Phillip had a divinely inspired encounter with a lost person. The woman at the well had a Holy Spirit laced encounter with Jesus as did Nathanael. And what about the day of Pentecost? Are these encounters a pattern of how soul winning can be carried out? Let’s investigate God’s Word on the matter and see how the Holy Spirit encounters lost people.

Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

Acts 8:26–38 (ESV)
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. 27 And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” 30 So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him… 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. 36 And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” 38 And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

• Let’s look at the miraculous in the salvation of the Ethiopian eunuch.
• Did you notice the supernatural intervention of the angel of the Lord?
• Did you notice that Phillip received direction from this angel?

QUESTION: Out of the nine gifts of the Spirit which supernatural gift was in evidence in the appearing of the angel?
ANSWER: Discerning of Spirits (1Cor. 12:10).

• Again, we begin to see this element of the miraculous again in this encounter with a lost person.
• There are many tremendous ‘being led by the Spirit lessons here in this account.’
• Notice also the nature of the direction that Phillip received from the angel: “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”
• Pick that apart for a moment.
• What strikes you about this direction?
• The first thing to notice is how extremely general this direction was.
• The angel basically told Phillip, “Get on a road and start walking.”
• Let’s look at this road.

Historical Background: Gaza
Gaza was a coastal city of the Philistines.
The road from Gaza to Jerusalem, if measured as a straight line distance is 46.5 miles point to point.
If the road had any curves to it, the road would be around 50 miles or so in length.
Understand that this is fifty miles worth of travel in the first century.

• Just exactly where along this approximately 50 mile route was Phillip supposed to go?
• The angel did not say.
• Neither did the angel tell does Phillip who he was supposed to meet.
• The only piece he had was ‘Get on the road’.
• When Phillip got on the road at the ‘desert portion’ of that 50 mile track, the Bible says, Phillip received the next piece of direction when he happened upon a certain chariot that carried an Ethiopian eunuch.
• The Spirit of God then said, “Go over and join THIS chariot.”
• Observe these points.
• The angel is not speaking anymore, it is the Spirit of God that is communicating.
• The direction is now more specific and not so general.
• Here is another question to ponder.

QUESTION: How many other chariots were on that same road from Jerusalem to Gaza that day?

• So, before Phillip could locate the person of interest on his divine mission, he had to first trust God and obey the general directive, ‘Rise and go and get on the road.’
• When he did that, he got the specific directive, ‘Join yourself to THIS chariot.’
• Understanding the workings of this encounter can help you in being led by the Spirit of God.
• Specific direction comes when the general directions are followed first.
• Here is where people get stuck; instead of ‘rising and going’, they want to sit and figure it out.
• You don’t have to figure it out, the Holy Spirit already has it figured out.
• But that’s not what He said to Phillip.
• Paul’s case has this same modus-operandi.

Acts 9:6 (ESV)
6 But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

• ‘Entering the city’ was the general directive for Paul.
• ‘Being told what you are to do’ is the specific.
• It’s two stages.
• But, it hinges on ‘getting up’, on rising.
• If you can’t follow the general directive, you will never get to the specific.
• The Spirit told Phillip to join himself to this specific chariot and, as it turns out this eunuch ‘happened to be reading Isaiah’ at that exact moment.
• The Holy Spirit knew that which is why His involvement in soul-winning is so vital.
• The end result of this supernatural encounter?
• The man received Jesus and was baptized.

Smith Wigglesworth Soulwinning Encounter

One day, God spoke to Wigglesworth telling him to go to a certain spot by the side of a street in Bradford and wait for a man he would send. Like Abraham, he went out not knowing whither he went. He went and waited half an hour, then he waited an hour. After waiting an hour and a half, he was on the point of leaving when he saw approaching him a man driving a horse and carriage. “This is the man,” prompted the Holy Spirit.[i]  This went on for some time without his getting any witness. Suddenly when he saw a man driving a horse and cart, he felt God telling him to get on that cart. Like Philip of old who was sent to join the Ethiopian eunuch in his chariot, Wigglesworth obeyed. Mounting beside the driver, he was met with a very hostile reception. Could he have made a mistake? No. Despite the man’s initial threat to throw Wigglesworth off, by the time they had reached their destination, the man had wept his way to Calvary. Only four days after this event occurred, Wigglesworth’s mother asked her son, “Did you speak to a man on a cart about his soul?” “Yes, I did.” “His wife has been to see me. By the description her husband gave her, she thought it must have been you. She wanted you to know that he died yesterday.”[ii]

Always he prepared for this visitation evangelism with much prayer. Although he witnessed freely, he did not witness indiscriminately, which is a very important point! He waited on God for direction as well as power.[iii]

The Woman at the Well

• Let’s see, if we have this same miraculous Holy Spirit pattern.

John 4:6–7 (ESV)
6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

 

• What follows here is a religious doctrinally discussion on living water and eternal life.
• I am using the word ‘religious’ here in a very good sense.
• Look at the discussion.

