# How soul winning changes the soul winner

Key Passage: John 15:10-16
Date: June 7, 2024

John chapter 15 is a great chapter of God’s Word. You remember the first section talks about Him being the vine, where the branches are, talking about us abiding in the vine and Him abiding in us.

By the way, an interesting truth about that: you do not get fruit on the vine. You get it on the branches. That is where the fruit is. But the branches cannot bear any fruit unless they are connected to the vine.

We used to pick oranges in Florida at Christmas time when we were off school break. You talk about work! It used to be you would have to pick a big old tub to get seven dollars. As boys, we thought we were doing something, but it took a lot of work to get a tub full—a big old tub—for seven dollars. You pick those oranges; they are on the branches and in orchards and whatnot.

So, with that thought, we are entering into this chapter a little bit. We will read from verse 10 down through verse 16, and then we will go back and try to pull some truths from it tonight about winning souls. Brother Clay McNeese, two Sunday nights ago, really focused on what happens when someone gets saved.

Last week we talked about how He has entrusted us with the gospel, referencing 1 John 2:4, and we even gave an example. Last Sunday night, Drayshan came up. I was praying he would get saved; he never would. Of course, I am teasing with Drayshan, but we gave the plan of salvation out and just how to tell, how to speak.

Tonight, I believe the Lord will have us focus on how winning souls changes the soul winner. That is a great change. When the person gets saved, their destiny changes from hell to heaven—that is a big thing. So many things change. But the person witnessing, somebody witnessing, me witnessing—it changes us. We will look at some of those changes tonight from John chapter 15.

When I say witnessing, it may be at work; you get a chance to tell somebody about Jesus Christ. Brother Moe was with us in prayer meeting tonight. Brother Moe is from Egypt, and he was already saved. But he said when he moved to America, he thought there would be people witnessing everywhere in America—it is the Mecca, if you will. He was shocked. Not much witnessing. One of our people knocked on his door, and he said, “Well, that church is out inviting people to church, telling people about Jesus. I am going to go to that church.”

So much happens when you get involved in witnessing. Some people, when they pay their bills, they make sure they put gospel tracts in every payment they make. You say, “Well, a machine does that.” Well, that machine is getting the gospel out! Amen.

Just however you can do it, get the gospel out—gas pumps, giving gospel tracts. We had some people visit our church one time, and I asked, “How did you hear about our church?” They said, “We were in Murphysboro, I think it was a gas station or a restaurant—I think gas station—and went to the restroom. In the restroom, there was a gospel tract from your church.” I do not know who put it out there, but I am glad they are getting the gospel out.

We had some folks years ago—our people were into this for a while—just getting the gospel out. In Walmart, in the beer case, the beer section, they were putting gospel tracts in the beer cases. In fact, one man got a case of beer, brought it home, and when he opened it up, inside there was a tract. He was upset about that thing. He called me; he was a little irate, and he said, “That thing, I got that, and it bothered me so bad, I was sick the next day.” I thought, “You just had a hangover, fella; that is all it was.” He was convicted because he needed to get saved. I told him we were not trying to offend him, trying to lead him to the Lord, but he had not calmed down.

But just get involved in the gospel, witnessing—getting involved in witnessing is wonderful. It will do something to you when you get involved in this thing of getting the gospel out, winning souls. It will do something to you.

Let us look at a couple things. John 15, we are going to start at verse 10.

Verse number 10: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.”

“These sayings have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, that your joy might be full.”

“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.”

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

“Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.”

“Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”

Verse 16, I think, is a bit of the theme verse. He says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” Now, some will use this verse and say you have no choice in whether you are going to get saved or not. It is not a matter of choosing Him; He chooses you. But, friend, they are putting words in God’s mouth because they are saying He is talking about salvation. That is not what He is talking about here. Let us let God put His words in His own mouth. Let us find out what He is talking about when He says that. All right, are y’all with me?

Let us read on down and find out what He is talking about. “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you.” What? To get saved? No, that is not what He is talking about. He says that you should go. What is the first two letters of the gospel? We have mentioned it a lot here later: G-O, go. “Go ye therefore preach the gospel to every creature.” “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”

What has He chosen us for? “That ye should go and bring forth…” What is the next word? What is the fruit of a watermelon? Well, a seed, if you will, but another watermelon. What is the seed of an orange? A seed of an orange, another orange, so on. You understand where I am going. A lot of fruit—the fruit of a Christian ought to be… You understand that.

