 Amen. We're there in John chapter 4. We're going to get a couple verses in from where we were. We're going to do some soul winning tips tonight. All right? So we're going to look at Jesus' conversation again with the Samaritan woman. So last week, we got up to verse number about 25, of verse number 24, where basically Jesus is having this conversation with this woman of Samaria. We talked about how the Jews and the Samaritans were divided people, where the Jews were, you know, they were basically racist against the Samaritans, and they didn't like them, they didn't feel that they were Jews. But it's interesting because we see that this woman is basically believing like the Jews. She only is disagreeing with the place to worship, really. And Jesus kind of sets her straight on that, and we looked at that last week. This week, we're going to start in verse number 25, where Jesus continues the conversation. So remember last week, Jesus tells her that, you know, the mountain or the Jerusalem doesn't matter. It's spirit and truth that matters. You need to be worshiping the Lord in spirit, meaning, you know, you can do that anywhere. And then of course, you need to be worshiping the Lord in truth. You need to be worshiping the one true God. You need to understand that Jesus is the Messiah. So Jesus continues this conversation with this woman after explaining this tour. In verse number 25, the Bible says this, we're going to look at some soul winning tips from this conversation this evening. So hopefully we can sharpen your soul winning skills tonight, all right? Look at verse number 25, where the woman said unto him, I know that Messiah's cometh, which is called Christ. So again, it's interesting that she's a Samaritan, yet she's looking for the Messiah, just like the Jews are. So it's this interesting situation where this woman gets saved, and you know, she's not even a Jew. So this is kind of the first Gentile that we see the gospel going out to when Jesus is in his ministry here. And she says, I know the Messiah's cometh, which is called Christ. When he has come, he will tell us all things. And then look at verse number 26, which is as far as we're going to get tonight. All right, where Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee, am he. So basically, Jesus just tells her right there. She says, I know that the Christ is coming. I know the Messiah is coming. You know, she's believing the coming Messiah, just like the Jews believe or claim to believe. And she is saying, you know, I know that there's God sending a Savior. And he basically just tells her, it's me. And that's his, I mean, it's like the quickest soul winning presentation you'll ever see right there. All right, Jesus is just basically saying, you know, I'm the Messiah, that's it. And you know, a lot of people will take this and be like, well, you only need to explain things to people, you know, the things that they don't know when you're out soul winning. Well, the culture of our church, before I even get into the sermon this evening, you know, let me just say that, you know, yes, this is Jesus giving a pretty quick soul winning presentation here. He did, you know, make her aware of her sin is the same as we would out soul winning. So she knows that she's a sinner in need of a Messiah. And then he just tells her, I'm the Messiah. And of course, Jesus hasn't died on the cross yet. But like I said, it's a pretty quick soul winning presentation. He doesn't do a lot of explaining about hell. He doesn't do a lot of explaining about the gift. He doesn't do a lot of explaining about eternal security. He just tells her, I'm the Messiah. And that's the end of it. And it really just becomes a question for this lady whether or not, you know, he's the Christ. And I believe she believes that he's the Christ as she goes and tells everybody in town. All right, so the point is, is the culture of our church is that we never give partial soul winning presentations. One of the things that churches that don't go soul winning, even churches that have the right gospel that don't go soul winning, one of the big criticisms that they will, you know, it's a false criticism, but one of the criticisms that they will level against a church like ours is, oh, you're one, two, three, pray after me. You're just going out there and saying a prayer with somebody. It's like, no, we are thorough soul winners. We go out and we preach the entire gospel. Well, what if somebody knows who Jesus is? What if somebody knows this and knows that? And they tell me that, oh, I grew up Catholic or I grew up in Sunday school or I grew up, whatever. We're going to preach the whole gospel to that person regardless. It's one thing if we know someone's not going to listen and you want to give somebody some teasers and just kind of tell them, hey, it's not of works. It's a gift. And you know, we all do this just to kind of spark their interest to get them to watch the video later on. But if somebody wants you to open the Bible to them, we are going to preach the whole gospel to them. You say, well, why? Jesus didn't. Well, you're not Jesus. That's why. You don't know what people believe and don't believe. You don't know if you get to, you know, hell and people are just like, yeah, I don't think I deserve hell. You know, there's a lot of people like that. There's a lot of people where, you know, they'll tell you they're a sinner. They'll tell you that they know they're not perfect. Look, 99.9% of people out there know that they're not their sinner. But then you will find people that, you know, because they've been poisoned by so much of this prosperity gospel and God is only love and would never send anybody to hell and they've been poisoned by these liberal churches with this fake version of God, there's a lot of people out there that think that not, I don't deserve hell. I think