aren't afraid anymore?
Do you think that it's by accident that the teenagers ran
or running around with stickers on the back of their truck
windows? No Fear.
Do you think it's by accident that extreme sports are so
popular? All of that is to desensitize
people against fear. So when you walk up to them and
you tell them, hey, there is a place called hell, sorry man, I
don't have buddies there. There is No Fear.
Satan is very good at at disguising fear.
So people do not fear as they used to.
They look one I can remember as a kid there were a couple of
horror movies, Dracula, some of those.
Today the horror movies are absolutely horrendous.
That's all. For one reason is to desensitize
the carnal man against fear. Now I am not against theme
parks, but I will tell you theme parks have an adverse effect on
the carnal man when they can go up and drop 200 feet.
It seems like 1000 I guess. But whoever it is, it has an
effect on the carnal man. So Satan has used this to
disguise or to to make people not fear as they used to.
People can drive on the highway a whole lot more precarious than
they used to because they just have No Fear.
Now I will tell you that in the last few years and talking to
people, I have seen this coming out in the unsaved man, that I
just have No Fear. Don't talk to me about hell.
Don't talk to me about damnation.
Don't talk to me about that. I don't fear that they have a
lot of company. Satan has done a good job of
desensitizing us to fear. But what can we do?
What can we do against that? The only thing that we can do
and we have the Holy Spirit to help us with that.
But the only thing that we can do is is we can talk to them
about about the about what's going on about that.
Satan is trying to to do that. But here's one of the things
that we can help do and we can become better at.
Have you ever told a story? Have you ever had somebody that
you really wanted to tell about your vacation?
And and so you try to have them do visualize that vacation.
You you don't where I'm coming from.
I mean, it's one thing just to say, hey, we got a great we had
a great trip to Virginia Beach, but it's another thing to say
you ought to sell the sand and and the way the waves were
breaking over the beach. See what you're trying to do is
we are going to have to get to a point.
If we're going to convince people that you're lost, we are
going to have to help them visualize.
Hell, if it means back in the hearse up to the door and
letting them smell the roses or the flowers, then we need to do
that. We have to undo or try to.
Counter attack from Satan, because Satan has put it in
there that No Fear and we are going to have to help them
visualize what hell is really going to be like.
I know it would probably be offensive to ask somebody that
you're talking to, how old do you think you're going to be
when you die? What age are you going to be?
You know, you think, well, that's really kind of offensive.
People may not want to talk about death like that.
Or what about this? What if you were to ask somebody
when's the last time you attended a funeral?
And they say, well, it was six months ago.
Do you know if that person knew the Lord or not?
Oh, I no, he was. Do you know that He's literally
burning in hell right now. We have got to overcome Satan's
desensitization. If you're going to get them to a
point where they understand that they are lost, we are going to
have to do a better job of talking to them and overcoming
what Satan is doing. Second thing is sustainability.
Now sustainability is another reason that one of the things
that people use to determine if they have a need or not is
sustainability. Everyday life, things that that
that they enjoy on an everyday, on an everyday, things that
food, things of this nature they have.
They use that to determine, OK, do I need that?
Do I need? Do I need sustainability?
Is that a need that I have? Do I need cornflakes?
Do I need a new car? Do I need this or do I need
that? It's sustainability.
People base their needs on sustainability.
So I want you to turn over to Psalms 3410.
The Bible says the Young Lions do lack and suffer hunger, but
they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.
Now, what that's saying is this, if you don't know the Lord, if
the lion doesn't know the Lord, then he's going to hunger all
the time. But if you know the Lord, it's
going to be satisfied. Basically what that's saying is
God will sustain you. And if we set up here tonight,
and I gave you all of the verses that said that if you're saved,
God is going to sustain you. He's going to he's, he's going
to take care of you. He's going to provide for you.
We'd be here all night long. There's so many in there.
But the thing that we need to understand is this, the carnal
man, God doesn't say he's going to sustain.
God doesn't say that. So when we go to someone and we
say to them being saved means that God's going to take care of
us, we have to have enough empathy to understand they don't
understand that. Why don't they understand it?
Here again, it's Satan's devices.
Satan has taught the world needs are your rights, needs are your
rights. You will be provided for.
The government will be provided will provide for you.
Don't worry about that. Don't worry about anything.
They'll all be they'll all be provided for you.
And here's the other thing on substance on that he uses
material things. Folks, one of the reasons that
we find it so hard to get people lost in America is that we have
so many material things. I thought it was interesting
when the pastor was up here from Australia last week and he was
talking about that the snacks that they have in America, I
mean, it's, it's, it's, it's overabundance.
They'll go into a store and they may have 3 or 4 snacks.
We go into a store and there's a hundreds.
America is one of those areas that God has blessed so much.
But Satan, as he always does, takes what God gives us and
tries to turn it around on us. And I'm afraid he has done that.
The the lost world, the unsaved world, they don't think they
need God to sustain them because Satan has, has given them a lie.
