"FOLLOW ME'

THE IMITATION OF CHRIST AND THE SACRED MINISTRY OF SOULWINNING

And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Matthew 4: 18 - 19

od has crowned the soulwinner with a diadem bearing the graven inscription of "WISDOM" (Proverbs 11: 30). Beneath that lofty accolade we read its foundational principle, "THE FEAR OF THE LORD" (Proverbs 9: 10), while parallel to it, we read its equivalent, "CHRIST-LIKENESS". For, the Scriptures assuring us that Christ "is made unto us wisdom" (I Corinthians 1: 30 - 31), and that in him "are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge", we conclude that if Christ "is made unto us wisdom", and to be a soulwinner is to be wise in the eyes of God (Proverbs 11: 30), then to be a soulwinner is to be Christ-like.

Observe then the unparalleled dignity and honor heaped upon the soulwinner. It is as though the KING OF KINGS has commanded the golden crown to be placed upon his head and the kingly apparel to be girded about him as he is set upon the royal steed and led about with the proclamation "Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour". The soulwinner is led to the pantheon of faith and there enrolled amidst that great catalogue of names in which we read of Spirit-filled men of valor such as the Apostle Peter, the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Thomas, Philip the Evangelist, Luke the Physician, Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Patrick of Ireland, Peter of Bruis, Henry of Lausanne, John Tauler, Lollardus the Waldensian, Richard Baxter, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Shubal Stearns, Daniel Marshall, Isaac McCoy, Ralph Erskine, Ebenezer Erskine, Charles Spurgeon, John R. Rice and Ford Porter.

In proportion then, it is with just so much indignity and dishonor that the sacred ministry of soulwinning has been treated since the mid-twentieth century. By that I do not mean to say that non-soulwinning churches have dishonored the ministry of soulwinning. I mean that soulwinning as a ministry has been dishonored preeminently by those who claim to be its strongest friends and fiercest allies. They have dishonored it by making it cheap and gimmicky, by presenting it as an easy, simple task that anyone with half a brain can perform. "Just go soulwinning" is their constant mantra, chanted as thoughtlessly as if soulwinning were nothing more than brushing your teeth, tying your shoes, blowing your nose, walking the dog or checking the mailbox. To make matters worse, they have borrowed the wisdom of this world from the unregenerate gurus of Wall Street, and injected it into this sacred mission that can only be accomplished in the power of God's Holy Spirit.

So there is a great need today to recalibrate our view of soulwinning in terms of a proper and thoroughgoing Biblicism. We must discard all of the failed formulas that the fast-talking "experts" have taught us, along with the warping and unbiblical influence of Dispensationalist ideology, and return to the strict, rigid, Puritanical Biblicism that shook Europe, England and America so mightily for the cause of Christ time and time again, centuries before the word "megachurch" was ever conceived. We must insist upon a philosophy of soulwinning that is exclusively Biblicist on every level and entirely committed to the view that soulwinning is an act of God himself in which the soulwinner serves as a "fellowhelper"

to the truth entirely dependent on the Holy Spirit to accomplish anything (John 15: 5; I Corinthians 3: 9; III John 1: 8).

Thankfully, we have a model for Biblical soulwinning in the New Testament. It has been there all along, right from the very beginning. God's people had been following it for centuries before the "experts" and the Dispensationalists took over. In fact, it was laid down as a pattern by our Saviour himself during his earthly ministry as he walked along the Sea of Galilee and enlisted a little band of fishermen to carry out his vision of a global Gospel following his substitutionary blood atonement and bodily resurrection. It was to these men that he first uttered the Biblical formula for soulwinning: " Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4: 19).

I. THE PRACTICE
To begin, we must define soulwinning. By that I am not looking for a dictionary sort of definition. Really, I mean that we must distinguish soulwinning itself from what soulwinning is not.

Soulwinning is not the message of the Church. Soulwinning is not the heartbeat of the Church. Some preachers think that it is and they rarely ever preach about anything but soulwinning, but soulwinning is not the message of the Church. Christ, and Christ crucified is the message of the Church (I Corinthians 1: 23). Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ ascended, Christ coming again, these are the great thematic subject matters that are to occupy the central place in the pulpit. And they are to occupy the central place in our hearts as well, the place of "first love" (Revelation 2: 4).

So we cannot define soulwinning as the message of the Church or the heartbeat of the Church, but rather as the practice of the Church, the method by which the message is communicated and the heartbeat shared. In terms of the actual message itself, soulwinning is in the background acting to accomplish the communication of the message. It does not place the emphases on itself, but upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

Think of it in terms of a wedding. There are numerous responsibilities involved in planning a wedding. But suppose that a young bride spent all of her time talking about sending out invitations, and never expressed any interest in the bridegroom himself, never talked about him, never praised him, never said how wonderful he was or how much she loved him. How would her bridegroom begin to feel? How

would the wedding party feel? How would the invited guests feel? They might listen and bear with her for a while, but no one would be very impressed with the idea that she was deeply in love with her bridegroom.

Do you see the application? Wedding invitations are unquestionably necessary to make their wedding joyful, but they are not the bride's first love, nor should they eclipse him in terms of her focus and preoccupation. The bridegroom is the bride's first love, her primary focus, her great preoccupation!

