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Man, this morning I want to preach about soul winning, and I specifically want to go into some of the nuts and bolts of how to do soul winning. And the reason I preach a sermon like this on a Sunday morning is that, first of all, even though the best way to learn how to do soul winning is to actually go out and do it, I know that there are some people that don't go out and do soul winning, so this gives them a chance to learn how to do it, or at least have someone explain to them how to do it, because I want you to be prepared to give the gospel to unsaved people even in your personal life, friends, family, loved ones. If you're given an opportunity to preach the gospel to somebody, you want to be able to know how to do that effectively so that you can get the people that you love saved. And then secondly, as I go soul winning throughout the weeks out here, I see things that kind of just pop up over and over again that I don't really like and methods that I don't really think are the best methods for soul winning, and so a sermon like this is just to explain the way that I do soul winning and why I do it the way that I do it. Now I'm not expecting everyone to go soul winning exactly like me or to use my exact methods because I realize that we're all different and we all have maybe a different style or a different personality, but I believe that the methods that I'm teaching are good methods. I believe they're the best methods and that they're easily duplicated and that people have had a lot of success with these. So you know, if someone does things a little bit differently, that's okay as long as they're not preaching heresy or preaching false doctrine or lies, hey, I'm just glad that people are going out and soul winning and preaching the gospel, but I want you to hear me out as to why I do things the way that I do them and why most of us do things a certain way because of biblical principles and because they are effective. I've been soul winning now for 24 years and people taught me how to do this in the beginning and I followed other people and learned from other people and now I'm passing these things on to you today. Now the first thing I want to do is look at the scripture here in Colossians chapter 4 and get some biblical principles here that we could apply to our discussion of soul winning this morning. So it says in Colossians chapter 4 verse 2, continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving with all praying also for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in bonds. And the apostle Paul, he often uses this word utterance to talk about just opening his mouth and giving someone the gospel, right? Because to utter something is to say something, but in this context it's about uttering the gospel. You see, preaching the gospel is something that involves you opening your mouth and words coming out, not just expecting people to look at you and see your lifestyle and somehow just get saved by osmosis. You have to actually open your mouth and preach the gospel to every creature. And so Paul is saying that he wants a door of utterance to be opened, meaning he wants there to be an opportunity for him to open his mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. And it says in verse 4, and this is probably the most important verse for this morning sermon that I want to key in on, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. That I may make it manifest as I ought to speak. Then it says walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer every man. So verse 4 there, what does that mean that I may make it manifest? Well here's a dictionary definition of what make manifest means. Number one, to make clear or evident to the understanding, to show plainly. Number two, to prove or to put beyond doubt or question. So when he says I want to make the mystery of Christ manifest, I want to make it clear. I want to make it plain. I want to make it easily understood. I want to prove it beyond any doubt to the person that I'm talking to. So it's all about making things clear and understandable and giving people a certainty about what you're saying. That's one of the most important things when it comes to preaching the gospel. You don't have to turn there but in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 verse 8 the Bible says, for if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except you utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? For he shall speak into the air. So the Bible is telling us that when we preach behind the pulpit in church or when we're out there at a door giving someone the gospel or giving the gospel to a loved one, we need to be clear in the words that we use. It's not about how good you can sound, how fancy you can be, how exotic of a soul winning presentation you can wow your soul winning partner with or wow the person at the door with. No, it's about making the gospel clear. It's about making it easy for people to be saved, make it easy for them to understand. You have to understand that when you're out soul winning, probably the person that you're talking to knows a lot less about the Bible than you do. They may have had very little exposure to spiritual things and so you really have to break things down and make them clear to people and make it as easy as possible. Later in the same chapter, the apostle Paul says, for God is not the author of confusion. We don't want people to be confused, we want them to know exactly what we are saying. Here's a little illustration that I want to give you before I get into the nuts and bolts here is that people today are in a spiritual swamp, okay? And trying to drain the swamp is kind of a fool's errand, okay? What you want to do is throw them a lifeline and pull them out of the swamp that they're in, okay? And what I mean by that is you can't necessarily disprove every possible heresy to them at the door in that conversation, nor should you try. Focus on the truth, focus on what is right, not going on and on about what is wrong, okay? Now you're obviously going to need to disentangle them from a few parts of the swamp that are wrapped around them and that are actually touching them and affecting them. You're going to need to obviously deal with those things, but