Notice what it says: “that your fruit should remain.” A lot of times when we say that, or think about that phrase, we think about how we like for—and I like it too—I want somebody to get saved, get in church, get baptized, and grow and all that and remain. I love that. But honestly, friend, if they truly got saved—you cannot trick anybody into getting saved—if they truly understood, if they meant it when they were praying and asking, they truly got saved, they are going to remain. You understand. They do not lose it, for He remembers what is that last verse of Psalm 23 over there? “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord how long?” Yes, if we got saved, they are going to remain. Is that right or not? They should never perish, as the Bible says. Now, I like them getting in church, and we all do everything we can, but I cannot get them saved; I cannot make them grow. That is the honest truth. God does that.

I had gardens for years and years; every year I would have a garden until I found out Brother Frank would do all the work, and he does a better job than me anyway, amen. And I can just steal from his garden, you know. Brother Frank, I am going to quit, man, that is cheating, you know. But I could till the ground up and get everything ready, plant the seed, fertilize, all that. I could not make anything grow. You cannot either. How do we witness and try to grow? He makes them grow. That is God’s business, friend.

“That your fruit shall remain, that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name”—that is Jesus’ name—“He may…”

Let us look in verse number 10. We read it just a minute ago, but look in verse number 10 of John 15. Let us just pull out one thing or two that happens when you get involved in this soul-winning.

Verse number 10: “If ye keep my commandments.” Now, let us stop for just a second and think about that, talk about commandments. It is plural, “s” on the end. So it is not just one thing, but we are focusing tonight—really, a lot of this chapter focuses on it—on the vine and the branches, and the purges, they have more fruit, and so on. A lot of the focus of the saying is fruit.

What do we often call this thing, the Great Commission? Often we call it that. It is actually given five times in the Bible, and it is to get the gospel out. It is talking about casting your pole, your net—the gospel net. Last week we talked about 1 John 2:4 and speaking the gospel that is entrusted to us. So there are a lot of commandments, but maybe one of the major commandments you can think about here in this passage would be getting involved in getting the gospel out. Do you agree with me on that? So let us look at it just with that thought. He says, “If ye keep my commandments”—that is a lot—but we are thinking a little bit along that line of getting the gospel out.

“Ye shall abide.” That is very interesting. Abide. I love it when someone gets saved and they just know the love of God. Wonderful. Wonderful. I mean, think back to the day you got saved when you said, “Man, my sins are paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ!” Woo-hoo! I do not have to worry about my sins as far as paying for them in hell. They are paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. Man, my name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. I am going to heaven. I am His child forever. I mean, He loves me. That is wonderful.

But if you are not careful, you will kind of lose that knowing He loves you. You will lose it a little bit about this saying, “Man, He loves me.” But if you want to abide in this thing of His love, you keep His commandments. Now, He will always love you; it is unconditional love. He saved you, and it is done. He cannot say—but if I am going to abide in this saying, I have got to keep His commandments.

I think about the law we are studying; we have been studying on Wednesday, on Sunday morning. The first thing is we love Him with all heart, mind, soul, and strength, and then He kind of sums it up in the New Testament: the next thing, love your neighbor. Well, one of the greatest things you can do for your neighbor is telling them how to go to heaven.

So if I go over there and I help them do something, fix your car, that would be a good thing. Amen. Some of you take your neighbor coming over and fixing your car. Anybody with me on that? Anybody got a check engine light on only? Yeah, I got hands all over the place on that right there. And your neighbor helps you come get that check engine light off. That would be a blessing right there, amen. Well, honestly, if that is all they did, and you died and went to hell, you were not saved. That is kind of minimal. But if they came over and told you how to go to heaven—yeah.

Hey, look, if my neighbor’s house is on fire and I say I love them, but I do not go over there and try to get them out of the house, I have to question how much I love them. But if you love them, their house is on fire, you are going to go over there and try to get them out of that burning house. And if they are not saved, they are in a burning house. They might not be in the flames quite yet, but it is going that way. You with me? Yeah. So here is the thing I am talking about: man, you abide in His love.

Let us keep going. “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” He said, “I do the will of the Father.” What was the will of the Father? That He left heaven, came down here, came to seek and to save that which was lost. Remember Christ saying that?

And you say, look, you get involved in that, and you do these commandments—one of those is getting the gospel out, and you love your neighbor—and God says you enter into your abiding if you know His love. I mean, there is a special thing about when I get involved in witnessing, getting people saved. I know His love in a special way. I get to abide in His love. I am giving His love out to others through the gospel.