John 4:9–14 (ESV)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

• Now, if you were going to have a theologically discussion with anybody, wouldn’t Jesus be the absolute right person to have that discussion with?
• Here is this woman talking about the Word with the living Word, how cool is that?
• The end result of this discussion is that this woman is going to get the absolute best answer that can be possible given at that moment.
• You cannot say a thing better than Jesus said it.
• You cannot give a better answer better than He gave it.
• Isn’t this true?
• On a scale of one to ten then, what do you think was the impact on this woman after just this part of the dialogue?
• Make a mental note of your answer and let’s continue looking at the encounter.
• Here is the next segment in this sequence.

John 4:16-19 (ESV)
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17  The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18  for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19  The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

• Did you notice how abrupt the change was here?
• All of a sudden, the dialogue went from conversation to manifestation.
• What happened here?
• The Holy Spirit manifested.
• Jesus received a Word of Knowledge right at this exact moment.
• He did not go into that conversation knowing these facts about the woman.
• As He was talking, He got those words, “Go call your husband….you have had five husbands and the one you have now, is not your husband.”
• So now, let us ask those same questions we did before.
• On a scale of one to ten then, what do you think was the impact on this woman after this part of the encounter?
• Now here comes the next segment which contains a second doctrinally discussion this time on the subject of worship.

John 4:20–26 (ESV)
20 Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

• So, the encounter has switched back to theological dialogue.
• So this encounter started with theology, proceeded to manifestation, and goes back to theology.
• Ask yourself, is Jesus the right person to have such a discussion with?
• Is there a better source for understanding worship than Jesus?
• Is this woman going to get the right answer from Jesus?
•  On a scale of one to ten, what do you think was the impact on this woman after this part of the encounter?
• Well, let us let this woman who was at the well answer this question of impact herself.
• This is what the woman said…

John 4:29 (ESV)
29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

• What part impacted this woman?
• The part that deeply affected her was not the two theological conversations they had.
• What moved the woman was when Jesus told her about her life.
• It was the miraculous that arrested her!
• It was the Word of Knowledge in operation that affected her.
• It was the supernatural move of God that caused her to sit up and take notice.
• Look at what the woman did not say.
• She did not say, “Come and see a man that answered all my questions.”
• She did not say, “Come see a man that talked to me about eternal life.
• She did not say, “Come and see a man that straightened out my doctrine on worship.”
• No, she said, “Come see a man that told me all about my life.”
• “Come see a man that told me I had five husbands, how did he know that I had five husbands?”
• “How did He know that the man in my life currently is not my husband?”
• How did, He know that?
• Her conclusion, “Maybe He is the Christ or something?”
• It was the supernatural part, it is the moving of the Spirit, it was the Word of Knowledge which moved this woman, not just the Word.
• Think about your own experience.
• Did you ever have a doctrinal discussion with anyone where you made such a solid Biblical point with someone that you left that person so speechless and so in awe of your answer that that individual went away from there encounter with you saying, “Wow, after God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, it must be you? You must be like the fourth member of the God head or something.”
• Isn’t that silly?
• Reactions like that don’t occur over doctrinal discussions.
• But, when the Holy Ghost shows up, when the Spirit of God unveils the hearts of men, when He reveals things about a person life that no one else can know, that person will stand up and take notice.

Another Smith Wigglesworth Soulwinning Encounter

‘One day Wigglesworth and James Salter visited Miles at home in Leeds. Suddenly, Wigglesworth said to the two men, “God is telling me to go to Ilkley Moor.” He was speaking of a lovely town frequented by tourists about sixteen miles away. Because of the war, gasoline was rationed, but Miles said he would drive them. When they arrived, they stopped at a lovely spot known as the Cow and Calf Rocks. No soul was in sight, so they seated themselves on an overlook. For some time nothing happened, causing Miles and Salter to think that Wigglesworth must have been mistaken. However, Wigglesworth had no misgivings and he was soon proven correct. A young man with a pack on his back appeared and sat down for a rest next to Wigglesworth. Soon the two were talking. The young man was a backslider who, like the prodigal, was disillusioned with sin. In a few moments there on the moor, the man knelt with Wigglesworth and came back to God. “What a prayer meeting we had that day on Ilkley Moor!” Miles later said. Then as suddenly as before, Wigglesworth said, “George, you can take me back now. I have done what God told me to do.”’[iv]

Nathanael’s Supernatural Encounter

John 1:43–46 (ESV)
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

• You will start to notice the same pattern again that we have already seen.
• What happens here in this account?
• Phillip witnesses to Nathanael.
• Phillip points Nathanael to Jesus.
• He says to him, “We have found the Messiah, the fulfillment of the law and prophets.”
• Does Nathanael say, “Wow, great let me give my life to Him, right now?”
• “Let me sell everything I have and devote my whole life to Him right now.”
• Let me go on a 40 day fast right now.
• Let me go on a mission’s trip right, wow you found the Messiah.”
• You know many times, we ‘cold witness’ to someone and that is what we expect.
• We expect them to give their hearts to Jesus just because we said so.
• Look at Nathanael’s reaction to Phillips, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
• His reply was filled with doubt and skepticism.
• What turned the table here in this account?