don't spend a bunch of time pointing out to them other parts of the swamp that are nowhere near them that aren't affecting them because that will only confuse them. So I might come back to that illustration a little bit. I hope you understand what I mean by that. You want to throw them a lifeline. This world's a messed up place, religion is messed up, most churches are messed up, there's so much false doctrine out there. You can't even count all the false doctrines. You can't possibly deal with all of that. Focus on preaching them the truth of the Gospel and just dealing with the heresies that are affecting them personally if needed. So let's get into the nuts and bolts of this, okay? First of all, number one, starting the conversation. The two hardest parts about soul winning are the beginning and the end. You know, once you're in the flow of giving them the Gospel, it's pretty easy to explain someone the plan of salvation. It's starting the conversation and ending the conversation that can be the most challenging. So here is a great way to start the conversation that works both at the door and with your friends and loved ones is just the simple, easy question, are you a Christian, right? Because this is just a really basic innocuous question that you can ask. It's kind of appropriate in any situation. You could just kind of be hanging out with someone and just apropos of nothing, just say, hey, are you a Christian? And it's not really a weird question to ask at all. And it's just a great way to just get on the subject. Now when you're going door to door soul winning, obviously when they open the door, you're not just going to be like, are you a Christian? So typically if you knock the door, you're going to say something along the lines of, hey, how's it going? You know, my name is so-and-so and I'm out from Faithful Word Baptist Church. I just want to give you an invitation to church. Are you a Christian, right? And that's just an easy way to start the conversation. You know, I believe that when you knock on somebody's door, you should immediately tell them who you are and why you're there. And don't be like the Jehovah's Witnesses where they show up and like pretend that they just want to hang out or something and they don't tell you that they're a Jehovah's Witness. They don't tell you why they're there. They're just, I've had them come to my door and they're just like, hey, we just kind of wanted to talk about some of the times that we're living in and I'm just like, dude, are you a Jehovah's Witness? Get out of here! But anyway, the point is that, you know, we don't want to beat around the bush or waste people's time. We want to be polite. We want to do unto others. I don't want somebody showing up at my door and not telling me why they're there and beating around the bush and wasting my time and asking me how I'm doing and how things are going before they actually just cut to the chase of why they're there. So that's why when I show up, I just say, hey, how's it going? My name's so-and-so. I'm here from Faithful Word Baptist Church. I want to give you this invitation to church. Just it's real clear what I'm there doing, why I'm there. And then you can roll into the easy question, am I a Christian? And again, in your daily life with friends, family, loved ones, you just go straight to, hey, are you a Christian? Totally natural, normal question. It's easy to start the conversation. And then if they say yes, then you could say, do you go to church anywhere? And then they might name so-and-so the church or maybe they grew up in church. And the good thing about that question is it kind of just gives you an idea of where people are coming from. If they say, oh, I'm Roman Catholic, I'm Latter-day Saint, I'm a Muslim or whatever. You kind of know where they're coming from, you kind of know what you're dealing with. And then the next question is, well, more important than church, if you were to die today, do you know for sure that you're going to heaven? Right? You know for sure you're going to heaven. And then if they get that question right, then you could, if they say, well, yes, I'm sure that you could ask them, well, how do you know that you're going to heaven or what do you think it takes for a person to get to heaven? And if they say, oh, live a good life, you know, go to church, that's obviously the wrong answer. If they say, well, I know I'm going to heaven because I believe in Jesus, that's the right answer because I put my faith in Jesus because I'm saved, I'm a believer, you know, I'm a born again Christian, I've got my faith and trust in Jesus, you know, something along those lines is a correct answer. Then I just ask them one more question just to make sure I say, do you think there's anything you could ever do to lose your salvation? And if they say, oh, of course you're going to lose it, I mean, you can't just live however you want, then that shows that they're actually into like a workspace salvation. But if they say no, you can't lose it. If they say something along the lines of believing on Christ, receiving Christ as Savior, you know, I've put my faith in Jesus, and then they say you can't lose it, then you can be pretty confident that that person is saved, right? Because they're saying it's by faith and you can't lose it. That shows they're not trusting in their works or anything like that at all. Okay, so let's back up and go into a little more detail here about this part, okay? So are you a Christian? If somebody just flat out says no. Are you a Christian? No. Well, then I'm not going to ask them, so do you go to church anywhere? Because that doesn't make any sense. If I say are you a Christian and they say no, I'm not, I'm not going to ask them, would you if you were to die today, do you know for sure you go to heaven? Because that's kind of a meaning, they just finished saying that they're not even a Christian. So obviously they don't know for sure if they died today they're going to heaven, they're not even a Christian. They're a Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, atheist, agnostic, or whatever, they obviously don't know. And here's the thing, I don't ask questions to which I already know the answer, okay? Because that's a waste of everybody's time. And I don't want to interrogate