What does the Bible say in Luke 6:38? Remember that? We teach it in Sunday School in the Foundation’s class. God gives to whom? To givers. Luke 6:38: “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” Remember that? “Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall men give into your bosom.” Now here is the thing: so I am giving out His love, and I get love back. Hey, you abide in His love. You feel His love. You know His love.

If I am not careful, that love I had when I first got saved—if I am not keeping the commandments—I do not feel love like that anymore. Sometimes we can get cold, a little bit hard. I will tell you what will soften up a saved person who kind of gets hard: get involved in winning souls. Boy, it will change.

Look over in Matthew chapter 28. We are back at John 15, but look over in Matthew 28. This is probably the one most often mentioned when we talk about the Great Commission; it is in other places also. But over here in Matthew 28, I want you to notice something we sometimes miss about this saying. In this place here, it gives three parts of the Great Commission. Usually, people just talk about giving the gospel out, but here it gives three things. Matthew 28, verse 19: He says, “Go ye therefore teach all nations,” teaching about Jesus, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” And lo, here it is: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Amen.

No preacher. He is in heaven now, I believe, but he used to preach the message: “No go, no load.” Now, here is the thing I am getting at. When I go, when I am involved in this thing of telling, teaching them about Jesus, getting them baptized, and helping them to grow—when I am involved in that—well, “I am with you always.” God comes in a special way. You want to get close to God? You want to know Him and know His love? When I get involved in this thing, getting the gospel out, God says, “I am with you then.” Now, He is never going to forsake you if you are a born-again Christian, but there is a special presence of God when I get involved in getting the gospel out. And God says, “Lo, I am with you.” I come and I get real close to you. We have a special bond. We are close-knit, and you abide in His love. But if I am not involved in it, “no go and no load,” as was told here in John 15. You keep His commandments—one of those is getting the gospel out—and you abide in His love. You know you are loved. You get your heart warmed by His love. You have a special presence.

There is something about when I am witnessing. Yes, it changes a person if they get saved. They hear the gospel; it is the power of God unto salvation. But it changes me. And I have the special presence of God, and I get to abide in His love. Pastor, I have lost my tears, and that will happen from time to time. How can I get them back? One great way is to get involved in getting the gospel out. You get to abide in His love. Boy, His love softens our hardened hearts. Yeah.

I think it was last year. We took a trip to Kentucky—a van load. There was a good crowd. There were some cars, maybe, too. I do not know. I got it in my head there were 17 people; I do not know how many. But anyway, a young church was just starting up in Kentucky, and we went up there and tried to help them get going. We just went knocking on doors, trying to tell people about Jesus. I do not know how many, and I do not know who all, but two of our men—I think about them in particular—they knocked on a lady’s door.

I remember the story right: she had been on her knees praying and asking God how she was supposed to go to heaven, how she was supposed to. She had been doing that every day for a while. Her husband was in prison. Man, it was just one of those divine appointments, and they had such a special time with those men. They were there for a long time, and a lot of tears were shed. I think they filled up a couple buckets of tears at that visit there, you know.

And I tell you what, those men riding home in that church van—all of us in that church van—they were abiding in His love. I mean, their hearts were tender. It was special. And there is something about when I get involved in getting the gospel out, and you know it is love, you abide in His love. It will change. I get hard, hard, and I get—I just kind of get sometimes on autopilot, got to keep going for the world, and that is part of it from time to time. Sometimes I need my heart softened, and I need to feel this love. I need to abide in His love. Boy, Paul, I need to stay after it; I need to stay involved in this thing of trying to win souls. I get to abide in His love.

Let us look at a couple other things back over here in John 15. Look in verse number 11. First of all, we said, how does it change the soul winner? It lets him abide in His love. He knows His love in a special way. Let us look at something else. Verse number 11: “These words have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you.”

If I am not careful, I will lose that joy. How do I keep the joy remaining in me? Part of that is bearing fruit. I keep involved in this thing of seeing souls say, “Man, I want to,” whether it be in a Sunday school class or at work or wherever you can, and I want to stay involved. What happens? I can remain that joy. I do not lose that. So many Christians lose it. You do not have to lose that joy.

