Thou Shalt Catch Men
by Denver Stanford
2001 · The Pentecostals of Alexandria, Alexandria, LA
Kind: conference session
Scripture: Luke 5:4-5, Luke 5:10, John 3:17-18

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/denver-stanford--thou-shalt-catch-men
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

------------------------------------------------------------
Praise the name of the Lord. Praise the Lord. I'm happy to welcome all the morning people here and I'm happy to feel the presence of the Lord in this place. And u one little comment before I begin. It's probably my wife that should be here instead of me, but she insists that I do the talking and she'll do the sewinning. And so I like that soulwinning part. Praise God. Thank you, brother Anthony Mangan and the group who's responsible for inviting me. And what a time we had last night. Amen. If we weren't changed, we just aren't alive. Praise God. And we're going to go to the book of Luke 5, verses 45 and 10. Luke 5 starting with verses 4 and 5 and then verse 10. Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draw." And Simon answering said unto him, "Master, we have to twiled all the night and have caught nothing, have taken nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word, I will let down the net." Verse 10. And so was also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus saith unto Simon, "Fear not, from henceforth, thou shalt catch men." And I'll put my emphasis this morning on those last four words of the statement that L the Lord made to Simon Peter. Thou shalt catch men. Thank you, Father, for your presence. Thank you, Lord, that we can call upon you now to touch our hearts, to minister to every need, to give direction and instruction. Lord, guide us that when we leave this place, we'll leave different than we came with a new goal, a new vision, a new fervor in you. We pray in Jesus lovely name. Amen. You may be seated. This is this passage of scripture is a little larger, but I'm sure you've heard it all anyway. So, we just read the key parts that I want to talk about. The fisherman had fished all night and most of us like to fish and we exercise a little pride in our being a fisherman. I've sometimes expressed that I'm probably the world's greatest fisherman and I don't know that that's altogether true, but at least I feel that way. And when I go fishing, I catch fish so large it just takes three to make a dozen. But and I found that it's not the fishing that's really the fun, it's the catching. It's the catching that's fun. And so they had fished all night and caught nothing. Let's look at these men just quickly as best we can. They lived at a time when the father would have a career and his son would usually follow in the same vocation. Each one would learn from their father. There weren't vocational schools or many universities. So you learned your skills from your father and and these men were some of them no doubt third or fourth or fifth generation commercial fishermen. They had grown up fishing. They knew how. They made their living fishing. Their children ate. Their family had sustenance because they were successful fishermen. They knew how to fish. They had done it for a while. Done it well. This night they went out because it was no doubt the proper time to catch the fish they were fishing for. And they fished all night. They didn't catch anything. Now, that is so frustrating. I mean, it it it does something to your ego. It does something to your pocketbook. And it just is devastating for a fisherman not to catch anything. They'd caught nothing all night. Jesus came and barred their boat. And you know that story. And when he finished, he said, "Now cast your net into the deep for a draw." Very specific instructions for a very clearly defined goal. He didn't say go fishing. He said cast your nets in for a draw. And Simon responded. It had to be Simon. He He's just that impulsive responding guy. And he he looked at Jesus and he said, "Master, we we." And I kind of feel like there's a little emphasis placed on that we because us men, you know, we do have egos. Let me say that again. I mean, you wise ought to respond to that if the men don't. We men do have egos. And we have fished all night and we have caught nothing. You know how easy is you can be going to because of the times and on the way you're telling your friends I am so discouraged. I'm so despondent. I've considered taking up truck driving for a vocation. I'm telling you it seems like everything and I don't have and when you get there someone say how things go. Oh we having a great revival. Bless God. I mean we don't you know we got this ego thing for and u so they had caught nothing and here Jesus came and said cast your net into the deep for

Simon Peter looked at him said master we are commercial fishermen we know how to fish we have caught lots of fish didn't say we fished all night he said we toiled We're not sluggers. We're not lazy. We're not We have toiled all night. What he wanted to say is, "You're a carpenter. Go make a cabinet." Do you know that's right? I mean, we're fishermen. Don't tell me how to fish. Well, when my wife tells me how to drive a nail, honey, don't tell me how to drive a nail. I'm a carpenter. Bless. Okay. He was a carpenter telling the fisherman how to fish. That goes against everything that we like. All right. And then well, you know, he was going to be their king, king of Israel, you know, and so show a little respect. And Simon said, "Nevertheless, at thy word we will." Simon did not expect to catch any fish. He was simp there was not an act of faith. There wasn't a degree of faith. It was simply obedience. Okay, you said do it this way. It won't work, but I'll give it a try. He cast his net, not net in and started to pull it up and say, "Now see, Uhoh. It's hung on bottom. Now we're going to tear our nets up. Getting them out of the Do you understand the feeling? I I could almost see him look at you