people at the door because it can be rude to just badger people with way too many questions. I want to keep the questions to a minimum. And I feel like these questions are pretty much a minimum just to get the conversation rolling and figure out where people are at, okay? I don't want to grill people with too many questions. So are you a Christian? No. Then what I say to them is, well hey, you know, one of the things we're out here doing is just taking five, ten minutes and showing people from the Bible how they can know for sure that they'll go to heaven. Could I show you that from the Bible real quick? Have you got a couple minutes? Then I'm just going to offer to show them the Gospel because I already know that they're not saved. If you ask somebody, are you a Christian? No. That's a pretty safe bet that they're not saved. You have to be a Christian to be saved. Okay. So if they say, yes, I'm a Christian, then I move to the next question, do you go to church anywhere, okay? And the answer to that question doesn't really affect anything because it doesn't really matter where they're going to church or whether or not they're going to church. I'm going to ask them if they know for sure if they died today that they'd go to heaven. Now if they say, yes, I know for sure I'm going to heaven, then I'm going to move on to the next question of, what do you think it takes to get to heaven? Or why do you believe that you're on your way to heaven? Okay, now what if they get it wrong? What if I say, do you know for sure you died today that you'd go to heaven? And they said, well, I hope so. Is that the right answer? No. So if they say to me, I hope so, then I would say to them, well, could I just take a few minutes and show you from the Bible how you can be 100% for sure? Because they're not sure. They said, I hope so. Or if they say, I think I probably would. That's not the right answer either. Okay. I think I probably would. I would say, well, hey, can I just take the Bible and in a few minutes just show you how you can be 100% right? So at any point, if they get the answer wrong, then I offer to show them the gospel. I don't just keep grilling them with more questions because what's the point? I've already determined what I'm there to determine. This person needs to hear the gospel. If they don't know for sure they're going to heaven, then they need to hear the gospel. Maybe they're saved. Maybe they're actually saved and they just have some doubts or something. It would still do them good to hear the gospel because they're not sure. They're not confident. We want them to be sure. We want them to be confident. And if they're not sure, they're probably not saved. And so therefore, I just want to offer to give them the gospel at that point. But if they get it right, if they say, yes, I know for sure I'm going to heaven, then I'm going to move to the next question. So I hope you understand what I'm explaining here is that if at any point they get the question wrong, are you a Christian? No. Well then I want to go straight into offering to present the gospel to them. You know, do you know for sure if you died today that you'd go to heaven? No. Give the gospel, right? If they give the wrong answer as to why do you believe that you would go to heaven or is there a, you know, what do you think it takes for a person to get to heaven? If they say, keep the commandments, live a good life, go to church, and it's a wrong answer, I'm not going to turn around and ask them if they can lose it. They don't even have it for sure. So there's no point in talking about that. So again, if at any point there's a wrong answer, then I'm going to switch to, hey, the Bible says something a little bit different than that. Could I take a few moments and just show you from the Bible, take like five or 10 minutes, I could just show you from the Bible how you can know for sure you go to heaven based on the Bible, okay? But if they get everything right, yes I'm a Christian, yes I know for sure I'm going to heaven, and it's by faith, and here's the thing, sometimes people aren't always going to word this perfectly, but if they say, I've been born again, I've believed on Jesus, I've received Christ as my personal savior, you know, I've trusted Jesus as my savior, anything along those lines that sounds like it's about what Jesus did, not their own works, then you move on to this final question just to make sure, do you believe there's anything you could ever do to lose your salvation? And the reason that I ask that final question is because there are a lot of people that'll say, oh yeah, you know, received Christ as savior, I believed in Jesus, but then when you ask them if they can lose it, all of a sudden it all works now. All of a sudden it's like, well you can't just live however you want, you know, stuff like that. So that's the point of these questions. So here's what we don't want to do. We don't want to be grilling people or interrogating people. We're asking them as few questions as possible, number one, and number two, be friendly. Be nice, okay? We're starting the conversation, you want to start out friendly, kind, nice. What does the Bible say? If you're there in Colossians chapter four, it said in verse five, walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time, let your speech be all way with grace, right? So we want our speech to be with grace, right? We want to be loving, kind, friendly and gracious to the people we are speaking to, right? The Bible says in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. So we want to be meek, humble, friendly, we want to smile, be nice. This is one of the biggest critiques that I give people when I'm out soul winning with them is, be nice, be friendly, don't be gruff, don't be too business-like, smile, be nice, be friendly, right? And so you don't want it to feel like you're grilling them or interrogating them. You want this to be a friendly conversation where you're just kindly asking them. But here's a big thing that I have seen out there, and look, I know I'm going to step on some toes this morning. I'm not trying to offend anybody, look, I am glad that you're out there soul winning and even if I don't approve of all the methods I see out there, I'm glad you're out there preaching the gospel and giving people