I'm pretty good. Yes, I sin, but I think I'm pretty good. That's just one example. We are not Jesus. We are not God. We don't know what people don't believe. We don't know what people's hangups are. That's why we will go through the whole thing. We are not, you know, one, two, three, pray after me. Look, I believe in easy believism because it's easy to believe, but we are thorough gospel preachers here. We're gonna go on and give the whole gospel. We are not Jesus. We are not God. All right, so that's the first thing before we even get into it, but it's interesting in verse number 26 that Jesus just comes out. Jesus just comes out and he says, look, let me just go back to that point for just a second. It is a damaging thing to pray with somebody that's not saved. Think about that. Think about that. How many people have you met out so many? And look, I'm not saying that you are not going, that every single person you pray with is truly believing. There's no way you could know that, but what you can do, what you can control on your side is thoroughly preaching the gospel and then reviewing those points every single time you give the gospel. Instead of just giving some half version or somebody only has three minutes or somebody only has four minutes, point them to the video. It'd be better for them to watch a video and take the time to think about it themselves than for you just to slam the gospel in their face in two minutes and then say some quick prayer with them when they're not saved. That's a damaging thing. You'll meet people out there that literally won't want to listen to the gospel because they've prayed with somebody before because they said some prayer with a Pentecostal pastor. No, no, no, I've already done that. I've already done that because they think it's all about the prayer, not the belief. They're believing wrong. They've never believed on or trusted in Jesus, but they've said a prayer before. So that's not gonna be us. We don't wanna confuse people. We're not about confusion, we're about the truth. So it's a super important thing that we are very thorough every single time. And look, if I know I'm talking to somebody that probably just has one hang up, like maybe they're one hang up, maybe they know all this stuff and they have one hang up on eternal security or one work of baptism or one work of not blaspheming the Holy Ghost or one work of, they just have one tiny little hang up. I still go through the whole thing and I'll just preface the conversation by saying, hey, most of this I'm sure you're familiar with, but I'm gonna point out where the Bible says something different from what you told me. So I'll just say like, you're probably gonna, I'm sure you've heard a lot of this before and you know what, they probably haven't because the vast majority of people have never heard a clear presentation of the gospel. It is such a sad thing to say that. I mean, that's why you'll see so many people out there soul winning that say to you, I've just never heard somebody explain it to me like that before. And what are you doing? You're just explaining what the Bible says. It's very, it's the simplicity of Christ. That's it, that's all we are doing. So all that to say this, we're gonna be thorough every single time. There's no half presentations of the gospel. We're gonna be thorough, we're gonna review. And then when people tell us, they believe the things that we reviewed with them, then we're gonna help them call upon the name of the Lord. That's how you do it, all right? Now look at verse 26. I wanna address a specific thing tonight and then kinda show you some more soul winning tips after I address the specific thing. But look at verse 26 where this is probably, it's hard to say, but I think it's one of the most direct statements that Jesus gives that he is the Christ, that he is the Messiah where he says, Jesus saith in her, I that speak unto thee, am he. So Jesus is literally, this lady said, I know the Messiah comes, I know Christ is coming, and Jesus says, it's me, I that speak unto thee, am he. Who's he talking about? He, the Messiah, the Christ. There's an argument out there that I've heard so many times that I'm getting sick of hearing it that Jesus never claimed to be God. If you're a soul winner, you've heard somebody bring this up to you before. Jesus never claimed to be God. There's really three different, three different versions of this one, okay? Jesus never claimed to be God. Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah, and Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God. People will tell you this, I mean, you'll meet people at the door, you'll meet people in your life, and they'll find out you're a Christian, they'll find out you trust in Jesus, your believer, and they're just like, you know that Jesus never claimed to be God, which is the most naive, one of the most naive statements you could ever make. So let me just quick give you a couple of verses on each one of these, so you can have them in your arsenal. Not that it's gonna matter, I'm gonna explain that to you after this, but look at John chapter 10, just to show you, and it's funny because people that say this, they come at you with kind of like this intellectual, like they're looking down their nose at you, like, you know, did you know? Yeah, yeah, I know. Like, I know you've never opened up the Bible once in your life and read a single word of it. That's what I know by a comment like that. Look at John chapter 10. Look at verse number 27 for context. Jesus is speaking and Jesus says, I'm just gonna go to Jesus's words first, okay? Jesus is speaking, he says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. That's a great eternal security verse right there. My father which gave them me is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. And then look at this, verse 30. I and my father are one. He just equates himself with God right there. And look, here's another thing you need to understand about these verses where Jesus literally claims the status of God, he claims to be God, is no one at the time misunderstood these things. Everybody understood exactly what Jesus was saying. Look at the next verse. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Why did they do that? Because they didn't like how he looked or they didn't like who his friends were? No, because he just claimed to be God. That's why they took up stones to stone. Jesus answered them, many good works have I showed you from my father, there's the son of God, for which of those works do you stone me? And the Jews answered him saying, for a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy. Blasphemy because he's claiming to be God and they literally listed here and because that thou being a man, make us thyself God. Nobody misunderstood what Jesus was talking about here. Turn to John chapter eight. Turn to John chapter eight, I love this one. But I mean, that's pretty direct. Jesus claims to be God, they try to kill him and then they tell him why they're trying to kill him is because he claimed to be God. So this idea that Jesus never claimed to be God, I mean, what can you say? Look at John chapter eight, verse 58. Jesus said unto them, verily verily I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am. Turn to Exodus chapter three. So he says, Jesus actually, see Jesus, Jesus never came out and said in stupid American English, I am God. He said it in these clever, interesting ways like this. And look at, he said it in two ways right here. You're going to Exodus chapter three, but the first thing he said here is before Abraham, before Abraham was, I am. So he literally says there, he's claiming to be God in two ways. Number one, I was before Abraham. How are you gonna be before Abraham if you're not God? He's saying, I always existed. And again, they understood exactly what he was claiming here. But then he says these words, I am. What's he talking about? Look at Exodus chapter three and verse 14. Exodus chapter three, verse 14. It calls himself I am. What does I am mean? And God said unto Moses, I am that, what? I am. God literally equates his name with I am. So I am is God. And Jesus is saying, I am that I am. Before Abraham was, I am. Jesus is literally saying in a super scriptural way that I am God in John chapter eight. And he says, I am hath sent me unto you. So one of God's names in the Old Testament is I am. Turn to John chapter 10. How about this? Jesus being the son of God. Did Jesus ever directly claim to be the son of God? Did you know that Jesus never claimed to be the son of God? Turn to John chapter 10 again. John chapter 10, let's just keep reading a few verses here. John chapter 10, verse 36 now. It says, say ye of him whom the father hath sanctified and sent into the world, thou blasphemous. So they just called Jesus a blasphemer for claiming to be God. And then Jesus then says, thou blasphemous because I said I am the son of God. So there he calls himself. So he equated himself with the father. And then he also says I am the son of God. Turn to John 3.16. Do you have to turn to John 3.16? But here's what people forget. The most famous verse in the Bible is Jesus claiming to be the son of God. Did you know that? I mean it's interesting because everybody knows John 3.16. Even people that don't know the Bible have heard John 3.16 that for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And people don't realize that that's Jesus saying that. Those are red words in your red letter Bible. I mean it's for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Jesus again saying that he is the son of God. Turn to Luke chapter one. Actually you turn to John chapter five and I'll read for you Luke chapter one verse number 35. Even Mary directly knew this. Even Mary directly knew that Jesus was the son of God. Look at this. The angel answered, you're going to John five. The angel answered and said unto her, the holy ghost hath come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the son of God. John 5.18, but Jesus answered them, my father worketh hitherto and I work. Therefore the Jews sought more to kill him because he said what? He said God was his father. He's claiming to be the son of God because he had not only broken the Sabbath but also that God was his father again making himself equal with God. They knew what he was saying. Nobody was misunderstanding this. How about this? Jesus being the Messiah, the Christ. Look at Matthew chapter 24. Of course we have the very direct statement in John chapter four and verse number 26 that we just looked at. But look at Matthew chapter 24. Matthew chapter 24, look at verse number four. This is a pretty direct one right here. You're talking about end times prophecy here. Jesus is talking to the disciples about things to look for in the end times and Jesus answered and said to them, take heed that no man deceive you for many shall come in my name. What is my name? Saying what? I am Christ and shall deceive many. Jesus is just saying many people are gonna come saying they're the Christ but I am the Christ. Look even turn to John chapter 20. Turn to John chapter 20. Even the devils knew that Jesus was God, that he was the son of God. In Luke 4.41, the devils also came out of many crying and saying thou art Christ, the son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak for they knew that he was Christ. Jesus didn't want people to know yet. So he was refusing to let them speak because the devils knew that he was Christ. Look at John, where'd I have you go? John 20, look at John chapter 20 and verse number 28. So the Bible said, now I'm showing you just cases where Jesus himself didn't say it but the Bible is just telling