say, "Look what you got us in." And they begin to move and it got up high enough that they saw the fish teeming masses. They begin to load the boat with enthusiasm. Look. And finally someone said, "No, stop. No more. We're going to sink. This means y'all." You've heard that story, haven't you? And they I mean it was about it was about to they called their friend said, "Bring your boat over. You won't believe what this net has in it. And they filled his boat until it began to sink. What I'd like to refer to is at thy word, we will fish. Maybe we've done it our way long enough. And what I'd like to see is a revival of at thy word that results in this building and all of your buildings being so packed that so the usher comes and says, "Pastor, the fire marshall has closed the door." And said, "If you put one more person in there, I'll close this place." And there's still 300 on the parking lot. What are we going to do with the extras? The boat's about to sink. at thy word. Revival is what our world needs from us. And then and then we send 500 over to a neighboring church. Can you hand it'll change our whole attitude. It'll change everything about us if we have an at thyword revival. I will fish. Now the the the key the key to this is after this lesson went through is that Jesus summed it up in verse 10 when he said he said to James and John and especially specifically to Simon fear not don't be afraid it's I am a third generation apostolic I've been a pastor for 44 years God has blessed us but there is a a kind of a a commonness sometimes we have insecurity All right. We've heard it preached. I grew up in the sick little church of 12. Well, it had 13 till it had revival and then it's 12. And my pastor said to us 12 leftovers. Well, this is the way it should be. Last week we had 13. Today we have 12. But that's the way it's supposed to be because the world doesn't like us. We're just kind of misfits and it'll probably go down to smaller than this before we're fit. If any of that has carried over, it's time we cast it out. Did you know that we are the royal priesthood? We are the chosen generation. We have what this world is looking for.

Every drug addict, every alcoholic, every womanizer, every immoral, I mean, they're looking for what we have. I will confess to you, the problem in our outreach is we tell them what we have instead of showing them what we have. It's time we put a smile on our face, throw our shoulder back and look the world square in the face. We got joy. As a little boy, I heard him sing in my church, joy unspeakable and full of glory. And I was a little fellow and I listened to him sing that. I sang it and I thought they must be singing about heaven because none of these folks are happy here. If you see yourself in a mirror, learn to smile. If we don't have the joy of the Lord, there's something wrong with our salvation. Now, some are not happy because they look at things, stuff, honors, recognition, all kind of junk gets in our way, other gods. But if we really realize, if we believe our message that my name is written in the book of life and no judicial system, no court in Florida, nobody can take my name out of the book of life, I've got it made. One day I'm going to shout on streets of glory. Hallelujah. Now after teaching this lesson of at thy word fish at my word fish then he told Simon Peter now don't be afraid from now on you're going to catch men I'm staying in the book it's gone okay I'm in the book fear not from henceforth there shall be a witnesser well I witness to so Witnessing is not the game. Winning's the game. Fishing's not the fun. Catching is what it's all about. If you're witnessing, not catching, you probably aren't witnessing. Mostly what you're doing is you're going out and preaching it. Folks, why is it that the typical outreach of the years that I have taught to my people was that you walk up to someone who's a sinner and say, "I'm going to witness to them. Praise God. I'm so happy to meet you. I've got good news for you, sir. I want you to know that you and your wife and your children and all your friends are going to hell. Bless God. Good news. Most everything we've ever done is is we got to put that hit on them. You see, you got to get them sons saved before you can get them saved. Like as if they don't know they're lost and going to hell, man. That emptiness in says it all. It says it all. I'll get back that in a minute maybe. But you see John 3:17 18 says God sent not his son in the world to condemn the world. I will not go through all the theology of that but that son was Jesus and that son is us. I say that son is us. We are not commissioned to condemn. Let's look at that just briefly. Jesus came. They brought to him the woman caught in the act of adultery, guilty of sin, worthy of death. They said, "Moses has stoned her." What do you say? They thought they had it. He don't get him in a corner. He looked them. He said, "Let him that's without guilt cast the first stone." And he turned and began to write. And as he turned, they left from the oldest to the youngest. And when he turned, remember the lady was still there. She could have left also, but she made the wise decision and presented herself to Jesus. Oh, hallelujah. And he looked at her and said, "Where are thine accusers?" She said, "I have none." And we can quote, you can all quote, we've preached on the statement Jesus did make. But what is so awesome is what he did not say. for he could have turned to that lady and say, "Ma'am, this is the worst day of your life because you stand before me. I and I alone in all the world am qualified to throw the first stone for I am guiltless." He could have said that. He would have been right. He could have done it. He could have thrown. But that that's not his purpose. That's not his purpose. Let's get it. That is not our purpose. That is not I know people sin. I know they're rotten. But I also know they're lost without God. And we have what they need.

