When a person is born again, God does not put this person under guilt, even though he fails. The Holy Spirit does convict us of sin and failure in order to bring us to repentance, in order to bring us to cleansing, in order to bring us to obedience. This lesson is not to produce guilt, but to produce a deep, keen sense of our responsibility. I want you to keep the title of this lesson in your mind as I teach this –
“Look At Your Hands – Are They Bloody?” . I want you to keep these words in your mind as I teach this
–The Bible Says That Every Christian Is Responsible for Winning The Lost. Matthew 4:19 -“Then He said to them, ‘Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.’” This is the clear teaching of both covenants – Old and New Testament, but it teaches more than that.
The Bible Says if We Fail To Warn The Lost and they appear in the judgment lost that their blood will be upon our hands. This is exactly the teaching of Ezek. 3:18 and repeated again in Ezek. 33:7-8. “When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand.”
Some might say that this verse is for another dispensation or it was for one particular individual, the Prophet Ezekiel, or for another race, the Jews but I would immediately answer that we find the same teaching in the New Testament. For example, in Hebrews 13:17 we are told that spiritual leaders are to watch for souls for they must give an account in the judgment. Paul was keenly aware of this responsibility and as he summarizes his ministry in Acts 20:20-31, he says that for three years, publicly and privately, with tears, he has not ceased to tell people to repent and to turn to Christ. Notice in Acts 20:26-27, Paul says, “For I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” I believe that Paul must have held his hands before him and looked at them and said, “My hands are clean. I haven’t won a lot of people that I tried to win, but I’ve faithfully preached the gospel, and I’ve faithfully warned people, and my hands are clean.”
Look at your hands today – are they clean? Is there blood on your hands? Paul had been obsessed with those things which make a soul winner or make a witness for Jesus Christ. If we’re going to cleanse our hands, we must be conscious of seven of these:
- A Soul Winner Is Jesus Conscious A soul winner never gets over the thrill of knowing Jesus. When you read the life of Paul and any great soul winner, you will discover that those individuals are head over heels in love with Jesus. They are Christ centered and there is no exception to the rule. In Phil. 3:8, Paul says, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” In Acts 20:24 he says, “I count my life as nothing but that I may finish the task which Jesus has given me – the task of testifying the gospel of the grace of God.” He says, “Nothing matters to me except to tell the world about Jesus.” He was Jesus conscious.
- A Soul Winner is Soul Conscious. Paul says in Romans 9:2-3, “I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart for I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, the Jews.” This word accursed is the Greek word anathema which means devoted to destruction. Paul is saying, “I would be willing to be consigned to hell if by going to hell my lost brothers and sisters would be saved.”
How important are souls to you today? We are not going to win souls unless we are soul conscious and unless we see the value of an eternal soul? Nothing is as valuable as a soul. D. L. Moody says that on the forehead of every lost man he ever met he saw the letter “L”. He said he knew it stood for L-O-S-T, and he knew that God was calling him to witness to that lost soul.
- A Soul Winner Is Prayer Conscious. Again the great soul winner of the ages – the apostle in Romans 10:1 says, “My heart’s desire and prayer for Israel is that they might be saved.” A person who’s going to win souls must pray, pray, pray. I think of the word of Samuel in 1 Samuel 12:23, “But God forbid that I should sin against God by ceasing to pray for you.” He was speaking of the Israelites who were lost. Do you consider it a sin against God when you do not pray for the lost? How many of you have a prayer list of lost people? Sometimes we wonder why people are not saved. Sometimes we wonder and look for something big when it’s the simplest thing God’s given us. We haven’t prayed. God will never use us to win souls until we are so concerned we zero in on them in prayer. There are three phrases of soul winning:
- The Sowing
- The Cultivation
- The Harvest.
Before we sow we must pray. As we sow we must pray. Then we cultivate and we must pray. As we harvest, we must pray, pray, pray. That brings the victory. Pray for lost souls that they might be saved. That’s the only thing that will break the powers of darkness in their lost and bring about the revival that we desire.
