“Soulwinning” Is A Biblical Term, And We Ought To Do It!

Proverbs 11:30, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.”

I have been in numerous Baptist churches where the word “soulwinning” is shunned as a bad word. In one church on Guam, an older lady scolded a younger woman in the church for saying: “I'd like to go soulwinning with the church.” The older woman rebuked her, saying: “Only God can save souls. We don't go soulwinning, we just go witnessing.” That woman is wrong! Although it is true that only God can save souls (1st Corinthians 3:8), when we go witnessing we are winning souls. There is nothing wrong with the term “soulwinning,” nothing at all. Proverbs 11:30, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.”

I get frustrated when critical people micro-analyze everything. They split hairs to the point that it causes confusion. It is good to be objective in our thinking, testing everything against the Word of God (1st John 4:1). I encourage believers to think objectively. However, you can become a nuisance in the Body of Christ, if you attempt to micro-analyze everything, and you don't know what you are doing. We calls them “trolls” on the internet. For example: A woman emailed me a few years ago, rebuking me for teaching that we should “receive” Jesus as our personal Savior. She said that the Bible doesn't teach this. She is very wrong. What saith the Scripture? John 1:12, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:” I have learned to always make sure that I have a Scripture passage to back up what I teach. Let them argue with God.

Kindly, when I attended the now spiritually defunct Harvest Baptist Church on Guam, for a year in 2014, I learned quickly that the term “soulwinning” is not used in their church. There was no soulwinning program. For that reason it didn't surprise me that a church of 500 members only water baptized four people every 6 months. What a shame! There's nothing worse than a lifeless church. Jeremiah 12:10, “Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.” It is sad when pastors, who are supposed to preserve the vineyard, destroy it! You'd think that that abortionists, drunkards and homosexuals would be the one's destroying the vineyard, but the Bible says the pastors were the vineyard killers!

A godly soulwinning pastor ought to make a church a vineyard. John 15:5, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” Woe unto destructive neo-evangelical pastors! Extremely few pastors nowadays are soulwinners. Pastor Jack Hyles preaches a wonderful sermon titled: “MANY PASTORS HAVE DESTROYED MY VINEYARD” (MP3). I encourage you to listen to Dr. Hyles. A soulwinning church is a vineyard that brings forth fruit, but to neo-evangelicals it is a forest preserve or flower garden.

The church's job is to bring forth fruit, not be a place where saints gather to worship God on Sunday morning. Not one verse in the Bible speaks of a public worship service. I triple-dog dare you to show it to me. Worship is supposed to be between you and your God on a personal basis. The church is a vineyard. If anybody ought to be making a church into a vineyard, it is the pastor. The average church has deteriorated because the pulpit let it do so, because today's Bible colleges are apostate! I'm talking about Bob Jones University, Moody Bible Institute and Faith Baptist Bible College And Theological Seminary (cemetery)! We've got a bunch of lifeless flower garden churches today, instead of soulwinning vineyards, because of lifeless Bible colleges who train the pastors. Is anybody listening? Does anybody care? The Bible teaches SOULWINNING!!! Proverbs 11:30, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.”

Evangelist John R. Rice (1895-1980)

All around the world people are dying for soulwinning churches. The biggest enemy of soulwinning is formalism! I am not against expository type preaching, but sometimes a pastor needs to PREACH a topical sermon!!! The average Baptist church pastor today doesn't preach on the topic of Hell once in a year!!! Brother Lester Roloff (1914-1982) rightly said that the great need of the hour is preaching preachers!!! Someone needs to destroy worship services all across America! The pastors, not the deacons or members, destroyed the vineyards! Woe unto the pastors!!!