Let us finish that verse, verse number 11: “These words have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, that your joy might be full.” Man, I like that joy. By the way, it goes hand in hand with that first one. We are talking about, “Lord, I am with you always.” He says, “In my presence is fullness of joy.” So I get involved in this saying of having fruit and bearing fruit. What happens? I can remain; I keep that joy. The joy of the Lord is my strength. God wants us to have joy.

First John is talking about having fellowship. Let me just read it for you. First John 1:3: “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with the Son Jesus Christ.” And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. If I stay involved in this thing, there is joy there. I have His presence in a special way, and there is joy involved. I can remain in His joy.

For me, maybe just putting it in my terms a little bit, you know, the Christian life—there are battles. You are going to have the old devil come at you in about 10,000 different ways. There are struggles. Have you ever felt like Satan is just beating on your left or right? Anybody ever feel like that? You are going to feel like that from time to time. I am sure Job felt like that.

This helps me: if I am always on the defense, he is just always coming after me. That can be discouraging. Some of you guys play football; I guarantee you, Brother Jim can tell you, if your team is always on defense, and you are looking at the stats of a team, if the defense is out there all the time, that defense is going to get worn out. You get tired and weary. It is a good thing when you get the offense out there, you know. For me, just putting it into my human terms, it helps me. I am not just on the defense getting hit all the time. I get to get out there and get on the offense and see God work. And it brings purpose and meaning to my Christian life. It is more than just taking the hits. God uses an old hillbilly like me to give the devil a black eye, especially when someone gets saved. And I get to have a part of that. I am not just on the defense; I am on the offense, and it brings a little bit of joy. Man, when your team scores a touchdown, you are like, “Woo-hoo!” And it brings joy. Being involved in witnessing, you get to be on the offense.

For three years in high school, I played. I cannot kick. Man, I am so uncoordinated. But our coach—we were in PE, we were playing football—and I like to catch, amen. I mean, you know, they thought that in football, I was the best to catch it, you know. That way you do not have to run so far through all those big fellas trying to hit you, you know. I mean, they just throw the ball, you catch it. But I am going to get down the ground. But I called it. We gained 10 yards, whatever, you know. And so he said, “Man, try out for soccer.” I said, “Coach, I cannot kick the ball. I mean, I will trip over my own shoelaces if I try to kick a ball.” He said, “I will make you a goalie if you work at it. Try it.” So, all right, sounds good. So I was goalie for three years in high school.

You know, goalie—all you ever do is play defense all the time. I mean, after a while, three years, Coach, man, it is killing me. All I ever do is defense. I never forget, it was a good day, a day of joy for me when we were playing. Now, sometimes we were on the—we were the lesser of the good team, if you will. But sometimes we were a lot better than other teams, and we were not one of those cases, and we were winning. I do not know about it; it was maybe zero to like eight or so. And we were winning. And I think it was my senior year. And the coach said, “I tell you what, Paul is always in the goalie box back there. He has been playing for years and all the time playing out there, and he has never scored a goal. Everybody knows he cannot kick.”

But look, man, we already had eight, maybe nine, ten goals because they wanted to be way ahead before they let me kick a ball, you know. So we were like killing them, I do not know. It was like eight, nine, ten to nothing, you know. And they said, “All right, all we are going to do is we are going to try to let Paul score a goal.” Get out of the goalie box. Now, they set me up about 10 million times. Most guys would have scored goal after goal. But I just could not kick. But finally, finally, it was just—I knew the goalie box, and it was kind of me and just the goalie. And I ended up kind of just lucking up and I scored a goal. Man, that was like my glory days. I scored a goal after three years. Man, I had a lot of joy. Look at me, I scored a goal! That is only because they set me up the whole time for about half the game, setting me up, finally scored one goal. Man, it was good to be on the offense. There is something about it when you get involved on the offense.

And just to me, Satan is hitting on me a little bit. You know, that is all right, though. We are going to have our chance. We are involved on the offense. I am telling you, it will bring you joy. It will broaden your Christian life. It will add new dimensions. Man, I get involved in this thing of seeing people saved.

Thursday night we went out. We had four different teams of people going to the apartment complex, just telling people about Jesus. You know the amazing thing? We had four different groups out, and every group got to see someone bow their head and ask Jesus Christ to save them. And I tell you what, we were leaving in our cars, and there was a lot of joy. It seemed like every group just had—man, anybody excited or popped—had a lot of joy. Why? Because we got to be on the offense. See? Now, we had a little bit extra joy in my truck leaving because my wife and I went to Menchie’s afterwards, amen, got some ice cream. But there is joy, see, and I get involved. I get to abide in this love, and then I have this—I get to remain in His joy when I am involved in witnessing and winning souls to the Lord Jesus.