you that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, that he's God. Look at John 20, 28, look at verse 27. Then say, if he had to Thomas reach Thomas, reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side and be not faithless but believing. And Thomas answered and said on him, my Lord and my God. And of course, did Jesus rebuking for that? No, he didn't because he is God. The rich young ruler in Mark chapter 10, this was a kind of a clever way. A lot of people will use this. Actually, why don't you turn there? Turn to Mark chapter 10. A lot of people will use this one to say, see Jesus isn't God when he was actually saying I am God in Mark chapter 10. But you gotta be smarter than a fifth grader to see the versions like this. He did directly say it as I showed you in six, seven, eight, nine verses. I could have showed you dozens of verses like that. Look at Mark chapter 10 and verse 17. And when he was gone forth in the way, there came one running and kneeled to him and asked him, good master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, why callest thou me good? There is none good but one that is God. He didn't say that I'm not good. He said that you called me good and there's only one good that is God. And he's basically saying you were right. He's like, how did you know? How did you know? He's like, there's only one good that is God. And Jesus equates himself to God so many other times in the Bible, Jesus is literally saying I am God, I am good. And he's kind of pointing out that this kid came up and called him good. And he's like, do you know that I'm God? That's what he's saying to this kid. It's kind of a clever way. But like, all these verses, all these verses that I just read to you, I'm just trying to point out a certain type of person that you're gonna run into. Not necessarily just this question, but I showed you all these clear verses from the Bible. Jesus never claimed to be God. Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah. Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God. When in reality, he personally claimed it many, many times in the Bible. And number two, the Bible itself claims it many, many times on all three of those titles. And even on top of that, folks, his works proved it. His works proved it as he's raising people from the dead, as he is healing the blind, healing the sick, healing the lame. That's literally why the woman at the well believed he was the Christ. Why? Because he told her all the things that I had ever done. Because he mysteriously came up and told her about her husband's situation. And that's what she goes and tells the people in the town, she's like, is this not the Christ? Because he did this great miracle. So not only did he say it many times, not only did he, does the Bible claim it many times, say it many times, but his works proved it over and over and over again. And guess what? Turn to Matthew chapter 26. Turn to Matthew chapter 26. His death proves it. His death, you say his death? Yes, his death, the reason he was killed, proves that he claimed to be God. That is why he was killed. Very similar to John 10, 28, 29, 30 and 31, the literal reason that the Jews pressured the Romans into killing Jesus was because he claimed to be God. Look at verse number 64 of Matthew chapter 26. Jesus saith unto him. Actually go back to verse 63. But Jesus held his peace and the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God that thou tellest whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, thou hast said. He's like, exactly, you said it. Nevertheless, I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven. That's a pretty direct, yeah, I am God. I am the Son of God, you said it yourself. Then maybe the high priest misunderstood him. The high priest rent his clothes, saying he has spoken blasphemy. What further need we have witnessed, behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. They're gonna try to railroad him in this trial somehow and they're like, he just blasphemed himself by calling himself the Son of God. They knew exactly what he was claiming. Nobody was confused about this except some person that thinks they know about the Bible today. Nobody in Bible times was confused that Jesus was claiming that he was God. Every single page of the Gospels proves at some point in some way that Jesus was God. You say, okay, pastor, you're really driving this home here. He's like, you're like, I get it. I believe that Jesus is God. But the point I want you to get and the irony and kind of the soul winning tip that's gonna come out of this tonight is that if you take that person that says, did you know that Jesus never claimed to be God? And you show them the 30 verses that we just went through. This in depth, and look, we could have went to 30 more and 30 more and 30 more and 30 more. If you show them all those verses, they will not believe it. That's the irony. Even if you show it to them from the Bible, they're literally claiming, think about this. They're literally claiming that the Bible doesn't say something. And then you will show them, turn to Titus chapter three, then you will take the Bible and you will show them that the Bible does say something and they won't believe it. Doesn't make any sense, right? It doesn't make any sense. It's not logical that somebody would act that way. Not if it was an honest question at the beginning. Because if it was an honest question and they were just misunderstanding something, this would never happen in real life, in some other situation, whether you be at work or whatever. If you're at work and somebody says, no, no, no, no, no. That handle on the machine goes on the left side. The left side. And you say, no, no, no. Look, here's the manual. It says put it on the right side. Any normal person would be like, oh, okay. They wouldn't just say, no, the