We should never tell them. We should never tell them that we have the truth unless they can see we've got something they don't have first. It's not what we say. It's what we are that will impact our world. Oh, hallelujah. There'll be a spring in your step and a bounce in your walk and a smile on your face and joy in your heart. You're not a loser. You're not a loser. You're not a loser. God wants us to succeed. God wants us to succeed. Fear not. Henceforth you shall catch men. Woo. That's a pro. You think I went to Boston cuz I'm a good preacher? Well, I wouldn't have gone if that was the reason. There was nobody to vote me in. District superintendent, district board said, "Brother Stanford, we've had 21 come and leave and nobody can build a church in Boston. Please don't go to Boston." That's my support team. We thought about it and thought, "Well, we got two choices. We can either be afraid to go or we can go and fail. I can live with failure. I can live with failure. In fact, I must have failure. I cannot live without failure. If I never try something I cannot do, then I'll never know what my potential really could have been. I must do something till I fail. And when I fail, then I'll just go back and retool and come back and try again. And so we decided we'd rather go and fail than to be afraid to go. There was no people to vote us in, nobody to pay ti, no neighboring churches to steal people from. It's either, you know, either be a soul winner or go hungry. And in 10 years, we had 21 preachers licensed out of the church that could not be built. We left there in May and we had started 12 churches. 11 of which are still existing, one closed, two are struggling but 11. And we left with revival and you know what? We had a time of our life. Not only that, we now have out of our churches and those that we have. Additionally, there are over 35 ministers out of the churches in the city where no church could be built. And it's not because I can preach. It's not because I can sing. It's not because of my daddy or who my but it's because I am a soul winner. He said you shall catch men. Ah that's the promise of all my now. Oh hallelujah. He did not condemn. He did not. He said neither. You're qualified Lord. Slap her down. Give her I mean I mean lay it on her. At least rebuke her. I mean, tell her you're worth what is no good. My example and my pattern looked at this woman in the depth of sin, iniquity, said, "Neither do I condemn thee. Go in sin no more." You see, he knew that he had started the path that would take him to Calvary to die for her. No, he was not about to condemn her. Our job is not condemning them. It's dying to save them. To give everything everything. Now I was blessed. I didn't marry a Pentecostal girl and well she was Pentecostal when I married her. But my wife was not privileged to be second generation Pentecostal as a teenager. She came from the church of Christ and came into a red-hot church and prayed through the Holy Ghost and was baptized in Jesus' name. She did not have the benefit of all the years of training and soulwinning that you and I have most of us. I was taught early, you know, you got to be a soul winner. You have to be willing to go knock on a door and let them slam the door in your face. You got to have soapy water thrown on. You got to be cussed. Dogs have to chew on your ankles. You know, you have to have I mean, sewing is a horrible experience. I mean, it's a real I mean, it's a real tragic. That came out of some committee. I promise you. You know what we ought to do? We We ought to We ought to start a committee that Let's look at this crowd. You're not taping this, are you? Um, we ought to we ought to start a committee and assign reproduction of the human race to a committee and when they get through with it, we won't have to worry about our kids doing anything wrong. They won't figure out how. Oh, hallelujah. Praise God. But you see, sewing is so simple and easy. I've I I've been a pastor and I see someone come over and I think, boy, there's a worthless no good heathen. They're not going to live for God 30 minutes if they pray and I don't have any hope for them. And they're over there talking in tong. I think God, why did you feel live with the Holy Ghost? They're not going to live for you. They they'll be sinning before morning and they were I was right. My faith was productive. And so but but you know, after a while, I guess God got sick of my foolishness. One one time

he kind of just laid it on me and let me know, I'll fill anyone with my spirit that wants it and then they are responsible for what they do with it. I will never never be blamed for not giving them what they need to live victorious. You can condemn them. You can you can preach at them. You can lay guilt on them. But I will empower them if they desire to live an overcoming life. I will never be responsible to withhold my spirit. Having children is not hard. It's the rearing them that's difficult. Let's get it really straight. Anyway, I married this gal and she she didn't know any better and she didn't she hadn't been taught how to win souls. So, she just did it wrong. And u she she she just thought, "Well, boy, wow, this is awesome. Everybody ought to have what I got." And she just started bringing people to church and people started getting saved and nobody told her, "You're doing it wrong." You know, I mean, this, you know, we like to And then I married her and and we started a little church in Pennsylvania and and and she started winning people and and the church is growing. Everybody said, "Boy, Brother Stanford, your church is growing." You good preaching. Hallelujah. Keep it up, honey. And and and and she just kept winning people and and and and and ke kept winning people and kept winning people and and one day I thought, you know, it's a matter of fact, everybody knows this