the right plan of salvation even if you do some things that I don't like or whatever. Hey, I'm glad it's being preached, I don't want to discourage anybody, I'm not trying to be negative, and I know I'm going to step on some toes, but this is something that I constantly see and I just want to explain why I am totally against it and I think it's a bad method and that I think you should stop, okay? But look, if you're going to keep doing it, go ahead, it's fine, but let me explain to you why I don't believe it's a good idea, okay? Do not feed people wrong answers. Don't feed them wrong answers, why? Okay, sorry, I just... It makes no sense. It makes no sense to feed people the wrong answers, okay? What do I mean by that? So I've seen this more times than I can even count is, you know, you ask people like, so do you know for sure if you die today you go to heaven? What do you believe a person has to do to get to heaven? And basically that person will say, give a wrong answer and they'll say something along the lines of, well, you know, you got to be a good person. And then I've seen the soul winner then begin to feed them more wrong answers, go, oh, okay, so it's like keeping the commandments, living a good life, being a good person, getting baptized, going through that kind of stuff, is that what you mean? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, yeah, okay, oh, okay, well, that's wrong. What, why? Here's why I'm so against any kind of feeding the person the wrong answer is because here's the thing, chances are when you offer to show them the gospel in a moment, what are most people going to say? If you go out and knock doors in Phoenix, Arizona, and you ask people, hey, can I take five or 10 minutes and show you the gospel? Which answer is more common, yes or no? By a little or by a lot? A lot more people are going to say no. So you only have, so basically at that door, you're only spending 90 seconds at that door most of the time. Most of the time you're only spending 60 seconds at that door. So is that what you want to do with your 90 seconds is just list off all these wrong answers, reiterating their wrong answer, reinforcing their wrong answer, beefing up their wrong answer. Why would you do that? I don't want to be the guy who came to their door and listed all the wrong reasons for being saved. And then, well, can I, oh, oh, but that's wrong. Can I show you the right answer? No, I'm busy. Okay, bye. So what have you done? You just, you just gave a bunch of wrong answers, confused the person even more and walked away. What's the point of that? Okay. That's another thing I've seen. A person will say, you ask a person, uh, so what do you think a person has to do to go to heaven and they'll give the right answer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ or put your, put your faith and trust in Jesus. I've accepted Christ as my personal savior. I've, I've believed in Jesus, whatever. And, and then here's what they'll ask. So is there anything else you have to do to be saved? This is a bad question. Why? Because it's misleading. It makes it sound like they have given you a wrong answer and you're looking for something else. Well, let me tell you something. I'm not looking for something else because believing is enough. Is believing enough or not? Is faith enough? So if faith is enough to be saved and I asked someone, what is it that saves you? And they say, faith saves me. So is it anything else? Why would I do that? Because I'm being misleading. Now I'm making it sound like there is something else and like I'm not satisfied. So is there anything else you have to do? I mean, come on. Isn't there anything else? And then they're like, oh man, is there something else I need to do? Okay. Again, you get, you've been there, you're going to be there for 90 seconds or two minutes if they say no to you. And what have you done? All you've done is just introduced doubt into their mind. Just causing them to doubt that faith is enough. Why? But I'll tell you, now I keep asking the question, why? I know the answer why, and I'm going to tell you what the answer is. Why do people do this? Why do people feed people wrong answers at the beginning? Why do people, when they give the right answer, try to get them to give a wrong answer or grill them and ask them, you know, is there anything else? And all these things. I'll tell you why. It's because there's this obsession that people have sometimes out soul winning with trying to get the person to go on the record with the wrong answer so that later they can throw that back in their face and say, well, when I got here, you gave me the wrong answer. That's why I know why, because whenever I've asked, because I look, I always ask people, why did you say that? Why did you ask that? Why? What's the point? And they say, well, I just want to make it real clear from the beginning that they believe wrong so that later I can point out to them that when I got here, they believed wrong because this is what they're afraid of happening. They're afraid that they're going to get through the whole plan of salvation with somebody and then get down to the end and then, you know, be ready to lead that person to call upon the name of the Lord and be saved and to lead that person in prayer to be saved. And then for that person to say like, oh, well, I've already done this or I already believed this. And then they want to be like, well, that's funny because 10 minutes ago you said it was keeping the commandments. Ten minutes ago you said it was all by works. You remember that? Hmm? Folks, there's no point in that. If I get down to the end, if I show up at somebody's door and somebody gives me a totally wrong answer, live a good life, right, whatever, if I show up at the door and somebody gives me a totally wrong answer or they don't know for sure or whatever and I go through the entire plan of salvation with that person and then I get down to the end and that person claims, oh, I already believed all that. I've already done that. I've already believed that. Here's what I say to that. Who cares? Who cares? It's not my job to be some lawyer in a courtroom proving people wrong, arguing with people. I don't care if they, if they are deluded in and thinking that they, uh, were already said, I'm not going