A call to be a Soulwinner

The Great Commission carried one principle message, and that is "wining the lost." It is consistent with why Jesus came, and with His teaching. He come to seek and to save that which was lost. His constant teaching about the prodigal son, the lost coin, the lost lamb, lost rich man, weeping over Jerusalem, and constant concern over lost Israel, wanting to make fishers of men out of His disciples, reveals that His uppermost burden was saving the lost. For this purpose He came, for this purpose He died and rose again. That is why He sent the Holy Spirit, that He may draw men unto Him. It is for this purpose He has called us. This was the Great Commission - "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel" - The message of good news.

The Message of Good News

Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:18 - 20, NKJV, emphasis added).

There are three "Alls" - "all authority"; "all the nations"; "all things"; and a forth if I may take literary license and say "always."

In other words, Jesus said, "You go into every nation and get people save. I am empowering you to do so and am promising I will not abandan you."

This commission is not just for the missionary or the evangelist. It is for every Christian. No one is exempt. If you do not go abroad you are responsible to see to it that others are able to go - by helping them financially or in kind.

The Pastor, as everyone else, is called to be a soulwinner. He even has a greater responsibility, for while he is to be a soulwinner himself, he is also responsible to see to it that each member of his flock is winning souls. That is the number one program of the Church. You may be a full-time worker, an administrator, a builder, a counselor, a preacher, a teacher, a musician or a retire, but first and formost you must be a soulwinner. I you are not, you are living in disobedience to the last Command of Christ.

Being commissioned to be a soulwinner

Soulwinning starst the day you get saved. When the woman at the well found Jesus, she soon had the whole town at the feet of Jesus. I don't understand from what version of the Bible we get the idea that we must be saved for years, take several courses on soulwinning or spend four to seven years years in college or university getting a degree before we go out. Some of the deepest theologians are the poorest soulwinners! Some of them say, "That is not my responsibility. It is the evangelist's calling." Calling or profession has nothing to do with it. Every Christian is commissioned to be a soulwinner.

There should never be a Christian function without soulwinning as the objective. You may have friendly badminton or tennis games at school where the majority of the young people are not Christians. Or you may have Christian ladies invite their non-Christian friends to the Church cooking class. Or you may have a Church Camp where Christians have the opportunity to invite their non-Christian friends to go. A speaker should be invited to speak in the Camp. This will give an opportunity for non-Christians to listen to Christian messages and respond to the altar-call.

Christian youths are in great danger of just having a social gathering they called Youth Camp. They just want to have fun. Can you imagine that there is no Bible study and no intercessory prayer meet? All they do is to play card games or Monopoly!

Wherever Christian gatherings are held, there the Great Gommission should be heard and felt or it is not Christian, it becomes a secular thing. Of course, Christians should have fun, but their fun should point others to Christ. If sinners are present, then it is an opportunity to motivate the believers to be soulwiners.

Anyone who feels they are not called to soulwinning is not in tune with the burden of Christ. They do not have the pulsating heart-beat of the Holy Spirit. I wonder if such person is born-again. If there is some flicker of life in them and they are not winning souls, then certainly they are out of the will of God.

The calling of Pastors

Pastors are called to reach the lost and to teach the reached. So many Pastors act more like politician electioneering than shepherds who lead the flock. God did not call Pastors to dine at every banquet, kissing babies and embracing women folk. He did not comission Pastors to attend every convention, belong to every club and attend every party. He called Pastors to seek the lost, cry out,"Oh, God, my community is going to hell. Their blood will be required at my hands." Pastor needs to know that he will have to give an account for every lost lamb of his flock, for the lean, barren sheep that he is shepherd of.

The Spirit of God is saying to all believers, "Hurry and get the Gospel to every creature." Keeping people out of hell was so important that Jesus left heaven, came to this earth, suffered untold physical and spiritual agony, bled and died, as He gave His soul an offering to sin. If He was willing to pay so great a cost to win the lost, how come we, redeemed son, dare take the matter of winning souls so lightly? Dare we become embarrassed to speak to someone about his soul? Dare we have a neighbor, a fellow worker that we have not witnessed to?