that every husband's smarter than his wife and if she can do that, then I can do that. And so I threw away the right way to be a soul winner. I didn't tell any of my brethren. I didn't want to be a ridicule, laughed at. I was doing it wrong. But you know what? I started winning people and I won people and I won people. My wife and our church is growing and brother Kenneth Menhal told me one day said, "Brother Stanford, you win more people accidentally than anybody I ever met on purpose." Accidentally. It looks like an accident. For what we learned, soulwinning is not going out and witnessing to people. You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost, and you shall be witnesses unto me. You are the witness. You don't go witness. You go preach a little, but you are the witness. You see, soul winners never complain. That's right. That's right. Where' the crowd go? I mean, you work on a job, you don't like your job. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Old job. You know, one of these days. Shut up and go hungry. Just quit. You're no different than the sinners. You You don't eat out and not tip if you're a soul winner. I don't want no waitress walk in in my church and see a bunch of sheep's case. Nobody tipping. They won't come back. Come on now. We are the light of the world. This time we put a smile. You don't go in and say, "Oh, tell you what. Last time I was in here, I got short." Shut up. It only cost you 35 cents. You can survive it. We're not complainers. We're not We are the cream of the crop. We have the best thing in the world. Our joy comes from within, a confidence in God that he will sustain us. And so I started winning people. And then I got an invitation to preach somewhere. And I thought, "Boy, that's great. I get to go preach." But they never did hear me preach. Why are they asking me to preach? They don't know what I can preach. What do they They want me to tell them how we're doing it. They're crazy. I'm not telling anybody how my wife and I win, folks. Cuz we're doing it wrong. It's so much fun. We have so much. We just We just love it. Just we just go. As a fact, this is a fact. There are evenings when we don't have anything we have to do. And my wife and I look at each other and say, "What are we going to do this evening?" And immediately when that's said, both of us will smile and one of us will immediately let's go talk to somebody that we've never met before and we go out and we walk. Hi, how you doing? How's your day going? But well, brother Sam, when do you start preaching? When they come into church, I've learned how to preach a little bit. I don't I mean, you know, and and and we just But I wouldn't tell anybody. For 41 and a half years, we would not tell anybody what we were doing. And we we I know we didn't build churches like this, but I said, "What? We went to Boston. We went to Witchaw. Took a church of 16. Eventually got two of them saved. And when we left there, we had 333 in Sunday school. That's not bad, honey. In fact, when we got there, when we got there, we we were we're doing pretty good." And and we were having Well, church is small. I mean, it was really small. We was probably running 12 or 13 at the time. And we had a new family move in. And these this couple, they are the ideal moving couple. They're young. They have two small children. He and her both play and sing.

He works as a jig builder at Boeing aircraft. M a little his tithing was more than was coming in totally before he arrived. That's the will of God. Yay. M how many more saith thou Lord? I loved them. They were they were an asset. We loved them. They were a blessing. And then we had a little momentum and and I thought probably it's partly because of them and no doubt was and we we had a little outreach and one Sunday morning in our outreach we threw the net and we got a throwaway. You know, you've had them when they come in, you think, "Oh, no. How much trouble till they leave?" And and and and and I mean, you I mean, you just I mean, they they sit out there and and they you're not sure they even have it all together. And and and and then when you get to know them, you know, they don't. And they they're a little heavy on the drugs, a little heavy on the alcohol, and the lazy will work. They just one of those I mean, if they got saved, you wouldn't get any ties. And and cussed and smoke a little bit and and I mean just a bad ombre just a horrible influence and he came he came back a time or two and we invited him back that we're supposed to do that we did we invited him back and so he came a little while until until the day that this new man came to me and said, "Brother Stanford, I like you and I like the church and I've got two little children and now I want you to know that I will not bring my children to a church that lets a bum like that come here. I don't want my children influenced and I'm going to give you two choices. Either he run him off or we'll leave, brother man. He wouldn't. No, he wouldn't. No, he wouldn't. He did. He took half my ties with him. Brother Bars, mail them back or something, man. We need that money. You'd laugh. I didn't laugh. Honey, you think I'm not called to preach? Think I ought to give up. Been there. one man. All I'm left with is he's and him that and this week he winds up in jail. Five years. Five years. The cost of a Charlie Mahaney. Five years for what I'm in the business of is catching men. Uhhuh. I'm not in the business of only maintenance, but I'm in the sewinning business. Fear not. From now on, you shall catch men. Fish. Fish. There's maintenance. It's got But but to maintain is is so Oh, I must see somebody new. I must see somebody new. I must Then we went to Boston. Oh, that was great. Hallelujah. 