to sit there and argue with them. What is the point of arguing with them about what they said? And I've seen people just argue with the person will know, cause when I got here, you said this, well, that's not what I meant by that, but you said, you know, it's just like that doesn't really accomplish anything because the person who says, oh, I already knew that. I already believe that and acts that way. You know, that's their problem. I'm not out there to fight with people. You know, I'm just out there to try to help people and give people the gospel and get people saved. And if they think that they've already done that, then, then I would just say something along the lines of, you know, well, when I got here, it didn't seem like you were sure. You know, you kind of thought I was living a good life or whatever. Uh, you know, why don't we pray together and we can just make sure that you're saved because now you know for sure what the Bible says and you believe it. So why don't we just pray just to be sure. And if they just say, well, no, I've already done it, then it's just like, all right, no problem. See you later. Not my problem, my friend. It's not my job to force people to get saved or to force people to acknowledge that they used to not be saved. And look, let's say I pray with somebody at the end and then they say, well, I think I was probably already saved before I prayed that prayer and I don't think they were. Does it really matter? I mean, I remember we had a guy come to our church one time and this guy came to our church and I had personally attempted to give him the gospel and he gave me all the wrong answers. So then I preached to him that it was by faith, but he didn't get saved right then and there. Then he came to our church a couple of times and then someone else took him aside and gave him the gospel again. And then he ended up getting saved and then he ended up getting baptized. And then months later he told me, he's like, you know what? I actually think I was already saved when I came to pay for it. I'm pretty sure I got saved like two months before at this other Baptist church and you know, cause I know you guys talked to me and prayed with me and I got baptized and everything, but actually looking back, I think I actually got saved a couple months before that. And I said to the guy, I'm like, no, I don't think so because you know, when I talked to you, you had, you know, the wrong answers. And he's like, no, no, no. I think I was just a little confused by the question. I think I was probably already saved a few months before that. You know what I said to that? Okay. Who cares? Does it matter? Let me ask you this. Okay. If someone here today doesn't know their birthday, now I'm sure everybody here knows their birthday because we're living in the United States of America. It's our culture. We all write our birthday on forums like every day and we all know our birthday very well. But you know, other cultures, sometimes they don't know their birthday. Like sometimes on the Navajo reservation, not everyone knows their birthday or exactly how old they are. If you talk to some of the elders, I remember, you know, one of our church members, grandma, they said, we know for sure she was born on December 26th because we know it was the day after Christmas. That's how we remember that. But she's either 89 or 92 and we don't know. Like she's not 90, she's not 91. She's either 89 or 92. Nobody's sure. She's not sure. We're not sure. She's either 89 or 92. Here's the question. Does that have any bearing on whether she exists? Like is there any doubt that she was born? Do we have to be like, well, since we can't pinpoint the day you were born, maybe you weren't even born. The evidence that she was born is the fact that we're talking to her. The fact that she's sitting here proves that she was born. Maybe it was 89 years ago, maybe it was 92 years ago, but it happened. Okay. Here's the thing. The evidence that a person is saved is that they believe on Jesus. Every single person who has their faith and trust in Jesus is saved. The proof that they're saved is the fact that they believe on Jesus. Okay. They don't have to know exactly when they got saved. Some people are like, you know, I think I might've got saved 10 years ago, but five years ago I know for sure I got saved. You know, look who here would, would say that I've prayed and asked Christ to save me more than once just to be safe, even though I know it only takes one time, I've done it a few times just to be safe and you know what my hands up because I got saved as a six year old boy and you know what? I believe that I got saved when I was six years old. I believe I understood everything and I pray. But you know, a few years later I wondered like, did I really understand everything when I was six and I just dropped on my knees and said, Hey, just in case, Lord, you know what? I just, I'm going to confess to you right now that I believe that Jesus is the son of God and that he died for my sins and rose again. I'm fully trusting what he did to save me and nothing else. And you know, please save me right now. I did that a few times growing up just to be covered, just to be safe because you know, you don't want to play with it. Now what if I get to heaven and it turns out, you know, when you were six, you were a little young, you didn't quite understand. It was actually when you were seven that you got saved is actually when you were eight that you got saved. Does that matter at all? It's truly meaningless. The only way it could possibly have any relevance would be like in regard to baptism, since you're supposed to get baptized after you get saved, right? I didn't get baptized till I was nine years old. So and I'd prayed that prayer a few times before then. And I was super confident by the time I was nine. So there's no issue with my baptism. So who cares, right? And again, the guy, the guy at our church who said, Hey, I think I might've got saved a few months earlier. You know, he got baptized after we want him to Christ. He got baptized. So again, there's no issue with this baptism anyway, like whether it was when we talked to him, whether it was if he wants to think that now, like, I don't have any doubt that when he showed up, he wasn't saved. But does it matter that