steering wheel goes in the trunk or whatever. I mean, it's an odd thing. It's an odd thing. But I'm telling you that they will not believe it no matter how many verses you show them. The people that ask that type of question. Turn to Titus chapter three. Are you there? Look at verse number 10 of Titus chapter number three. The Bible gives us some protection against this type of person, all right? Look at verse number 10. It says a man that is in heretic after the first and second admonition reject. Knowing that he is such that is subverted and Senneth being condemned of himself. So this is the type of person that he's, how do I know? First of all, what's a heretic? What's a heretic? Okay, heretic is somebody, if you look up like the dictionary definition of a heretic, it's gonna say like, somebody whose beliefs are not considered, somebody whose beliefs are considered wrong. But if you look at, I mean, we're reading a King James Bible here. And the King James Bible is calling someone a heretic. So what the King James Bible is saying is if someone doesn't believe the words of the Bible of this book, they're heretic. So how would I know that somebody doesn't believe the words of the Bible? I mean, man, I'm gonna go through 30 verses. I'm gonna spend 45 minutes with somebody and I'm gonna find out that there's just nothing I can do. Man, maybe if I give them that 50th verse, that 60th verse, you know, maybe if I just try a little bit harder, but the Bible's saying no, you give them one or two. That's it. You give them one or two and that is the end of it because if you give them one or two, the Bible is just giving you a clear soul winning direction right here. It's saying, look, you give them one or two and if they don't accept one or two, they're subverted. There's, somebody's gotten to them. They have something else that they're really, you know, trusting on and they're trying to, they're trying to trick you, they're trying to waste your time. So the Bible's telling you in Titus chapter three and verse number 10, it's like, don't argue with heretics. It's saying, don't waste your time. So turn to Titus chapter three, go back to verse number nine. So I'm gonna give you two reasons why we're not gonna debate at the door. And look, this is a big, this is a big kind of roadblock for like new soul winners is that, you know, they think that, man, I just, I need to know the Bible front to back. I need to have everything memorized. I need to, because I have to go out there and I have to win debates. But you don't have to win debates. Not at all. You need to know a clear path through the gospel. Oh look, I think that the more Bible you know, the better soul winner you will be. But to go out and be able to give the gospel to somebody that wants to know the truth, you need to know the clear path through the gospel that we take. You need to know the different steps that everybody needs to be aware of. And you need to have what? You need to have one or two verses to back up. You know, certain common heresies. That's what you need to become a soul winner. Why only one or two verses pastor? Because that's what the Bible says. Because if you give them three, it's not gonna do any, it's not gonna help. If they won't believe one or two, they're not gonna believe 60. They're just trying to waste your time. So the first reason that we don't debate people, so look, you don't have to win debates. So all you new soul winners, people that are thinking about soul winning, you don't have to be this debate winner. This super, you got every single Bible verse on every single doctrine memorized? Not at all. I started soul winning before I had a lot of the, every single one of the verses memorized. I just had them highlighted in my Bible and just started going after it. I mean, it's good to have them memorized, but you wanna show the verse to them anyway. You wanna show the verse to them anyway. That's another thing. Just make sure that, I mean, it's a pretty simple process. Like we have the verses, we have the path through the verses. You read a verse and then you explain the verse. It's pretty simple. That's pretty simple. Make sure that you're explaining the verses because these are unsaved people. They don't understand that things that you think are the simplest things in the Bible that they may have not heard before. So make sure that you are explaining those verses. Look at Titus chapter three and verse number nine. So the first reason that we don't debate people is because the Bible says not to. Look at Titus chapter three, verse number nine. The Bible says right before this heretic, this heretic direction, it says avoid foolish questions. You know what a foolish question is? You know, did Jesus ever claim to be God? That's a foolish question. That's a foolish question. Many times I won't, this is just because I have so much experience with people with that question. I won't even open the Bible to people that ask that question. You can, okay? I'm not saying don't give people that, but I have never one time heard somebody ask that or make that statement that wants to see it from the Bible. Like they don't even want you to open the Bible. It's like 100% in my life and somebody will prove me wrong on that and that's fine, okay? But the Bible says avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law for they are unprofitable and vain. We're gonna get to that last part in just a second. But the Bible is telling us several things to avoid here. Genealogies, we talked about that last week, okay? But avoid foolish questions. So the problem here becomes what's a foolish question and what's a real question? Because we don't wanna be these people that go out soul-winning and somebody asks a question and we're like, heretic, you know, somebody doesn't get it right away and we're like, you heretic. You know, I mean we