Satan has, has just sold them on a lie.
There's no, there's, there's absolutely nothing that they
need. So when someone is used to
meeting his own needs, his attitude is, is why do I need
that? Why do I need God?
Now, I don't know about you, but I've actually had people say
that to me. I don't need that.
I can take care of myself. So how do we combat that?
Well, we try to help them uncover and tell and and explain
to them that there's going to come a time when they do have a
need that they can't meet. It's one of the ways that we can
overcome what Satan has been so successful at doing is we can
help them find there that there could be a time when no one else
can help them. I think one of the best ways of
those, especially when you're talking to somebody that's
unsaved and somebody that's it's very difficult to get lost, is
the deathbed is the loneliest time in a person's life.
Even though you've got all of your family around it, you're
not going to be able to provide for that.
Again, it comes to visualization.
I think we have to make people visualize when that that that
day comes. Now it could come just like
that. But regardless of when it comes,
it's a lonely, lonely time. They think that hell is going to
be a party. It's not.
It's going to be 1. You're going to be fighting off
everyone. So visualization again for them
and trying to understand from their point of view.
This is why I say it's very important.
If you find somebody who got saved later in life, who who
maybe lived a life of denying that they were lost, it is great
to talk to them and say, how did you feel when somebody talked to
you? What could that?
What could someone have said to you that may have influenced you
to understand that you were lost?
So we can, we can do that. We can explain to them how
important, I mean how lonely it is at the time that they die.
We can also look, we can also ask them things like, have you
ever had a circumstance where it was just you and you had a, you
had a situation that you had to, you had to take care of and it
was just you. That's another way to talk to
help them to visualize that sustainability comes from the,
from God. It doesn't come from themselves.
It doesn't come from their own abilities, but paint that
picture of death. You know what?
I could take away all of your talents and you could still
rehabilitate and get more. I could take away all of your
resources, all your money, and as long as you have your
talents, you can always gain more.
But if I take away your time, all the abilities you had, all
of the resources you had don't mean a thing.
It is you and God, so we can paint those pictures for people
to help them. And I would encourage you, this
is so brief and I could, I really do want to encourage you
to find more ways that you can visualize this to people because
you have to understand Satan's desensitizing them.
He doesn't want them to go to heaven.
He wants them to go to hell. I don't know.
Maybe Satan thinks it's going to be a big party.
I have no clue, but he sure doesn't want to go to heaven.
He sure doesn't want God to have the glory.
The 4th of the third one is secure relationships.
That's another thing. It's another way that we
determine whether we need something.
If secure relationships are one of those things to motivate us
to decide, well, do I really need that?
You know, I'm sure if Brian buys something a need, he's going to
consider Sarah. I am sure that if if if you've
got friends and that they have a need, you're going to consider
meeting that need. It's all about relationship.
And I'm not talking about man, woman necessarily.
I'm just talking about the body of Christ.
We all understand that and turned in fact we talk about man
and woman turned to Genesis 218. We'll read it 218 and the Lord
God said it is not good for that man should be alone.
I will make him help me for him. Now this is from the very
beginning. So what this tells us is this,
Now I know this is talking about marriage, but we can go through
other Scripture and I can show you where it's God basically
says the same thing that that relationships are important on
this earth. They are tremendously important
because they help us decide what do we need.
In fact, there's another verse. Go over to Ecclesiastes 4 verse
9 through 12, because this doesn't just involve the man and
woman or the husband and wife. This really involves more than
that. In verse 9, verse 4, verse 9, it
says 2 are better than one because they have a good reward
for their labor. For if they fall, the one will
lift him, lift up his fellow, but woe to him that is alone
when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up again.
If two lie together, then they have heat.
But how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him,
two shall withstand him. And a three fold cord is not
quickly broken. We know that verse.
We have read that verse over and over.
What that verse is basically saying is that relationships are
so important that they help us to define our needs.
Satan has a device. He has a device to desensitize
to relationships. The marriage rate is going down.
Nobody, no, shouldn't say that. There are more and more people
that do not want a marriage. Why?
Because they want it temporary. They have no intentions of
living their entire life together.
They relationships are temporary.
Satan is is showing them that they're temporary.
They're showing them that they can be here today and that you
can have a relationship with someone next week.
They are no longer secure relationships.
The TV's and the movies are full of this.
Satan has taken not just marriage, not just marriage,
he's done a good job on on desensitizing people to
marriage. He really has.
He's done just AI say good, you know what I mean?
He's just done a good job, but he's not only doing a good job
on that, but he's doing a good job on relationships between you
and I. He's teaching us that I don't
need to be your friend. I can be your friend today, but
I can turn on you tomorrow. Satan's doing a real good job of
desensitizing people to relationships.
It doesn't make any difference what it is, husbands or or
fathers to their children, children to their parents, he's
destroying those relationships through television, through all
kinds of media. He's destroying the
relationships that a child should have to their parents.
