Dr. Curtis Hutson

The Great Commission is found five times in the New Testament, if you include Acts 1:8 where the Bible says, "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."

Mark 16:15 commands, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Yet, as far as we know, no generation since the time of Christ has ever reached every creature with the Gospel.

According to an article I read, If the population of the World could be frozen like it is today so no one else was born and no one else died and we won souls at the same rate we won them last year, it would take 320 years to win the United States of America to Christ and 4,000 years to win the world to Christ! I have also read that 75% of the poeple in the world have never heard a clear presentation of the Gospel, and 60% have never even heard the name of Jesus! Now that may sound unbelievable; but we would be surprised to know how many people in our own cities, Communities and villages have never heard a clear presentation of the Gospel! They may have heard about God or about the Bible, but they have never been given the clear plan of salvation. They don't know how to be saved.

Last year when I was in Atlanta for a speaking engagment, I went across the street from the motel where I was staying to purchase some razor blades. It was early Sunday morning, and I was the only customer in the store, so I took the opportunity to witness to the clerk.

"Before I leave," I said, "let me ask you a question. If you were to die today, do you know you would go to Heaven?" "No," he said, "I don't know that."

Then I quoted John 3:16 and asked if he had ever heard the verse. When he said, "No," I was so shocked that I almost forgot what I was doing. Very carefully I explained the verse; and the man bowed his head, prayed, and trusted Christ as Saviour.

"Thank you," he said. And I could tell by the smile on his face and the gleam in his eye that his gratitude was real.

When we were in Dallas a little more than a year ago for a big regional Sword Conference, I had the opportunity to witness to the maid. Mrs. Hutson and I were in the room when she came in to clean. While she was working, I said, "Let me share with you one of the most beautiful stories I have ever heard. It is the story of why Jesus came to this earth."

With a puzzled look, she said, "Jesus?" "Yes", I said, "Jesus", God's Son.

"Who was He? she asked.

Mrs. Hutson looked in disbelief! She had never met anyone who didn't know about Jesus.

As the maid cleaned the room, I shared with her the most wonderful story ever told; and before she left we prayed together and she trusted Jesus Christ as Saviour!

Now keep in mind that these two experiences happened in Atlanta, Georgia, and Dallas, Texas. If there are people in those cities who have never heard the Gospel, then you can be sure there are people all over America who have no idea what it means to be saved and wouldn't know how to be saved if they wanted to.

There are now over 4 billion people in the world, and more than half of them have never had an opportunity to trust Christ as Saviour. They have never heard a muddy, cloudy version which, in the words of the Bible, is "another gospel" (Gal.1:6). Any message other than salvation by grace through faith in Christ and His finished work is not the Gospel. Any message that stops short of or goes beyond the substitutionary death of Jesus is "another gospel."

Paul said in I Corinthians 15:1, 3,4 "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand.... how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures."

The simple fact is, all men are sinners; and as sinners, all owe the sin debt. If we pay what we owe as sinners, we must die, go into Hell, and stay there forever. Two thousand years ago God took all our sins and laid them on Jesus. While Jesus was bearing our sins in His own body, God punished Him in our place to pay the debt we owe. When the payment was complete, finished, paid in full, they placed Him in a tomb; and after three days and nights, God raised Him from the dead and took Him back to Heaven as a declaration of the fact that He was satisfied with the payment Jesus made of our sins. Now those who trust Christ and His sacrificial death at Calvary are saved; they are given everlasting life immediately, and they are going to Heaven just as surely as if they were already there! Because in the Person of Jesus, they have already been received safely into Heaven.

That is the message we are told to give to the world: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15).

Why haven't we reached every creature with this message? The answer is simple: we are not following the Bible plan.

The Great Commission in Mathew 28:19,20 states "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations 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, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Notice that we are to "go". There is no substitute for going. And when we go, we are to teach. What we are to teach is not given in the Great Commission in Mathew but it is in Mark. There the Bible says, "Preach the gospel" (16:15).

After we teach the Gospel and people trust Christ as Saviour then we are to baptize them. That simply means to get them into a local church. There is no substitute for good Bible-teaching local churches. That is the only way to conserve results. The new convert must have a place where he can learn and grow as a Christian.

After we go, teach and baptize them, then we are to 'Teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Many well-meaning preachers say this means to teach them the Bible, but that is not what the verse says. It says we are to teach them to do whatsoever we were commanded to do; and we are commanded to go, teach and baptize the converts. When we win someone to Christ and get him baptized, and he is to teach his convert how to get someone saved and baptized. And on and on the chain goes. This is the principle of multiplication, and that is the only way we will ever evangelize the world! Every believer should be involved in personal evangelism or soul winning, and that is the problem.

I heard the pastor of one of the largest churches in America say, "I doubt if 5% of the members of my church have ever led a soul to Christ." Then 5% of the membership is doing what the entire church should be doing. How could any business expect to succeed if only 5% of its workers showed up and followed instructions? There is not a school in America that would attempt to have classes tomorrow if only 5% of the students and teachers showed up. The church is the only organization in the world that attempts to fulfill its purpose with such a small percentage of its workers involved.

Why is it that such a large percentage of Christians never witness, never visit, and never try to lead a soul to Christ? The only way I can answer the question is to share with you some of the excuses given. I am aware that we will not be able to mention all of them, but we will give some of the more popular ones.