wouldn't say that anyway, but I mean the point is sometimes people just need more clarification on things. And so we need to be able to distinguish the real questions from the foolish questions. And you say, well, how do we do that? I mean, first of all, like there's a lot of people that they hear the gospel the first time and like many people, if they are listening, they will have questions. So I like questions, don't get me wrong. Questions are good, but real questions, not foolish ones. So I mean the Bible's giving us some, I mean here I'm some common ones. Some common ones are like, you teach eternal security to people, which is a new concept to many people, especially Protestants and Catholics. Eternal security is a new concept and you will get people that are confused by it. It's not like they're not believing what you're saying, they're just saying like, are you saying that people can just go do whatever they want? That I could just go out and, you know, commit all kinds of sin and I'm just gonna go to heaven? Look, that's something that will need some more explanation. That's something that you will need to read another verse or two and then explain those verses or two. And then their questions should go away. As you talk about how, you know, the adoption works and you give the comparison of your child, you know, always being your child, that's a great one, by the way. That's a great analogy that the Bible uses that analogy and that's a great one that really clears it up for people because people will clear it up for themselves. That's why I like that one so well because when you talk to somebody about, well, I have a son and if he's bad, I'll punish him, I'll spank him. If he grows up to be a wicked kid, God forbid I kick him out of my house, but will we ever stop being my son? I've never one time out of talking to thousands of people never had a person say, yeah, he's gonna stop being your son. They always say, no, he's always your son. No, that's always, you're always gonna be his father. They answer the question for themselves and you say that's exactly how salvation works and they're like, oh, it clicks, they get it. Those are real questions, those are good questions. So how do I tell the foolish questions? You know, the Jesus not being God one, okay, that's an extreme one so I can recognize that one, but how can I tell if somebody's just not really asking a sincere question? The answer is you show them one or two scriptures. That's the answer. That's what the Bible is telling us here. The Bible is literally giving us a methodology here on how to do this. Brother Jeff had one of these that was just perfect. I hope he doesn't mind me using it as an example, but we were out souling on Saturday and he had somebody that was telling him that baptism says you. And coming up to somebody when you're giving somebody or you're wanting to give somebody the gospel, he hadn't even started giving the gospel. He was just asking what it takes to go to heaven and it was just baptism, you must be baptized. And it was just this, just works. I mean, and look, there was a lot of other issues there and you could, you know, that came out later, but basically, you know, Jeff, I mean, what did Jeff do? He gave, you know, one or two verses. That's what he did. He gave Acts 16, 31. He's like, you know, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Pretty complicated, but there's no baptism in that statement. Just showing that, you know, and then, you know, you could have given all kinds of other verses. He that believeth on the Son, half everlasting life. I mean, there's no baptism in these verses. So for these verses to be true, you must be wrong. But he's shown that clearly to her from the Bible and right away she said, it's confusing what she said because she doesn't know what Jesus says, she doesn't know what the Bible said, but Jeff literally showed her that from the Bible and she said, no, no, no. I just believe what Jesus said. And I'm like, what? We're like, huh? So she doesn't know what Jesus said, but the point is, is that when you clearly show someone the Bible and the key to not wasting any more time there was that she brushed off the Bible. It did not deter her for a second, a millisecond. Showing that verse from the Bible, no, no, no. Right there, we're done here. Because if you don't believe the Bible, you can't be saved. What, because Jesus is the Bible. Jesus is the Word. We're not gonna say it by getting saved, you're gonna know everything in the Bible, but if you don't believe the Bible, it's not possible. It's not possible. The Bible literally had no effect. And as soon as you see that through those one or two verses, at this point, you're talking to someone asking foolish questions and saying foolish things. And there's people down the street that wanna hear the gospel. That's what you need to understand. The devil loves to waste our time. So the Bible's given a very clear methodology there on how to avoid foolish questions. You just give one or two. And look, he just had to give one because immediately she completely dismissed the Bible. That's it. That's it. And then a bunch of other stuff came out and it was weird and you could just tell it. There was no weight that the Bible had. It was only things that she had been taught. This is the danger of false prophets. This is what they create. We obviously feel bad for that lady and we wish we could have showed her the truth and we have compassion for that person. But that doesn't mean we're gonna stand and give 60 verses and stand there and talk about all the weird supernatural things that people wanna talk about or experiences that they've had or whatever because we're out there to preach the truth to people and if we waste time on people that are just asking foolish questions that give no weight to the Bible, people aren't gonna