4 million people. Boy, anything can happen there. Ha! Woo! Boy, we know how. We did it in Kansas. We won first place in a national Sunday school cont. I got plaque on the wall. I know how. We filled buses. Hallelujah. We've I'm tell we know how to do it. We know how, Lord. We're going to do it. And we got there and we ladies gave us 50,000 tracks. My family and I stood on the street and handed out tracks until we gave 50,000 people a track that first summer. I handed out tracks till I got dizzy. you know, go sit down and come back hand. Not they didn't want one. Then we got three buses given to us. We can fill them. We went over the low-inccome housing project. We brought in 153 for our 16 people. We lost. They won. We I gave my buses away. It don't work. I had numbers, but that's not the game. It's winning them. Well, then my wife and I started this door knockocking and we've do that. We've done it. When you walk into Boston in this high-rise apartment and there's these rows of little buttons and you mash one on the intercom comes a voice says, "Who's there?" I said, "This is Reverend and Mrs. Stanford." Click. They're gone. Yeah. And finally one day we stood with our hands in our pocket on the sidewalk. Nothing works. None of our programs work. But what had happened in the meantime, my little wife had been winning a few folks

and I'd won a few, but wouldn't tell you how. And the programs when I went to Christmas for Christ the second year in Boston, I would send in my monthly report on the front said, "How many Bible studies, how many doors, how many?" And I looked at it, I hadn't done any of those. So I just put a great big hex and turn it over on the back side. I said, "We baptized 17. We had 21 get the Holy Ghost this this and send it in." What they going to do? They're not going to fire me. I'm having results. I may not be doing it right, but I'm winning. It's a game. So, on it went until finally, finally, I begin to preach a sermon. I'm a soul winner. Some of you have heard me preach that. And then I got invitation back to preach it again. pastor said, "Oh, Brother Stanford, that was so good. Come and preach again. That really did something, but it didn't have enough results." And and I'm a realist. I thought, "If it didn't work once, why will it work twice? I'm not out there to make people happy." Say, "But I enjoy your preaching." I don't care if you enjoy it or not. That's that's no goal of mine at all. If when I get through say, "Boy, I didn't like a thing you said." That's all right. I don't care because you know it's a word. Well, you like it, it's up to you. It's like the little boy that visited grandpa and all of a sudden grandpa had the cat screaming in the back room. He ran in there and that little boy had the cat by the tail rubbing it. They go, "Meow meow." You see, and the granddaddy said, "Son, the cat don't like that. Turn around." He said, "If he don't like it, let him turn around." Well, this is basically where I'm at. You see the truth. At thy word, I will fish. at by word I will fish. I want that revival. That's what happened in Boston. It took me in retrospect looking back. I'll be honest with you while I was there and I would get folks would hear reports, "Brother Stanford, you're doing a good job." I think, "Man, I'm failing two out of three times. We we we would we were just we fought battles and it was a struggle." And and now that I can look back and say, "Man, in 23 years, we started 12 churches in Boston." That's pretty good. Yeah. But when you're in the middle of the battle, all you can see is the blood and the guts and the pain and the heat. It, you know, you just look at it. But you see, there's something about at thy word at th. And so I thought, now hear me, the Bible teaches us how to baptize. It teaches us about how to receive the Holy Ghost. It teaches us how to dress, how to walk and talk, how much tithes is. It teaches us that and then it tells us the most important thing you'll ever do in your life is be a soul winner. Go do it. But it does not give us specific method instructions. It does not. And I I thought and I've preached that and I've believed it and I've helped design programs and I've tried all kind of ridiculous things. But I thought and so I asked about 50 of our pastors, is it not true the most important thing we are to do? There's no biblical instruction. That's right. And I knew we was wrong. Now, God wouldn't trust us to design a program that sacred. We'd mess it up, didn't we? Bless God. Oh, I've got good news for you. I want you to know that you and all your church, all your friends, and everybody, your family is going to hell. Bless God. It's a heathenistic church you're going to. Bless God. That's what we came up with. A condemnation, a put down. Now, it is so important to understand that the Bible is our instructions. So, I begin to study and one day, bingo, I am convinced, and I know this is a little radical, but be you know, well, you've heard my position, like it or don't. And but there are some good denominational ministers that are sincere. Sincere that George Hunston Williams at Harvard, that's right, never owned a car or driver's license because of a commitment. He said, "I could use public transportation, thus allowing me to give more money to missions." Measure yourself by that. and and I see their their sincerity and they have preached from Acts 2:38, preached from it and not understood what it said. That's right. Is there a possibility that we have read the biblical instructions of how to be a soul winner and not seen what it said? It's time to find the biblical at. Do we want the at thy word where he gets all the credit revival or do we want to