If I could gather into one huge room every Christian in the world who does not win souls to Christ and simply ask, "Why are you not a soul winner?" everyone would have some excuse. I can hear someone saying:

1. "I'am a New Convert and Am Not Knowledgeable Enough to Win Souls" The woman at the well in John 4 had just been saved. She had never joined a church and been baptized. She had never attended a Bible conference, a revival meeting, nor had she read any books on how to win friends and influence people. She had never heard a soul-winning lecture. Yet the Bible says in John 4:29 that she went to town and said, "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?".

Notice that she did not use one single Bible verse. She simply said, "Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did." Keep in mind that she was exaggerating. The lord didn't tell her everything she ever did; He only told her that she had been married five times and was living with a man who wasn't her husband. But the dear Lord overlooked her exaggeration, and the Bible says, "And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did" (John 4:39). Not only was a great host saved because of her testimony, but the Bible says in verses 41 and 42, "And many more believed because of his own word; And said unto the women, Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the World." Now this Bible example of soul winning is contrary to some modernday teaching on evangelism. A preacher wrote, "I understand that when you were pastor of a church in Atlanta, you sent people out to win souls who had been saved only two or three weeks!" I wrote back and reminded him about the woman at the well who had been saved only a few minutes!

According to Mathew 5:14, the Christian is the light of the world. Do we expect a candle to give light when we first light it or after it burns halfway down? The truth is young converts are usually more effective soul winners than those who have been saved for several years. Why? Because no one has had time to mess up their minds with so-called Bible teaching explaining why you can't do it now. Almost the first desire in every new convert is to see someone else saved. I pastored the same church for twenty-one years, and hundreds of times I have seen a man get saved and immediately go back and speak to a friend about trusting Christ.

In a service where I spoke last Sunday morning, a young man who had only been saved two weeks brought 12 visitors to church with him, including his mother and father. When the invitation was given, eight of those came forward to trust Christ as Saviour, including his mother and father.

When I was saved as an eleven-yearold boy, my first desire was for my brothers, sisters, and cousins to be saved; and how my heart rejoiced when several came forward the same night to trust Christ as Saviour.

Nowhere does the Bible even hint that one must be saved a certain length of time or have a certain amount of knowledge before he sets out to win souls. When Jesus healed the maniac of Gadara in Mark, chapter 5, he said unto him, "Go home to thy friends and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee." And the Bible says in Mark 5:20, "He departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him and all men did marvel". Other believers excuse themselves by saying,

2. "I Don't Have the Gift of Soul Winning" Nowhere does the Bible teach or even intimate that soul winning is a gift. There are spiritual gifts, but soul winning is not listed among them. First Corinthians 12:4 says, "Now there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit." Verses 8 to -10 list these gifts; the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different kinds of tongues (languages), and the interpretation of tongues (languages). Soul winning simply is not listed as a spiritual gift. And Bible teachers and preachers do an injustice to the Scriptures when they even hint that it is.

I heard one Bible teacher say, "Not everyone has the gift of soul winning." That would be like someone's excusing not tithing by saying, "Not everyone has the gift of tithing." Soul winning is not a gift; it is a command, just like tithing and baptism are commands.

When Jesus said in John 15:16, "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," our Calvinistic friends stop in the middle of this verse and say it means that some are chosen to be saved and others are chosen to be lost. But the choice is not for Heaven or Hell; the choice is for fruit bearing, and fruit bearing is soul winning.

Proverbs 11:30 says, "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise." Paul said in Romans 1:13, "Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also even as among other Gentiles.

Paul wanted to win souls to Christ in Rome just as he had won other Gentiles to Christ.

We must not confuse the fruit of the Spirit, described in Galatians 5:22,23, with the fruit of a Christian. The fruit of apple trees is apples. The fruit of the peach tree is peaches. The fruit of a pear tree is pears. And the fruit of Christians is other Christians. Soul winning is a command, not a gift; and the only alternative to soul winning is disobedience to a clear command of Scripture.

But I hear some Christian saying "That is not my excuse. The reason I don't personally witness to people is 3 I Win Souls Through My Local Church."

Some believe that when they give their tithe through the local church they have fulfilled their soul winning responsibility. Since some of the money goes to missionaries and the missionaries win souls, the tither thinks he has fulfilled his obligation. We suppose some missionaries have been guilty of leading Christians to believe this error. I have heard them say, "If you can't go send someone else." There is no such teaching in the Bible. It is impossible to win souls by proxy. You cannot pay someone to win souls for you, any more than you can pay someone to be baptized in your place, or to tithe for you. It is something that every individual must do for himself. The souls won by the missionary are his personal responsibility, but the man who supports the missionary has a responsibility to win souls on the home front.

Soul winning is not an institutional but an individual responsibility. Let me explain. Psalm 126:6 says, "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him". Notice it doesn't say the church that goes forth, etc., but "He that goeth forth..." Verse 5 says "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." And Daniel 12:3 promises, "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever."

Anyone who reads these verses can see that soul winning is a personal, individual responsibility. There are five crowns which could possibly be given to the believer at the judgment seat of Christ. One is mentioned in I Thessalonians 2:19: "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?" Every Bible teacher who believes in the judgment seat of Christ agrees that the "crown of rejoicing" is the soul winner's crown; and it will be given to individuals, not institutions.

(To be Continued)