A Pastor should at least, once a year, lead a team of Christians into the neighborhood homes and apartment buildings. We, who are called of God, should have witnessed to, or personally won, at least one soul to the Lord in a specific period of time. We should bring forth the evidence of our call, of our burden and concern for the lost. Wesley didn't tell his disceiples to go and he himself personally relax at home. Booth didn't send the cadets to the street meeting and take his wife shopping. They showed their disciples the way by personal example. The mandate of Jesus was and still is, "Win the lost!" The command is "GO." and not send others and find some reason not to go himself.

The New Testament Church never considered the cost or impossibilities. We say the doors are closed to the schools, government departments, apartment buildings and many countries, especially to where Islam is the official religion. It is time we acted like we believe the Gospel. Jesus said that there was "salvation in no other Name" but through Him. Do we really believe that? If we do, we will act like it. The rulers in the days of Peter, John, Paul and Barnabas said, "You must not speak in the Name Jesus." But they said, "Shall we obey man or God?"

The New Testament Church got the message. They got the power and they went. They went from house to house. They were rejected, they were persecuted and stoned. They were ridiculed and arrested. Their love ones disowned them. Some women became widows because their men became martyres, but they went on witnessing. It was more important for them to obey than to live in disobedience. Little wonder they said, "....Those who have turned the world upside down have come here too" (Acts 17:6).

They won the world by sacrificing themselves. We are losing the world by self-indulgence. Yes, the early Church shook the whole Roman Empire. We are allowing some ungodly bylaw that says you cannot assemble of give literature in schools or in a park, shopping mall or apartment building, shake us up. Maybe some will have to pay the price of being arrested, of having their reputation splashed across the newspapers. Paul didn't seem to mind being arrested for there he found time to write the Paulin Epistles!

Every believer can and must win souls if we are going to get the job done. It matters not whether you are active in business or crippled in a wheelchair at home. Ther is no living person who is a Christian who is exempt from soulwinning. Pastors must challenge the members of his congregation to win souls. If no, it is probably because they are not doing it themselves. Pastors should not neglect their duty because the Churchgoers will reflet their burden or lack thereof!

One day the Pastor will conduct a funeral and have to console distraught parents whose teenager got killed in a road accident. He knew they had a wayward child, but as a shepherd (Pastor) he never visited that home and tried to reach that child. How would the Pastor feel when the mother clings to his arms and asked, "Pastor, do you think my child has gone to heaven?" Try to assure her, when you never cried with her over the child before he was killed. Take a leisurely drive to his home after the funeral service, listen to the music on his car radio, sit up and watch TV with his wife that night. God to sleep if he can. If he can, he has just disqualified himself from the Christian ministry!

We love the Lord by winning souls

Do we love the Lord enough to go and win souls, and do we love the lost enough to obey Christ's command? It was God's love that He sent His Son to the cross. It was His love that was expressed in self-sacrifice. How do we express His love to the lost? Are we gripped by His love for the lost until His love becomes our love for the lost?

An unsaved father was cleaning and playing with a gun one day while his Sunday-school-attending son sat by and watched. Accidently the gun went off and struck the boy. While they waited for the speeding ambulance to arrive, the boy squeezed his father's hand and said, "Daddy, I love you even if you get drunk and don't treat me very good." The boy went to heaven but his love prepared the father to follow him. Do loved ones and sinners really know that we love them? Seldom will anyone resist witness if it is done.

Invest in prayer for the unsaved

Do allow the Holy Spirit to keep probing all our hearts. How much time do we really invest in prayer for the unsaved?

See our Lord looking at the multitude and having compassion for them, for they were as sheep without a shepherd. See Him on the side of Mount Olivet looking at Jerusalem and crying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing" (Matt. 23:37)!