design something and having done all of our great skillful expertise brilliance the study has revealed that among us over over we that are soul winners when you get in you win over 95% of your converts the first year you're in the church the rest of your Christian life you win less than 5%. That's traditional among us. I didn't like it. That made me so mad when I heard that. I thought, "No." But it's true. Which means in a layman's term, the less you know, the more you win. The more you know, the less you win. You let Sue come in on Sunday night, kind of just come in, not even know what she's coming into, and she comes in, and boy, I mean, church gets hot. the Holy Ghost draws. She repents, prays through, baptized, gets the Holy Ghost. Bless God. And she goes home after church Sunday night. I mean, intoxicated on the love. Hey, she goes to her sister. Hey, Mary, you won't ever breathe what happened to me. But I went to a church. Mary, why? You got You got to come go with And next week, she brings five of her friends to church. They're praying through. She's a soul winner. She can't quote John 3:16, much less Acts 2:38. But then then she gets smart and she'll she'll see a cousin and she'll say, "Hey, Lucy, I want to ask you a question. Do you know who Melzdc is? Anybody else? Do you understand what propitiation stands for?" Hello. You see, when we first get saved, we just want everybody saved. But after a little while, we want to tell them how much we know. They don't care what you know till they know that you care. We get it flipped around. I made it a point in the church to put no smoking signs in every bathroom on some halls and some preacher came said why you got those up. I said we have that problem. We have smokers come here. I've looked out in the congregation. Don't we have anybody here wearing earrings? What's wrong? I am after fish. I want to catch some fish. That old theme, the furer, the pure. I don't know where it came from, but give me some plain, outright rotten, no good, ungodly sinners in my pew. I want something to preach to. I want to tell them the good news of redemption, regeneration, renewal, a new life, victory in Jesus Christ. Well, usually that guy Saul of Tarsus is considered the most fabul fabulous awesome idea. I thought it meant wow wow until one day I began reading scripture and found out that before his conversion he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees whom Jesus came to reach the Jews. He could quote here O Israel the Lord our God is one Lord and thou shalt have he knew he knew thou shalt not kill thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt He knew him like we don't even know him. They were on his doorpost. They were everywhere in the morning in the evening. He had law in his heart. Bless he loved God, the one true Jehovah God. He loved him with every all of his zeal came from his love of God, our God. But when Jesus came, he didn't recognize him. And all that happened to Saul of Tarsus was a a little course correction. He didn't have a turnaround conversion. But the one Oh, man. Woo. This is exciting. One day, Jesus had his friends with him. Now, Jesus was destined to be the king of Israel. In their minds, they saw him as a hero. And you know how we do heroes? You let Anthony Mangan come to our district to preach. Every preacher in our district thinks, "How can we get him to come to our church?" So Jesus was there and they were with him and they were thinking, "How can I get him at my house for dinner this evening?" And he's walking along and suddenly Jesus stops and he looks up into a sycamore tree and there is perhaps the most hated, despicable sinner in the community. And Jesus said to him by name, "Zakius, if I had been there,

I would have said, "Get him, Jesus." While you got him creed, let him have it. That worth it. You, too. Yeah. Let's hang him while we got him in the tree. Get a rope. But Jesus is my example. And he looked up at him and he said, "Zakius, come down for I'm going to your house today to abide. Comp." Yeah, he's going to a sinner's house. He may backslide. You know, we get saved. We get saved. And then the preacher, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch. Oh, get away from no influence. Most of our people don't have a sinner friend. I mean, we got friends. Who can you win besides sinners? And all sinners sin. But did you notice they have a different vocabulary than we do? They say things that you say, "Curl my hair. If some left it would, oh, don't talk like that. Oh, it won't rub off on you. That's their vocabulary. Don't you bat an eye. That's who you're going to about 2 months after they're in the church, they'll come sheepishly sneaking up to you and say to you, "I want to apologize to you." Well, what for? I feel so bad. I can't hardly face you. I remember all those things I said. Just them. They'll be all right. Yeah. Well, you were a sinner then. That's your language. That's all right. I took my wife to visit a call that we had had for counseling. We had never met this man. He in divorce proceedings and he was a military man about 6'6, broad shouldered, healthy man. It was in the middle of the summer and we rang the doorbell and he welcomed us. He was wearing a very skimpy swimming trunks and nothing else. He qualified as that term a woolly booger. He was a spectacle. Well, come on in, Reverend. Hey, miss. Come on in. brought my wife in and he sat us down at the coffee at at the beer table. What what a thrill it was when he said, "Oh, I want a beer." And I said, "No, not today. I'll pass." And boy, that was a good preaching point there. I should have let him. I'm getting And then he offered my wife one and she just smiled real sweet. She says, "Oh, I'll pass. Thank you." And she never smoked a cigarette in her life. And he offered her a cigarette. Hey, you want a cigarette, babe? I'm in there 30 minutes with this heathen in his immodest. Oh, it was disgusting. As I walked out, I turned to my righteous, holy, godly wife and I said, "Honey, I'm so sorry that I took you." And she looked up at me with so such total innocence and she said, "He was a sinner, isn't