John 1:47–50 (ESV)
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”

• Gifts of the Spirit went into manifestation here.
• The Word of Knowledge went into operation here.
• The Holy Spirit showed Jesus Nathanael under a fig tree.
• The Holy Spirit showed Jesus that Nathanael was an honest man, one in whom was no treachery or deceit.
• Nathanael’s reaction? “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!”
• In these cases, it wasn’t just the doctrine, it was the doctrine plus the demonstration of the doctrine.
• Now, the goal here in going through these different encounters is to acquaint you with how prevalent demonstration of the Spirit is in the New Testament in the area of lost people.
• What about the Day of Pentecost?
• Do we again see the same pattern?

Holy Spirit Encounter on the Day of Pentecost

Acts 2:1–12 (ESV)
1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. 5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”

• Do you see demonstration of the Spirit here?
• Well, yes you do.
• You see people, bewildered, amazed and astonished.

DEFINITION: bewildered/συγχέω/syncheō – surprised or agitated

DEFINITION: amazed/ἐξίστημι/existēmi – of the feeling of astonishment mingled w. fear, caused by events which are miraculous, extraordinary, or difficult to understand[v]DEFINITION: astonished/ – to be extraordinarily impressed or disturbed by something active.[vi]

• These three words are what supernatural manifestations accomplish.
• They surprise and even agitate people.
• They astonish people even mingled with fear of what can’t seem to be explained.
• They extraordinarily impress or disturb people.
• What it does is stop people in their tracks.
• The manifestation of the Spirit stops all argument.
• It forces people to consider instead of argue.
• And now, the Word that has been preached has an open door of opportunity.
• The Word can now get past the mental process because the mental process have for the moment short-circuited.
• It forces people to think in this channel; “Maybe the things that have been told to me about Jesus are in fact true.”
• Note also in this encounter, the preaching of the Word came after the manifestation of the Spirit.

Acts 2:14–16 (ESV)
14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. 16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:

• Demonstration came first and propped the door open, then the preaching came afterward and 3000 people came to Jesus as a result (Acts 2:41).
• Paul phrased this recognizable New Testament pattern this way.
• My speech and my preaching was in demonstration of the spirit and power.

1 Corinthians 2:4 (KJV )
4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:

• Did you notice the words speech and preaching are separate words?
• They are different words in the Greek.

DEFINITION: speech/λόγος/logos – words

DEFINITION: preaching/κήρυγμα/kērygma   – proclamation

• What is Paul saying?
• “When I am in the pulpit, my ‘kērygma’, what I am proclaiming comes with Holy Spirit demonstration.
• When out of the pulpit, my ‘logos’, my words of witness and testimony come the same way, with Holy Spirit demonstration.
• Whether you are in the pulpit or out of it, you can have Holy Spirit demonstration!
• Whether you are in church or out of it, you can have Holy Spirit demonstration!
• You don’t have to be a minster to have your logos, your words can be backed by Holy Spirit power and manifestation.

Relational Evangelism or Holy Spirit Demonstration?

• Notice one more point here.
• There has been a lot of discussion in today’s church world about relational evangelism.
• Relational evangelism is where one takes the time and goes out of their way to build relationships with lost people so that they can win them to Jesus.
• But take note of what you see in these encounters.
• Do you see any relational evangelism in any of these meetings?
• These encounters are all cold encounters.
• Ananias did not know Paul.
• Phillip did not know the Ethiopian eunuch.
• Wigglesworth knew none of the men he was led to witness to.
• I did not know Mark.
• Nathanael did not know Jesus.
• Who knew anybody on the day of Pentecost?
• Getting people saved is not based on your relational skills.
• It is not based on your ability to speak or how much scripture you know or don’t know.
• It is not based on your ability to debate.
• It is based on God’s ability, God’s power, and God’s leading.
• It is based on being available and being obedient to the prompting of the Spirit of God.
• It’s your relationship with the Holy Spirit that counts and yielding to Him that makes all the difference.
• That’s the relationship that makes soul winning successful.

Call to Action

So, can you be a soul-winner?  Well that is easy to answer now. Let us answer that question with a question. Do you have the Holy Spirit? If you do, then becoming acquainted with Him and the particular way He leads you, will help you becoming a successful soul winner.

Question: How has the Lord led you to encounter a lost person. What lessons did you learn from that experience? Please share that in the comments section below. We would all love to learn and know how to be better at this area of winning lost people to the Lord.

__________

References

[i] George Stormont, Smith Wigglesworth: A Man Who Walked With God (Harrison House LLC, 2010).
ii] Albert Hibbert, Smith Wigglesworth: Secret of His Power (Harrison House LLC, 2010).
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 350.
[vi] Ibid., 444.