he thinks that he got saved earlier? No. And you know what? The memories of human beings are pretty inaccurate. Folks, I'm telling you, there have been certain stories that I tell, and I'm sure that it happened a certain way. And then someone will prove to me that I remembered it wrong. And it kind of blows your mind when that happens, because you remember that it happened that way. But if you go to a crime scene and get statements from a bunch of witnesses, they're going to be little details that are remembered differently, even though everybody's telling the truth. People's memories just aren't that consistent. So it doesn't really matter when you got saved. What matters is that you're saved. If you're fully trusting Christ as your Savior right now, and you know for sure that you, you know, believe that it's just him alone, it's not some other way that you're getting to heaven, you're saved. Okay. And so I've noticed that there's this obsession with getting people to admit that they're not saved, or that they weren't saved before you got there, like trying to prove to them, you weren't saved, and now you are saved. That is not a meaningful pursuit out soul winning. Never has been. The key thing is to get people to understand what the gospel is, and make sure that they're believing gospel. Now, obviously, it can be profitable to show them the difference between what they used to believe and what they believe now. But you don't have to do this in a badgering way, proving that they were wrong, because you know, this can make people uncomfortable sometimes like, well, when I got here, you had a pretty stupid answer, because that's how it can come across. Remember that stupid answer you gave when I got here? Remember that answer was just totally wrong when I got here? There's no reason to harp on that. There's no reason to emphasize that. It's meaningless. And so I believe that that's the motivation for this weird stuff at the beginning of trying to just get people to give all these wrong answers, and even feeding them wrong answers, in order to lay down a record like you're in court or something, and you can pull up the court transcript later and throw it in their face. You know, pulling up what people said 10 minutes ago and throwing it in their face isn't really going to be effective anyway, because then you're just putting people on the defensive, you're just arguing, what are you doing, right? So when you start out soul winning, you know, you ask them if they're a Christian, yes. Do you go to church anywhere? Oh, I go to, you know, so-and-so, the Presbyterian Church, whatever. Okay, well more important than that, if you were to die today, do you know for sure you'd go to heaven? Well, I think so. You know, I'm a pretty good person. They just told you why they think they're going to heaven. So is there any point in saying, so what do you think a person has to do to get to heaven? They just told you that, they already told you that. Don't ask questions that you already know the answer to, right? So they say, I think I'd go, I'm a pretty good person. So what do you think a person has to do to get to heaven? They already told you. Do you see what I'm saying? Oh, and then they say, well, live a good life. Oh, so keep the commandments? Oh, so it's repent of all your sins. Oh, so live, and then start listing all those, do not feed them wrong answers. I want to be able to take 10, 12, 15 minutes and go through the entire plan of salvation with someone. That's what I want to do. But I also know the fact that a lot of these conversations are going to be over in two minutes because people aren't interested. Is that the reality or not? If the conversation is going to be over in two minutes, the last thing I want to spend my time doing is listing a bunch of wrong false doctrines and confusing the person more. Okay. If they say, believe, or I'm born again, or I put my faith and trust in Jesus, or whatever, if they give a quasi right answer, you know, don't then say, oh, so is believing, is that it? Is there anything else you need to do? Because that implies that there is something else. Because if someone gives you a complete correct answer, it should just be ding, correct. It shouldn't be like, anything else? Are you sure? I mean, you know, gotcha. There's no point. Don't try to trip people up. Don't try to mess with people. You know, the point is just to figure out where they're at. And again, if somebody, if I ask somebody, do you know for sure if you die today, you go to heaven? No, I don't. No. I don't know for sure if I'm going to heaven. Then I'm not going to ask them, what do you think it takes to get to heaven? Whatever they think is wrong. Because if they're like, no, I don't know. If they thought it was just by believing in Jesus, they'd know. Because if it's that easy as believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, if it's that easy as that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life, why would you just not know? The reason they don't know is because they think it's based on how good they are. That's why they don't know. I don't need to ask them that, I already know that. That if they say, no, I have no idea, or I believe I'd go to hell. Some people just say, no, I'd go to hell. Do you know for sure if you'd go to heaven? Nope, I'd probably go to hell right now. So what do you think a person has to do to go to heaven? I don't care what they think. Some guy who says I'm going to hell, you think I care what he thinks it takes to go to heaven? I don't want to talk about what he thinks it takes. I want to talk about what the Bible says it takes. So I want to focus on the truth, not focusing on his error and what's wrong with what he believes. I hope this is helpful, and I'm parking it on this point because I feel strongly about this, but like I said, if you keep doing this, fine, but I don't like it, okay? Here's another point, and I know I'm taking a long time because this is going to spill over into tonight. Whenever I preach about soul-winding methods, it always takes two sermons, just warning you, okay? And so if you're not going to show up tonight, listen to tonight's sermon tomorrow because this morning's sermon is incomplete, okay? I'm going to leave you on a cliffhanger here, okay? And so you have