he?" You see why I love that girl? I mean she's something else but she taught me some things got me out of some of my traditions and we have traditions I am not talking doctrine I am not talking standard but I am talking some of our methods need a thorough examination back from the committee into the word at thy word at thy word now I must hurry sit down and hush I don't have much time left shout when I get through okay And so Jesus said, "Zakius, come down for I'm going to your house today." And Zakius came down and the scripture said he came down and stood without one Bible study, without not been I mean just no just he just came down and said, "I am going to give half my goods to the poor." Pastor, you ought to have said, "Wow, we haven't ever had that in our preaching." And then as a little boy, I worried about that old rascal. I did when I heard this thought. And then he said, "I'm going to give $4 back for every dollar I've taken wrongfully." He may go broke. I worried about him. What a conversion, folks. And what did Jesus do? Have you ever looked What did Jesus do? Two things happened. Two things. Two things we need to understand. Number one, Jesus was a person. The person did the person things. He was nice. And he said, "Zakius, come down. I'm going to your house today to abide." And the man made a friend of Jesus of of Zakius. Jesus was more than man. In him dwelt the father. He was God. We believe you believe this. He was the God. And as the man was nice, no man cometh unto me except the father draweth him. And God reached out and grabbed. You see, we have tried to do

our programs ourselves and bring people and introduce him to God, but we can't win anyone unless God is not a part of everything we're doing. For he draws them. What a conversion. I'd like to have a church full of Zakiuses. We could really use it. Oh, hallelujah. Okay. Now what this says is we must understand the word misdirection. It is crucial as soul winners. Let this represent the church and I need a I don't want to ask for a volunteer this godly bunch. Let's just act like usually I have someone stand over here and they represent an ungodly heathen no good sinner. But I wouldn't ask anybody here to do that. Oh man. Thank you. Okay, I am the soul winner. He's the ungodly, no good sinner, worthless. I am coming from the church. So, I put a two-foot cross on. I get a 25 lb family Bible, a jumbo Bible study, and I put a cloak on. And here I come. He sees me coming. Thanks. Oh, good grief. Here come another CE. Oh, but he's he's a gentleman. He nice to me. Okay, thank you. He's sweet and kind. Boy, I about got him one. As he walks away, that guy's an idiot. I never hope I never That's true. Don't have time to prove it, but I'm right. But you see, I'm a soulwinner. I don't come from the church. I'm really not trying to get people in the church. I'm trying to get God in the people. They're the easiest people to pastor I ever saw. So hear me now. If you want to be a soul winner, you got to understand that you have to disguise yourself as a human being. You see, we believe in one God. We believe in one God. We believe in only one God. There'll be no gods before him, after him. He is a jealous God. He will tolerate nothing else in his place. He is the only God. Which means our God wants to do all the God stuff. Boy, does that take the pressure off. Man, all I've got to be is a people. He wants me to do the people stuff and he'll do the God stuff. You can count on it. You can depend on it. But sometimes when we try to be God, it never works. Now, don't stretch this beyond the way I'm applying it. You see what I'm saying? in this in this relationship to the world. They don't want you floating up three feet off the ground. Yeah, I'm Hey, bless my God. Oh, hello. You have to be a people. So, I learned watching my wife the way to be a soul winner is to smile. My wife and I travel a lot and we were traveling in this state. I won't mention the name, but we were we were traveling and and we talked to people all the time. We talked to sinners. You know, you can't win anyone if you can't have a conversation with them. You need to practice every day of your life talking to people. I wear these crazy ties because I go in the store and people say, "Boy, I like your tie." Man go. We got a conversation. Well, thank you. My wife picks out my ties. Well, how many you got? Oh, I got about 70 of them. Really? Where'd you get them? I'm not going to tell you. Don't want everybody wear my ties. And we just left. So we was in this state and we met a man and a wife and their three teenage children and we went how you folks doing y'all ever running. Oh, you do? Well, you know, we got a question. We don't know much about this part of the country. Do the cinjuns wear shoes in the winter, you know. They And I asked them, I said, "I understand you folks eat eat crawads, crawfish. Do you eat grasshoppers, too?" And they said, "Where you from, Boston?" God, y'all live in snow houses or and we we just it was having this beautiful conversation. And suddenly this lady looked at my wife and said, "You're a Pentecostal, aren't you?" My wife said, "How can you tell?" She said, "By looking at you." She said, "I'm a Baptist. I teach Sunday school in the Baptist church." And she said, "We have lots of Pentecostals around here. Lots of them." And she said, "We Baptist ladies talk about Pentecostal women all the time. We believe that Pentecostal women are the most beautiful and the most angelic of all the women in