Two more things real quickly here. Verse number 15, John 15. Look at verse number 15.

John 15 and verse number 15: “I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”

Now, I remember this chapter is about fruit, the vine and the branches, and bearing fruit, and then pruning to bear more fruit. His fruit brings Him glory. And now He is talking about these commandments—one of those is getting the gospel out. And look, if I keep His commandments, I abide in His love. I see after this thing; I have this joy. And now He says when I get involved in this thing of bearing fruit, it changes my category, my status of view from not just being His servant. When I get involved in this common cause that He has sent me to do, and He has told us what to do, and now we get involved in this saying, now I enter into the category of friend. I am not just a servant now. I still want to be a servant, but now He says, “Now we are friends.” If you are saved, He is your best friend no matter what, but now we get this little common bond, if you will, of friendship.

And God said, “I am not calling you servants anymore. I have told you everything the Father has told me to do. And now it is so sending out of you, and now I am calling you friend.” Oh, what a wonderful thing. I mean, friends do things together, and they have common interest and commonality. Jesus says you are entering into friendship with me. I mean, I get to be His friend. Abraham was called a friend of God. And Jesus says here, now you get this: I am moving into the category of friendship. That is pretty awesome. We have become co-laborers with Christ, as 1 Corinthians 3 talks about.

There was a man in a church in Alabama when I was a youth director down there. He was a good man, and he was just—I mean, he was country. I mean, I do not think I am that country, to television or something. I said, “Man, who was that?” He will be able to tell you up there. Wow, you know, he sounds country. But anyway, it reminds me—Brother Anthony Miscatora, Ms. Gatoro, every once in a while, I tell Brother N what he is saying up there, you know, and he had to, and Johna McKinna is having the same issues every once in a while. Now she has to translate from me into English or proper English, you know.

All right, this is what he would say. Anyway, this guy was even much more country than I am, if that is the word, country-er, you know. I mean, he was out there from the sticks, you know. And Brother Howland was his name. He is in heaven now, and I knew him, but I thought, man, this guy—I am talking about he is back with Alabama Hillbilly. I mean, he is just country, you know.

We had a bus and two church vans, whatnot, and he was our mechanic. I mean, he was a pretty good mechanic. I remember going over to his house and working on vehicles together with him. And boy, we began to work together. I began to get to know him. I told Brother Martin this story: Our very first church family, years ago, the blue Dodge van—where we got it, his homeowner’s insurance agent man went walking through his yard. He had 32 old cars in his yard. And he tripped over a bumper in the grass and got mad. He said, “If you do not get rid of some of these cars, I am canceling your insurance.” So he called me and said, “Do you want a church van?” Amen, amen. God works in mysterious ways, you know.

That was Brother Allen. I will never forget one day one of the church vans broke down. Now, we did not do it with anybody else in the van, but it took the cover off the engine, you know, inside there. They could pull it off, and he said, “You drive, keep the pedal to the metal, and I will pour gas in the carburetor because the carburetor would not work it.” Amen, that is how we got the van back to church. Now that is hillbilly folk, I tell you for sure. Yeah, I mean, after in some of those situations, Brother Rick is up here laughing. I mean, country—I tell you what, we are in. You want to go faster, you know. Country, you know, something like, “Whoa.”

But I am telling you, country. And then we built a building together. And I am talking about they set a deadline. And I literally worked all night long, at least one night, maybe two. And then Brother Allen worked all that long with that crazy building. And I tell you what, by the end of that program, I was there a whole lot, and he was there a whole lot. After a while, we knew each other. I mean, we would walk in a room and somebody would be saying something, talking about something, and I pretty much knew what he was thinking. He knew what I was thinking. He taught me something during that building program—this little phrase he taught me: “I like the way I’m doing it better than the way you’re not.” I learned that from that hillbilly in Alabama. I mean, it is always easier to tell somebody how to do something, you know, and talk about it. But I am telling you, we got close. We became good friends. And we entered into friendship. Why? We were working together.

And when you get in the harvest fields with Christ, and you are trying to reach somebody for the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are praying, and you are trying to witness, and you are looking, and you are so conscious within you, and you are burdened about it, and you are working with Christ—Christ says you are moving into the category of My friend now. We are having friendship together.