to either come back tonight or at least listen to it on YouTube or the MP3 or whatever, okay? If they get the answer right, let's say they get all the answers right and they say, yes, I'm saved, I'm a believer, it's because of Jesus that I'm going to heaven, can you lose it? Nope, right? Jesus died for all our sins, can't lose it. At this point, rejoice with them. Be nice. If they get the answer right, rejoice with them. I always say, hey, that's great, man, I'm so glad that you're saved and it's so great to meet a fellow Christian out here. It's really encouraging. Maybe you can pray for us as we're out here because you understand what we're doing out here and it's great to run into, you know, be nice, be friendly, be excited that they get it right. This is what I've literally seen. You know, the person gets all the answers right, it's like, okay, good, all right, good. You pass. Be happy. And don't be disappointed that they gave you the right answer so you're going to keep grilling, are you sure there's nothing else? Are you sure you're not trusting? So what about this heresy? You believe in that? What about this heresy? Hey, what about this heresy over here? You believe in that? Folks, just, just be happy, okay? What if they're really not saved and they gave me the right answer? It's like, get over it. There could be people here this morning that we think are saved that aren't. You can't just grill and interrogate people for an hour. It doesn't make any sense. If they say that it's by faith and that you can't lose it, you know, at that point you just assume that they're saved and rejoice with them, be friendly, you know, leave them with a card. Be nice. Say something nice. Okay. And if they get it wrong, you offer to show them the gospel. You say, hey, can I just take five, 10 minutes and just show you from the Bible how you can know for sure that you'll go to heaven. Now if they say, no, I'm busy, no, you know, uh, we're having dinner, no, I'm about to be my all time personal best on this video game. All the different reasons that people would give, I was about to leave, I got to go, whatever. You know, at that point then I just say, okay, no problem. You know, because I just want to leave people on a friendly note if they don't want to hear the gospel. And here's a little secret. If they don't want to hear the gospel, I don't really want to give them the gospel because I'm more interested in talking to people that are actually interested. And I know that down the street there's a guy who is interested. So why would I waste my time with somebody who doesn't care, but I still want to plant the seed. Amen. So when they say, no, no, I got to go, I'm busy, I got stuff going on. Then I say, okay, no problem. Is it all right if I leave you with a quick Bible verse before I go? Usually they'll say yes. And then I'll, I'll give them a quick Bible verse and I'll say to them, you know, hey, John three 16 says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. I just want to point out real quick that it's whosoever believeth. It's not whosoever is good enough. It's by faith. All right. Take a look at that card later. Watch that youtube video, scan that QR code. God bless you. Have a great day. Right? And I can leave them with a little thought and look, they got the QR code. If they want to know more, it's right there. They can scan it on their phone. They can read the information. They can watch the Bible way to heaven video, whatever. But at least I gave him a little food for thought, plant a little seed, gave him a little something something and I left on a positive note because chances are we're going to knock that door again because we knocked so many doors. We'll be back. Right? So let's not burn them. Oh really? Oh, you don't have time. I've seen people literally just walk away without even saying bye. Like person's like, no, I'm busy, I don't have time. Like say like, okay, bye, no problem. See you later. You know, be nice and, and just try, try to leave them with a verse. And if I say, Hey, can I show you one verse? And they say, no, no, I'm busy. I'm just like, all right, see you later. Bye. No problem. Have a good one. Okay. So let's say they, they say yes. Sure. You know, Hey, can I take five, 10 minutes and show you from the Bible? Okay. Sure. Right. You're going to get those people that say yes. Well then at that point, I'm going to begin to present the gospel to them, right? So here's where we get into kind of the nitty gritty of how to present the gospel. And again, we're not going to get very far this morning. We're going to finish this tonight. The first thing I want to establish with people is the easiest thing, which is that we're all sinners, right? So what we go through at Faith Forward Baptist Church is pretty similar to what's been known as the Romans road since long before I was even born. Okay. So then, you know, we'll take people to Romans three 23 Romans three 10 and show them something along the lines of for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God as it is written. There's none righteous. No, not one. And I will say to the person, look, we're all sinners. I've sinned. You've sinned. And here's the thing. I don't belabor this point because 99% of people already believe this before you get there. I mean, how often do you really run into a person that's just like, no, I don't. I don't ever sin. I never sin. I'm totally sinless. Every once in a while you'll get a complete idiot like that that thinks that because you have to be insane to think that because we all know ourselves, right? Isn't it kind of insane to think that you never sin? It's absurd. It's amazing that anybody would ever believe that. And so that's an inside joke. But the thing is that because everybody already believes this, I don't spend a lot of time on it because usually people are just like, well, yeah, of course. Hey, we've all sinned right? And sometimes I'll ask people, do you think there's anybody who never sins? And they're just like, no way. Everybody's a sinner, right? Everybody sins. Nobody's perfect, right? Now every once in a while you'll have somebody who says, oh, I don't sin or whatever. Then you just tell them, well, you know, the Bible says the thought of foolishness is sin. Even if you just think something's