Saving Souls

Number nine—what time is it, 11:36?  I must encourage them to listen to God’s voice.  I must encourage them to listen to God’s voice.  I believe that God speaks to everybody.  There’s a God-shaped vacuum in every person’s heart, and God speaks right into that.  I believe that God will confirm the witness.

Now let me give you some other things here.  Let me give you this statement.  Evangelism is about conversion, and let me give you twelve steps.  Ha, ha, you thought I was through.  This thing’s empty.  Twelve steps in helping to help someone to be converted to Christ.

Number one, first step is very obvious.  Number one is, repent.  Repent.  Remember at the first of the semester, I taught you about what the word repentance means.  Repentance is a change of mind.  It’s not a change of heart; it’s a change of mind.  The first step is to repent.

And I’ll give you these scriptures.  I won’t read them.  Just write them down in association with each of them.  You can study them out on your own.  Repent, Luke 13:3.

Second is, receive Christ.  You need a Savior.  Receive Christ.  John 1:12.  “As many as received him, to them he gave the power,” you know.

Third, be born again.  John 3, what is it?  John 3:17, 16, John 3:16, 17.  And that’s Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus, where Nicodemus—no, it’s before 16, isn’t it?  What is it, 14 or 15?  Just John 3.  Find it, where He said, “Nicodemus, you must be born again.”  It’s John, chapter 3, it’s 14, 15, right along in there.

All right, four, rejoice publicly.  Write down Romans 10:9-10, Romans 10:9-10, rejoice publicly.

Five—and this is not emphasized as much, but I think it’s important, number five, request water baptism.  Mark 16:16.  What is water baptism?  Water baptism is an outward sign of an inward work.  It is a symbol of the old man dying and the new man being born again.

Sometimes, you know, before we had our own airplane, because I was recognized and flying commercial, you know, people ask me all kinds of questions.  And I’m always—so I’m sitting next to somebody, you know, they recognize me or somebody says, “Hello, Dr. Roberts,” or whatever.  And, you know, “Who are you?”  And I tell them, and then they want to ask, want to play twenty questions for the next, you know, thirty minutes.

And it always comes down to me being a gentleman, not trying to push myself on them.  Invariably when I do that, when I’m nice and when I don’t over-push myself and when I ask questions about them, invariably before the conversation is over, they’ll say something like, “Would you pray for me?”

And if they don’t, sometimes after the conversation, I’ll say, “Would it be okay with you if I prayed for you?”  See, you don’t have to be a jerk.  You can do it nice.  I’ve never, ever had anyone turn me down when I ask them nicely, “Would you like me to pray for you?”  Be a gentleman.  Be a lady.  Be respectful.  Use tact.  Okay?

You don’t have to jam Jesus down somebody’s throat.  That’s what turned me off when I was a kid.  They tried to jam God down my throat, and it didn’t work with me.  Now maybe some people it works with, but me, it didn’t.

Eight, I must bring a person to a point of decision.  When I’m witnessing to someone, I’ll oftentimes say to them, “Would you like for me to pray with you to receive Christ as your Savior?”

And I don’t do it in a con—what’s the word?—condemning way.  I just ask a question, “Would you like to receive Christ?  Would you like me to pray for you?  I’ll pray for you right now if you’d like me to.”  You see, that’s not forceful, you know.

You don’t have to say, “Stand up, raise your right hand in front of everybody in the restaurant.”  You don’t have to do that.  You never see Jesus doing that.

And if there was ever any doubt that it was a real experience, I walked out in the hallway after the service, and I found a pile of four people all on top of each other in the floor.  And I looked to see who it was.  Do you know who it was?  It was Brother Hagin, who is now in heaven, Brother Hagin’s wife Oretha, who is still on earth, my father, who lives in California, and my mother, who is in heaven.

The four of them, the joy of the Lord had hit all four of them on their way out of the service, and they were in the lobby.  People couldn’t get past them because there was a pile of four of them on top of each other, laughing hysterically.

Now, students, my mother was one of the most dignified women I’ve ever known in my life.  And for my mother to be on the floor laughing hysterically, I knew it had to be the Holy Spirit.

And when I saw Sister Hagin, who is one of the most respectable women I’ve ever known in my life, when I saw her on top of my mother and on top of my father and on top of her husband, I knew the joy of the Lord was the authentic, it was the real deal.

Is he one of my PA’s?  Is he a student, one of the PA’s.  Now I told you it’s not my fault.  I warned you in advance, didn’t I?  Don’t blame me.  I didn’t do it.  I apologized in advance.  It’s the moving of the Holy Spirit.

You may not understand it, and if you don’t, that’s all right.  Just promise me one thing, if you don’t understand, don’t be critical.  The Bible says He moves in mysterious ways.  His ways are above our ways.  His thoughts are above our thoughts.

And the Bible also says that He uses the things that the world calls foolish to confound the wise.  You may not understand it, but don’t be critical of it.  Never be critical of a move of God, even if you don’t understand it.

Do you think you can stay up?  And the beautiful thing is, it’s free.  You don’t have to go to school to get it.

What is happening right here?  It would be dangerous to look at him.  About the time you look at him, it’s going to hit you.  You’d better look that way.  You’d better not look over here.  Why are you laughing?

You call me Jesus?  Just fresh oil of the Holy Ghost.  There they go.  There goes the whole row.  Joy unspeakable and full of glory.  Joy.  Joy in the Holy Ghost, in Jesus’ name.

I’ll tell you, it’s good for what ails you.  Now, students, some of you—we have our first dive bomber.  He is gone.  He has checked out.  He is going to be wasted all day.  There he goes!  There he goes!  He is going to be wasted.  I feel sorry for his next professor.

You know—they’re not paying any attention.  I’ll talk to you.  How are you doing down there?  Huh?  You okay?  Sure?  Want a little more?  Just hold on to that finger for a minute.  Because when that anointing gets on me, it usually hits, no matter who I touch.

Now some of you may prefer the melancholy approach, you know, head like a melon, face like a collie.  Do you know what I’m talking about?  But I promise you, the joy of the Lord will transform your life.  It will open you up to a new move of the Holy Spirit in your life like you have never known.

And it’s free.  You don’t have to pay for it.  It’s free.  You don’t have to go to the bars.  You don’t have to do that.  It just begins to happen.

Now put your hand on your belly one more time.  One more time, and just say, ha, ha.  You see, it’s just free.  And it’s not because of anything anybody does.  It’s just a fresh touch.  Don’t land on her head.

Students, I was in a service once—well, they’re not paying any attention.  I’ll talk over here.  I was in a service once over at Rhema, and this was years ago.  My dad was there and my mother was there.  My mother was still living.  I was there, and Lindsay was there.