get saved. We're not gonna get to people. We're talking man hours here, folks. We're out soul-winning. I mean, it is a function of people on the ground and the time we spent on people that will get saved, all right? How about this one, contentions. Contentions. This Jesus never claimed to be God. That's a contention. That's somebody that is just trying to be contentious with you. That's why I say, you know, if somebody asked me that, I don't even, I don't even, whatever. Because first of all, it's so foolish. It is so just proof that they have no idea what the Bible says. I mean, the Bible is one of those books. I've said it before, but it's the only book. It's a proof that it's the word of God because it's the only book that people will claim to know when they've never read a word of it. There's no other book like that. Nobody's gonna read, you know, go around to some book club where they're all discussing a tale of two cities and walk into the book club and say, oh yeah, I know everything about this book because they're gonna be found out to be a fool in about three seconds. Nobody would even think about doing that with any other book, but they do it with the Bible all the time. Because they heard some fool on YouTube or something say it and they're just repeating it. When every single page of the Bible proves that Jesus is God, every single page. How about this one, striving about the law? Striving about the law. These are the people that, you know, they're just like, you can lose your salvation. You must have works. And they just wanna strive and they literally just want to debate you. They literally just want to debate you. And here's the thing, folks, like, man, I could win debates. If you know the Bible, man, could you win the debate? No, you really couldn't. You know why? Because debates are really, does anyone really win a debate? Do you ever seem like an evolutionist, like, debate a creationist or something like this? And then, like, have you ever seen, like, the evolutionist just, like, changes mind after the debate's over and just be like, oh, you know, you are right about that. You could get proved wrong, you know, every single point and I've seen debates that are exactly that way and, but it's an exercise in pride. That's what debates are. No one's ever gonna, no one's ever gonna get their mind changed by a comment on YouTube or argument on Facebook or whatever, because these are just debates, they're just strivings about the law and they're just exercises in pride is all they are. And in order to be saved, you literally need to get rid of your pride. That's why people can't let go of their works because they're prideful. I gotta have some part of this. You gotta humble yourself and get rid of your pride, which leads me to the second reason, the second reason that we don't debate people and that's because it doesn't work. It's unprofitable. It's unprofitable and it's vain. It, not only, look, not only would it just make jerks of us at the door. You know, we're always trying to be friendly, but it just doesn't work. If arguing with people worked, if you go up to somebody's door and you could just debate them and you could just prove that you know more of the Bible than them. Because look, the smallest child in this church knows more Bible than the vast majority of people in our population today. There is just no question about it. The kids in this church know so much Bible. The teenagers in this church know so much Bible. The teenagers in this church will go up and they will school pastors because like these people have no idea, like we had a couple ladies like chase a pastor away. Like you just, I mean, not chase them away, but they're just like showing them Bible and they're like, what do you think about that? What do you think about that? He's like, I gotta go, I gotta go! You know, some Presbyterian or something. They have no idea what the Bible says today, but here's the thing. They're gonna stand there and just debate one or two verses, get out of there. Why? Because debating doesn't work. Because people don't just say, oh, you know what? You're right. You do know way more Bible than I do. This, it just never happens. One or two verses and that's it. Now look, you're gonna find people that maybe need to get the gospel one or two, three, four times, whatever it is, but those are people that are just thinking about it. Those aren't people that are just striving and contentious and argumentative about what the Bible says and what it doesn't say. So it just doesn't work. If it worked, I'd be all for it. If it worked like, hey, let's go debate every single unsaved person that we find and we just like stick our foot in the door and just not let them leave until we prove that we know the Bible better than them and we will get like 95, 6, 7% of people saved if it worked. It doesn't work. That's why the Bible in Titus chapter three is giving us this device. Because you can't make people believe. And that's really, it's really kind of a balanced attitude that you need to have as a soul winner because like we care about people, right? I mean, don't I stand up here and when I pray for the soul winning ministry, what do I do? I pray for the hearts of the soul winners in our church. I pray for the hearts, because look, if you go soul winning many, many times and you go soul winning maybe multiple times a week, there will be weeks when maybe it's 110 degrees outside, there will be times you go out soul winning, there will be weeks you go out soul winning where it kind of seems like work, where it kind of seems monotonous and that's why I pray for the hearts of the soul winners to always remain soft because we always want to go out soul winning. We always want to be like, I hope I can talk to somebody today. I hope I can find that person. God, give me that person today that's in this