See Abraham pleading for the lost in Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses prostrated himself on the rocks and was willing to have his name removed from the saved if need be to have Israel spared. Jeremiah wept for his wayward people until he ran out of tears. Paul ceased not to petition, and even to receive the curse due to them for rejecting their Messiah. The crying was incontrollable,and by his own confession he wept at times day and night. He travailed over the maturing saints, for Christ to be formed in them.

Have we caught the burdened spirit of sages and prophets, over the generation, for those who are lost? We are responsible for ur generation, and particularly for those for whom we have accepted responsibility. When a Pastor accepts a charge, he is charged with the spiritual responsibility of that congregation. The parents, grandparents, youth and children are his responsibility.

Visitation

When someone got saved, the Pastor should do his best to find out about him and his family. If a Pastor is posted and accepted a pastorate of an existing congregation, his first priority is to visit every family and adherent in their home. He should accept the most serious responsibility that any human could accept. He knows that one day he will face the Chief Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep, and he will have to give an account how he cared for those whom He loved unto death. It is a solemn, awesome charge. God help that shepherd in the Day of Judgment who cared not for the sheep, who attended to his own and his family's comfort, but failed miserably as an undershepherd.

Harvest time but shortage of laborers

It is harvest time around the world.

"Do you not say, 'There are still four months and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I asy to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields for they are already white for harvest" (John 4:35)!

If it was harvest time in the day of our Lord with several million people, what is He saying today with nearly 6 billion on the earth? If the harvest was white then and about to fall, surely it is over-ripe today, and falling. It is hard for us to realize that more than a million souls perish every week, and the majority of them have never heard that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. You have the opportunity to talk to them daily, on airplanes, in trains, in restaurants, in offices, in schools, in hotels and everywhere. You talk to stewardesses, waiters, hotel maids and many others. And you talk to Hindus, Buddists, Moslems, but you are likely to realize that they have never heard of the message of the Cross and that no one can enter the Kingdom of God but through Jesus Christ. Do you realize that over 2 billion of today's population have never heard that message for the first time? Yes, many have heard about Christianity but very few know what it means to be a Christian. They simply look upon Christianity as the American or European religion, just like Hiduism as the Indian religion, Buddhism as the Chinese and Japanese religion and Islam as the Arabic religion. The fields are over-ripe and the grain is falling.

The problem was in our Lord's days and it still is today - a shortage of laborers.

Jesus said, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of harvest to send out laborers into His harvest" (Matt. 9:37, 38).

A shortage of righteous people

Sodom and Gomorrah would not have been destroyed had there been at least handful of righteous people. Lot had so compromised that he called the Sodomites "brethren."

"Please, my brethren, do not do so wickedly" (Gen. 19:7).

But for the prayers of Abraham and the mercy of God, Lot may have perished with the rest of the crowd.

God had to destroy the world in Noah's day because it was so wicked that it was beyond salvation. Only eight souls counted as "righteous" were spared. In each case there were no laborers to save the situation. It doesn't always take a great crowd to change the situation, but it does take an Elijah to take on the hundreds of false prophets. It took a repentant backslider like Jonah to save Nineveh. It took Elijah with the power of God to change the situation. If you think your community is hard and unresponsive, you should try to face what Eijah did. The power of God with fire from heaven made the difference.

The crime of murder, the crime of abotion where millions of unwanted babies cry as they are being killed still in the womb, the thousands being killed in the insurrections, in coups and in wars are all terrible crimes, but the worst crime of all crimes is committed by God's people. It is the sin of neglect, of lukewarmness, of a self-induced sleep while over a million souls go into hell every week. A hundred and fifty thousand die daily, almost 7,000 per hour and yet we can sit back and watch it happen!

We Christians can make the destiny of souls heaven or hell. How are the lost going to hear unless we speak to them? The angels were not charged with the Gospel. The charg is to Christian believers only.

There is a need today, a need tomorrow and a need everyday. There are lost ones in our communities, in our workplace and in our schools. Let us, as Pastors, full-time workers and concerned Christians join hand with others as we enter to seek, and seap the lost.