I am telling you this thing about witnessing. You get involved in witnessing Him, and He says, “No, I am not going to call you servants anymore. Henceforth, hey, friends.” I told you everything the Father told me. You are getting involved in where My heartbeat is. It will change you. It will do something to you.

Let us look at this last thing. Let us jump down to verse number 16. Verse number 16. Number one, we said it changes the person witnessing: it lets you abide in His love, lets you know and remain in His joy—in relationship. Then look at this, verse number 16: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” Here it is: “That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you.”

Christ says you are entering into My burden. You are entering into what I am concerned about—souls. What I left heaven for, what I came down and suffered and bled and died for. And you are getting involved in what My passion is. And Christ says, “I will allow you to use My name when you go to the Father.” You have special power in prayer, if you will.

And God says, you are entering into My burden. When we have a workday around here, you know, we did the addition or whatever around here, more often than not, we will get someone that is willing to be the—we call them the gopher, you know, go for this, go for that. I hate to be the gopher. I mean, I hate to walk around about 20 million times every day. But praise the Lord, usually there is somebody that says, “Well, I will be the guy that goes and gets whatever we need.” And it is usually somebody that is here a lot and they are involved. And we know they are going to get stuff for the work to be done. So I say, “Hey, man, praise the Lord, you are willing to go. Let me give you the church car.” Now, do not go planning vacations on that car. We do not want receipts from Burger King and McDonald’s and Dairy Queen, you know, and Menchie’s and all the rest of that. But I know, man, they are here to get the job done. So I want to acquire to get the job done. When I get involved, Lord, I like to use me to bring someone to You.

I think of a lady at the time—I think all of her kids were involved in the ministry, grown kids. And someone said, “What do you attribute your kids turning out and serving God?” And she said, “Well, I will tell you what: my husband was a soul winner. He was always trying to win somebody to the Lord, and he prayed for our kids.” And the thing she attributed it to was her husband being a soul winner, and he prayed for the kids. And I am just saying…

I am just saying, when you get involved in this thing, God says, “You know what? I am going to let them abide in My love, keeping My commandments. That joy can remain in them.” And so no longer is he just a servant, but now I am going to move them to the status of friends.

My old boss, when I was a teenager, Mr. Sampson, owned a factory, a smaller factory. But Mr. Sampson told me one time, he said, “Paul, you think you know a man, but you really do not know that man until you work with him.” He said, “That is when you really get to know that man.” And you get to start working—God says, “Hey, we are going to become friends.”

And then this last thing: God says, “You know what? Whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name.” Father, they can use My name because they are involved in what You told Me to do, and I told them what You told Me, and they are involved in it. Father, they are legitimately using My name when they are asking things from You. God says, “I like to give them necessary tools.” By the way, if you are going to win souls, it is not going to be you and me; it is going to be God. And God says, “I hear their prayers for Me to use and bless.” And they are involved in the building program, if you will. And God says, “Whatever they ask, whatsoever they ask of the Father in My name”—who is that talking about? Bearing fruit, bearing fruit.

I was a freshman in Bible college, the fad. You know, there are always fads going around. The fad back there—you are not going to believe it. Some of you remember back in the day, it was for men to have a briefcase. Remember the businessmen had briefcases back in the day? You were somebody if you had a briefcase, you know. How’s, you know, poor is Job’s turkey. I mean, if Job had a turkey, I did not have—I could not buy a briefcase, you know. I wanted a briefcase. I mean, I was a hillbilly, you know, and I was up there up north. They would say—I said, “What do we talk about?” It does not matter, just talk, you know, because of the way I talk. And I wanted to be at least semi-somewhat looked like I knew what I was talking about, you know. So I wanted a briefcase. Everybody else had briefcases. I had no money. And I said, “Lord, have mercy on this hillbilly here, and I would like to have a briefcase.”

I never forget one Saturday out witnessing, working on the bus trying to get people around to come to church on the bus—and I think the Saturday before something like that, I had led a handicapped man to the Lord—and I went by his house, and just out of the clear blue, he said, “You know, I got an old briefcase I never used. Would you like the briefcase?” And I thought, wow, I am not trying to bear some fruit. God heard my prayer. God said, “Whatsoever you ask the Father in My name, He will give it to you.” There is a special power in prayer when I get involved in winning souls.

Original File: How Soul Winning changes the Soul Winner - Pastor Paul Chisgar Sunday PM 81119