neighborhood that's seeking the truth. Help me be that person that carries that truth to them and fulfills your promise in Matthew chapter seven to that person. Well, just help me. That's the heart that we need to have. But the thing is we have to keep that heart while 95% of people don't want to hear. And so we have to care about that. We have to care about these people that don't want to hear the truth and that maybe are contentious and striving about the law. We can't lose that caring even though not everyone's gonna believe. So it's kind of a reality that we kind of need to know that the vast majority of people aren't gonna believe like you but we can't let that ruin us. We can't let that harden our hearts. And look, that can be a struggle. That can be a struggle. Especially if you get some really hard neighborhoods or you get some really unreceptive areas. Turn to 1st Samuel chapter eight. But you can't make people believe. That's why it's by belief. That's why it's by belief because belief is 100% the individual's responsibility. 100%. It's the only thing that's that way. No one can force anyone to believe anything. People can take your house away. They could take your, look at everything that was taken from Job. They could take everything away from you. They could take your family. They could take all your property. They could even make you say things. They could even make you recite things that you don't think are true. But they can never make you believe something. Belief is yours. It's your personal responsibility. And that's what we have to remember. When we go out and we offer that truth, we've done our job. We have fulfilled what Jesus Christ wants us to do. And if people reject it, they didn't reject us. Look at 1st Samuel chapter eight. 1st Samuel chapter eight. When the people asked for a king, Samuel was all bent out of shape. He was taken it personal. He was upset with the people. And God's telling him, don't be upset. It said, the thing to please Samuel, verse number six. And when they said, give us a king to judge us. Samuel was offended by this. Samuel, Samuel, think about this for a second. Samuel was the leader. Samuel, you know what we're talking about? The last judge. You know, we had the book of judges. So God ruled the nation of Israel and then God gave the nation the judges. Samuel was the last judge. He wasn't the last judge because God wanted him to be the last judge. He was the last judge because the people said we don't want a judge anymore. So we want a king like all these nations around us. We want to be like them. It's like God wanted the nations utterly destroyed. Because he knew that the people would just want to be like all these wicked heathen nations. Sound familiar? But so Samuel's offended on many levels. But God is telling him like, look, you're not really offended on the right level. The thing was displeasing Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Samuel, hearken unto the voice of the people and all that they say unto thee. He's like, just do what they want. He says, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me. That I should not reign over them. God's kind of telling Samuel here, kind of get over yourself. It's not really about you judging them. They're rejecting the Lord, Samuel. They're rejecting me. And that's what you have to remember when you're out soul winning and people slam the door in your face. People are rude to you. They're contentious to you. And they want to, look, they want to stop you. They want to harden your heart. They want to wreck your heart for soul winning for the next person next door that, look, if you got to knock 200 doors to get to that one, it's worth it. You got to knock 300 doors to get to that one person that wants to know the truth. It's worth it. You got to knock 500 doors. There's times I've got several months without getting somebody saved. But then you end up getting somebody saved. It's worth it. Why? Because we're talking about somebody's eternity. We're talking about heaven and hell. If I moved to Fresno or you came to church, you got one person in your whole life saved, it'd been worth it. But what do we do? God gives us much more fruit than that. Yeah. But if I moved my old family here, or you moved here and you came here and started soul winning, and in 10 years you got one person saved, it's worth it. It's heaven and hell for somebody. So you can't let this harden you not even a little bit. Shake, I mean, shake the dust completely off your feet. Don't let any of that dust stay on your feet because they're rejecting Jesus, not you. And really if we put that on us, we're kind of putting something on us that's not ours. It's Jesus they're rejecting. I'm not big enough or important enough, and you're not big enough and important enough to be rejected. Jesus is though. And that's the main thing. So it's God that's being rejected, not us. The Bible is clear, folks. The doctrine is clear. Some people just aren't and, you know, they don't want to or they're not going to believe it. And it's not a rejection of us. So we can't let that harden us even a little bit because there's so many people that depend on us. I mean, look, we're gonna get way more people than one person saved in Fresno. We're seeing fruit, we're seeing people saved every single time we go out soul winning almost here, most times. So there's fruit out there. We just, we need to make sure that we stay soft and stay with our hearts in the right place and kind of get past that rejection of ourselves because it's not our rejection. So there's some soul winning tips for you from Jesus tonight. Again, we're gonna be thorough soul winners. Even though Jesus is like, I'm the Messiah, we're gonna tell people the whole gospel because that's our job, because we're not Jesus. So let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.