the world. We admire them. But then, but then she said, "But every one of them is a snob." Well, nobody likes us. Well, they wouldn't want me to. I mean, they they they don't want what I got. They We're not snobs, and you men are no better. But we're intimidated. We're insecure. We're fearful. We're not bold. We don't We don't really really somehow believe what we believe. And I said, "Honey, let's go." And we left. I said, "Let's go to the mall." We went to the mall. We hid behind the the shrubbery. We watched in a little bit two ladies came in. I said, "They're ours. They're ours. There they come. They were about 21 or 22 years of age. They were us. They were ours. Oh, you could tell how loop that's going. And and they came in and they were laughing and talking to each other. And as they came through the forer, there was a gentleman standing there minding his own business, just standing there meditating or waiting for somebody or something. And as they walked along, one of the ladies almost stepped on him because she wasn't looking. And he had to jump back out of the way. And as he moved, she saw him and turned around and gave him one of those if looks would kill looks. What were you doing standing my way? I said, "Honey, did you see that?" And this man to nobody just not knowing we was watching after they went by, he kind of like, "What's the problem? What's their problem? What's their problem?" He didn't say, "I got a problem. They got a solution. What's their problem?" And so we followed them. We went in the store. I know. I know. We went in the store and and and and they were looking at something and the lady walked up and said, "Can I help you, please?" Well, I'm sorry. Well, no, thank you. We know what we're looking for. We don't need your help. I said, "Come on, honey. Let's walk up there." And we walked in my praise the Lord. And they, "Oh, praise the Lord." You know, as Pentecostals, we need this encouragement. Sinners don't need to help. I said, "Who's your pastor?" And they told me, "I know him. I'm a UPC. Oh, you're UPC. I want to say, I hope you're not. Until we learn to put on a smile, be nice and sweet, and reach out to the lost and let them know we got what they do not have. Now, wait, wait. You clapped your hands for 2 minutes, so I'm going 2 minutes over. Okay, you got to clap your Okay. My wife is crazy. She in a bus route. She averaged 16 people every 3 months to receive the Holy Ghost to be baptized on her bus route. That's over one a week, folks. You think I'm not a good preacher, but my church will grow. And so she brought a little boy about this tall. His name was [name redacted]. He had an afro haircut, you know, like he kissed the light socket. Yeah. And and [name redacted] cussed and spit. He tore up class after class. We gave him a superintendent. They brought him to me, you know, the expert. And I shook him and I threatened him and I bribed him. I used all the gifts of the SP. Nothing helped [name redacted]. So I told my wife, I said, "Honey, you can't bring [name redacted] back anymore." And that was that until the next Sunday. Sunday came in. And when she came in, she had [name redacted] by the hand. And she played the organ and she sat on the organ bench, [name redacted] sat on the outside. She got a great big old person opening. It was full of candy, games, and toys. And he sat up there grinning, eating candy. He won. He The superintendent came and frowned and looked at me. And I thought, man, I said, I'll handle it. And so after church, she took her bus home and then I took her out to eat and let her come home, take her shoes off and rest. And then I, you know, with the authority and the dignity that only pastors possess. In my very best voice, I approached her and I said, "Uh, honey, um, didn't I tell you that you couldn't?" And that's as far as I got. She stood up with her little finger like this and she looked at me and a tear made its way down each cheek. And she said, "But wait, last week you didn't let me say anything, and this week I want to say something." So I just stood and let her talk. She said, "I go every Saturday and knock all the doors on my bus route. I go through the week and meet the parents. When it's cold, I go. And when it's hot, I go. When it's raining, when it's snowy, I go. When I don't feel good, I go. And I go every Sunday morning and wake all my people up to make sure they're awake. Then I go back and we get them. And then we take them back." And she said the teacher doesn't go and the Sunday school superintendent doesn't go and she said and you don't go very often. And then she said with tears flowing just flow. She said [name redacted]'s mother doesn't love him. She's abusive physically and offered to give him to anybody that would take him. No daddy unloved. She said the Sunday school teacher doesn't love him. I go every Sunday morning and I wake him and dress him and feed him and bring him to church. And said, "The superintendent doesn't love him." And then she said, "And you don't love him." And she said, "In all the world, I'm the only person that loves [name redacted]." And then she looked at me and she said,

"And if [name redacted] can't come back to this church, then I will never come back again myself." And the day that was the day I learned the heartbeat of a soul winner. So I said, "Honey, we just be you go ahead. You bring him in the wall. We're going." And so she brought him and she brought him and she brought him and we moved to Boston. We were there. Oh, time passed late one Sunday night. The phone rang. Young man said, "Brother Stanford, this is" and he introduced, "Oh, how are you?" He said, "Brother Stanford," he said, "I've been running your bus wife's bus route since you left." Said, "Man, you remember [name redacted]?" I said, "I remember [name redacted]." He said, he said, "I thought you'd want to know that we're in revival, and I've been picking [name redacted] up ever since y'all left." And so, I went out this afternoon and I asked his mother, "Would she come with [name redacted] to a revival service at our church?" And they both came and both of them tonight were baptized in Jesus name. And both of them were filled with the Holy Ghost.