- A Soul Winner Is Opportunity Conscious. Paul says in Ephesians 5:14, “Make the use of every opportunity.” Our opportunities are boundless if you are a child of God. In the life of every child of God the sovereign God of glory is placing people all the time around you and in your path, not to mention those He will send you to. It is not by accident where you sit on a plane. It’s not by accident who you meet on an elevator, or who’s living next door to you or who you work with or who is in your Sunday School class. The sovereign God of glory has placed us in this world that we might reach out and tell the lost about Jesus. Oh the opportunities we have if we will buy them up!
It is so important that we buy up opportunities and not wait. While I was preaching at Fort Smith, I shared with my staff one morning my heart to them about the need of all of us to be urgent, to recognize our responsibility before God to win the lost so that the blood of souls would not be upon the preacher’s hands or the staff’s hand. One of the staff members left the meeting, went into the home of a young woman and won her to Christ. The young woman said, “I am saved, I will stand at the front of First Baptist Church next Sunday and confess Jesus as my Savior and be baptized.” The very next night as I was leaving my home and going to my car, my son Phil came running to me and I knew something was wrong. I thought my mama might be dead. Phil was running and shouting, “Wait, Daddy, wait.” I said, “Phil, what’s wrong?” He said, “I have a note for you from Mama.” The note read, “A woman and her little baby have died. This young woman that had just received Christ, 26 years old and her 3 year old baby had been killed.”
What if the opportunity had not been bought up? A soul winner is opportunity conscious.
- A Soul Winner Is Eternity Conscious. A soul winner believes what the Bible says – that every human being in this world is going to spend eternity in heaven or hell. We’ve almost lost sight of this. We have lost sight of the fact that men are destined for eternity, and we are responsible if we’ve had the gospel. It’s an awesome responsibility upon our hearts.
Example: Sarah, Abraham’s wife lived to be 127- the only woman in the Bible whose age is revealed at her death. She died about 2,000 BC, but she’s been alive 4000 years somewhere. Our life here is nothing compared to eternity. We’re within a breath of eternity. We need to be eternity conscious which will make us concerned about lost souls more than anything this side of eternity.
- A Soul Winner Is Reward Conscious. When you really take accountability at the judgment seriously then you listen to what the Bible says about rewards. I’ve noticed sometimes that when you get on rewards, the ones who always resists are liberals and luke- warmers who are disobedient unto God and do not intend to obey Him. We don’t want to hear anything about rewards if we are not interested in doing what God says, and realize we are accountable to God in the judgment for this life.
Paul was tremendously interested in rewards. We are not saved by works, but are accountable for our works. We will have to meet them, and we will be rewarded according to our works. The doctrine of eternal security of the Calvinist Creed of our historic faith does not deny this one minute. There’s going to be a review of the people of God and we are going to answer to God. Almost the last words on the lips of Jesus in Revelation 22:12 is, “Behold, I come quickly and My reward is with Me to give to every man according as his works will be.” The primary reward is going to come to those who have won the lost. This is the reason He died.
- The Soul Winner is Blood Conscious– conscious of the fact that the blood of men can be upon our hands in the judgment. That’s what the text says. That’s exactly what Paul says. He says, “The blood of men was upon my hands until I washed my hands by sharing the gospel with all that I could.” This is the last thing that Satan ever wants you to do.
Blood conscious – look at your hands. Are they bloody? Can you, like Paul in Acts 20:26 declare, “I am innocent of the blood of all men.” If you cannot, just let the Holy Spirit convict you. I have brought this lesson to motivate you to get the blood off your hands. God is a forgiving God. He will take us right where we are and use us. If your hands are bloody, wash them today. He wants to use many of us today who have blood on our hands. Is it you? How do you wash the blood away? By being:
- Jesus conscious,
- Soul conscious,
- Prayer conscious,
- Opportunity conscious,
- Eternity conscious,
- Reward conscious and
- Blood conscious.
When we have this consciousness, we will wash our hands!