So it is with soulwinning. Soulwinning is essential. No one should ever stay at a church that does not zealously seek to obey the Saviour in fulfilling the Great Commission. But soulwinning is not our message. It is not our heartbeat. It is our practice, our method whereby we communicate our message and heartbeat, which is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Of course exhortation to win souls should be incorporated into the preaching. But it is not the theme of our preaching. It is always secondary, always subservient to our true theme, the Lord Jesus Christ! You don't feed the flock of God by preaching about soulwinning! You feed them by preaching about the Bread of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ! So to pull Christ from his place of preeminence on the throne of our hearts and make soulwinning our message or our heartbeat is really a form of perversion and idolatry that ultimately glorifies the man rather than the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.

II. THE PRODUCT

We notice from this Scripture that a soulwinner is made. He is not merely educated. He is not merely trained. He is not merely motivated. He is produced. He is made.

A soulwinner is made by the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Saviour said "I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4: 19). He did not say, "This week-long seminar will make you fishers of men" or "This thirty minute video presentation will make you fishers of men". He said "I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4: 19). Seminars and video presentations are not necessarily wrong. They may serve a purpose in educating someone about certain mechanical aspects of soulwinning. But no one becomes a soulwinner by attending seminars or conferences or by watching video presentations. The Lord Jesus Christ must make a man or a woman into a soulwinner. If he does not infuse within us a heart of love for lost souls and transform our whole character and personality through the power of the Holy Ghost,

then all of the seminars, conferences and videos in the world will be completely vain. They cannot educate us or motivate us into becoming soulwinners. And this, I believe, is much of the reason why so many pastors are completely frustrated with flocks that they cannot motivate or educate into winning souls. They have tried all of the latest "secrets" to successful soulwinning. They have spent exorbitant amounts of money to bring in prestigious "experts" for soulwinning symposiums. They have ordered expensive curriculum promising phenomenal results and tremendous church growth. But they have not committed their flocks to the Lord Jesus Christ. They have not fervently prayed that he would make them soulwinners. They have just assumed that a few sermons and lectures, a little training or even a video could do the job, and they have completely forgotten or even willfully ignored the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit's transforming work in the heart and mind of the believer. And so they are angry and frustrated with their congregations and ministries. They feel that they have failed. And they have failed to be sure. They have failed miserably. But they have not failed for any pragmatic reasons. They have failed because they have forgotten or even ignored the necessity of the Holy Spirit and his transforming work in the heart of the child of God. They have failed because they have left Christ out of the picture and attempted to perform a sacred and supernatural work in the power of their own carnal talents and reasoning abilities.

III. THE PREREQUISITE

We may ask then, "Why is not the Lord Jesus Christ making more of God's children into soulwinners? Doesn't he want us to witness for him? Doesn't he want us to share the Gospel with every creature? Isn't he unwilling that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance?"

The answer of course is obvious. Scripture does not contradict itself. The Great Commission has not been rescinded. But we have ignored the essential prerequisite to Christ's work in making God's children into soulwinners.

"What prerequisite is that?" someone inquires. I'm glad you asked. But it should have been obvious. The prerequisite is that we follow the Lord Jesus Christ. "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

The simple fact is that the total failure of contemporary American Christianity to evangelize the lost world lies in the utter un-Christ-likeness of the modern child of God. The Ruckmanites are some of the most courageous street preachers that you will find anywhere, but they're nothing at all like the Lord Jesus Christ and hardly anyone one takes them seriously or listens to a word that they say. Fundamentalists have been turning cartwheels down the church aisles and doing back flips off of their

pulpits and parachuting off of their steeples for decades, but they really aren't very much like the Saviour either, and they haven't gotten very far in impacting the world for Christ in spite of the multiplied millions of dollars that they've spent on games, gimmicks, go-carts and give-aways. And the New Evangelicals have spent many multiplied millions of dollars as well trying to entertain people into believing the Gospel, but they too are very far from being Christ-like and they've had to admit that their efforts have failed.

So the Church in America today is failing miserably in the fulfillment of the Great Commission for the simple reason that she has stopped following the Lord Jesus Christ, stopped looking unto the Author and Finisher of our faith, stopped striving to walk in his footsteps and imitate his example. She has assumed that it's enough to grab a stack of tracts and head for the streets to tell people about the Saviour. Sound theology, earnest, fervent prayer and scrupulous personal holiness have been downplayed as "overpious", "nitpicky" and "unbalanced" and have been dismissed with the sneering and contemptuous retort of "don't argue about those things, just go soulwinning". And consequently, the labor of decades has produced little more than a harvest of chaff and tares that don't know the first thing about genuine saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his redemptive work or the transforming, regenerative power of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel.

It is high time for the American Church to jettison the fast-talking theories of the self-appointed "experts" and return to the Biblical model. And that model has at its foundation one essential, indispensible principle: the imitation of Christ. Without this, you cannot win souls. Without this, you are certainly not a soulwinner. You may be a fast talker. You may be a slick salesperson. You may throw a persuasive pitch. But you're not a soulwinner, and no one is getting saved, no matter how fast you talk. You need to give all of that up and get back to the imitation of Christ, our Saviour's formula for reaching the lost: "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."