He's desensitizing them. So if we are trying to look at
somebody and and we're trying to talk to them about a
relationship with the Lord and they're this, they're sort of
like, I don't want a long term relationship anyway.
That's not good. They're not going to want a
relationship with God that is long term.
See what I'm saying? So we have to approach that.
So when you look at the carnal man and you look at these three
areas that a carnal man normally makes decisions on what they
need, and Satan has has destroyed all of those, it's
easy to see why we're standing here today and nobody we can, we
can't get anybody lost because they don't need God.
But we can come better, become better servants for the Lord, if
we can help people get lost. You have to get them lost before
they get saved. You can't always jump in with
Romans roads and figure this'll just take care of everything.
If they don't realize they're lost.
That's that. 123. What, Pastor?
Call it 123 now you saved or something like that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Something like that. That's what it's all about.
That's why today and talking about relationships, I, I will,
I will say this, the modern church is not helping that at
all. The modern church is only
talking about this easy salvation.
And you know what? Brian said it this morning and I
totally agree with him and you should totally agree with him.
And, and I'm not going to say it like he said it, but here's the
way I feel. If grace is how we get saved,
repentance is the window that opens up to grace.
Amen. Amen.
You can't be saved without repentance.
I don't care what the murder church is saying.
Amen. You can't get saved without
repentance and that relationship with with the Lord is important.
So how do we do that? How do we how do we overcome
what Satan's done? Well, we can talk about our
relationship with God. We can talk about that, but and
we can talk about other things. But tonight we're out of time.
But I, I would encourage you, I really do encourage you become
better at visualizing, helping them visualize that they're lost
because we're living in a world, folks, that I mean, people come
out here for Bibles and we talk to them and it's difficult to
get them lost. Even ones that are coming in to
pick up a Bible, sometimes it's very difficult to get them lost.
They're not going to get saved if they don't realize they're
lost. It's just not going to happen.
So I would encourage you there's there's probably great resources
out there helping people visualize where they are with
the Lord. But I would encourage you to
try. And as I said, if you know
people who did not get saved, who lived that maybe that wicked
life in the past, sit down and talk to them, pick their pick
their brain. Ask them what did it feel like
that's going to help you? If you run into that person that
says I'm not lost, it's just up to you, OK, We want to do better
for the Lord. We want to be better servants
for the Lord and Satan. I think that's the problem.
Satan works 24/7, double time, triple time, whatever you want
to call it. We still don't work 24/7.
And we need to understand Satan more.
We need to understand his devices more.
I think we do. I think some of the things we've
talked about tonight, you probably say, well, yeah, I
realize that, Brother Gary, but do you realize it enough to be
able to use it against Satan's devices?
And so that's where we are. But if we're going to reach
people this year that are lost, we're going to have to convince
them or show them that they are lost.
And if we're going to do that, we have to become better at
visualizing with them that they are lost the only way they're
going to see it. Because they don't understand.
They have that need. They don't understand.
They don't fear God. They think they can meet all of
their needs. And they do not care about
relationships at all. Because if this one doesn't
last, I'll pick up another one next week.
Satan's done a good job, but just remember when I started
this, I said we are going to be talking about you and the
unsaved man, but there's a third person there, and that is the
Holy Spirit. And we engage the Holy Spirit in
those conversations. Some of our visualization may
become very, very real in their hearts as they talk to them, but
we're going to have to get busy doing that.
And that's out of our comfort zone.
It's it's out of our comfort zone to back the hearse up to
the door and let them smell the flowers.
That's hard to do. That's hard to ask somebody at
what age you think you're going to die.
It's hard to ask somebody that. But I hope we can come become
better at visualizing to help the people understand that
they're lost. Let's pray.
Father, we do thank you again, Lord, as we said in the very
beginning that you called us to do your work here on this earth.
God, sometimes we almost wish that you would send an Angel to
walk beside us and do the talking for us to help us.
But Lord, we know that you have given something better than the
Angel and that is the Holy Spirit.
And so often, Lord, we, we do go talk to people without inviting
the Holy Spirit to go with us. And we ask your forgiveness for
that. But God, we do ask for your
power. We thank you so much that this
church has evangelism on its heart.
It's mine. Or we thank you that they have.
We have not lost our first love for you.
But God, we understand what you want of us.
And God, we pray that you would protect that.
Please don't allow Satan build a hedge around this church, Lord,
and don't ever let Satan convince us to let that go by
the wayside. God, we want to be a soul
winning church. We want to be a church that
reaches out to people through the lost.
But God, you know, the lost are very desensitized now because of
Satan. But Lord, we remind you that you
are the one that created every single one of those souls.
And God, you have said that whose server will come with me.
God help us to be able to reach those souls.
Help us, God, to be able to have the tools that we need to be
able to convince them that without you there is an eternal
help. So God, we pray, we thank you
for just loving us. We thank you God, that you've
given us the privilege of serving you.
And Lord, tonight we just ask that you would bless in this
service in Jesus name, Amen.