stupid, it's a sin. You know, you ever think something's stupid? Yeah. Well, that's a sin. Okay. You just thought something's stupid right now because you thought you didn't sin. But the point is that I've seen evangelism programs that spend 80 to 90% of the program on this point and 20% talking about Jesus. That's absurd. You should be preaching about Jesus. You should be preaching about salvation, establishing the fact that people are a sinner is super quick, super easy because 99.9% of people already know and believe this. So I just quickly show them in Romans three 23 that we've all sinned. Then I take them over to Romans six 23 and show them the wages of sin is death, right? And the wages of sin is death. We're all going to die physically, but that's not the end. There's also a second death. I take them over to revelation chapter 20 and I show them in verses 14, 15 and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. What's that place talking about? What place is that talking about? Hell, right? And I explained to them, look, after you die, you're going to go to heaven or hell, right? The wages of sin is death. This is the second death. It's hell. Then here's the key verse. Revelation 21 eight. I take them to revelation 21 eight and I say, look, here's a list of people that are going to hell, but the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. And I saw them. I say, look, you know, some of these are some pretty bad sins here, murderers, sorcerers, but then it says and all liars. I know I've lied before. Have you ever lied before? And most people will always 99% of the time say, yes, of course I've lied before. And then I say to them, well, you know, we've all lied and if we were honest, we've all done things worse than lying. So according to this verse, where do we all deserve to go? According to this verse, you know, God wasn't just kidding when he said this, you know, we all deserve to go to hell, but the good news is that God loves us. Okay. So if God loves us, do you think he wants us to go to hell? No, of course not. We wouldn't want someone that we love to go to hell. But was God kidding when he said this? No. So we do deserve to go there, but because God loves us, he has provided a way for us to be saved from this punishment that we all deserve. And here's what he did to save us. Then we could take them over to Romans five, eight, right? And show them, but God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Okay. Just a quick review. You start the conversation in your personal life. This is super easy. You just ask the question, Hey, are you a Christian? Natural is rain to ask that question. And then you just roll into the rest of the method. If you're at the door, you knock the door, you identify that you're there, you give them the invite, you ask the questions, you figure out where they're at spiritually, you offer to show them the gospel. If they say yes, you get into the gospel. What's point one of the gospel? Point one is that we're all sinners. That's an easy point. And you know, it's nice to start with something easy, because at least you're getting the person on board with you right away. Like they're understanding like, okay, I can understand this presentation. I don't want to just hit them right away with some complicated theology, because then they might just kind of glaze over and be like, you know what, I'm not that religious. This is kind of over my head. But like, if I open to Romans three 23 and say, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, they can understand that no problem. So we're starting out showing like, you're going to understand this lesson. This is going to make sense to you. We're all sinners. They agree with it. It makes sense. It's obvious. And then it's like, okay, the wages of sin is death. Obviously, if God has all these commandments, there's a punishment for breaking them. What's the punishment? The wages of sin is death. So number one, we're all sinners. Number two, there's a punishment for our sin. After we die, to go to hell when we die, that's the punishment for our sin. Number three, because God loves us, right? He's provided a way for us to be saved, because Jesus died on the cross for us, right? And then you're going to get into the story of Jesus, you're going to get into the gospel, you're going to explain to them, you know, what it is that Christ did for us. And so I typically at this point, you know, just mentioned to them a few basics about who Jesus is. Most people, thankfully in the United States, know a little bit about Jesus as well. So I just explained to them just briefly that Jesus is the Son of God, and that Jesus was born of a virgin, and that he lived a sinless life on this earth that none of us could live. Right? He was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin. And not only did he go around doing a lot of miracles, like healing people, he walked on water, he fed the 5000, but he also preached the Word of God. And when you preach the Word of God, this can sometimes tend to offend people. Not everybody wants to hear the truth when you speak the truth. And so Jesus is preaching truth. And a lot of people didn't like what Jesus had to say. And so therefore, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, they ended up arresting Jesus in the middle of the night, right? They ended up beating him, spitting on him, and ultimately, he was convicted in court, you know, even though he had done nothing wrong, and he was nailed to the cross, right? And most people already have an idea of this basic story. But it's good to just explain it again in case because you can't really assume anything in 2022 because our nation has been so de-Christianized, it's good to at least give people a basic of who Jesus is. And explain the fact that Jesus, when he died on the cross for us, that he himself bare our sins in his own body on the tree. So that every sin that I've ever done, and every sin that you've ever done, it was as if Jesus had done it, right? He was paying the price for our sins. He was dying for our sins on the cross. And when Jesus died on the cross, they took his body and they buried it in the tomb. His soul went down to hell for three days and three nights, and three days later, he rose again from the dead. And one thing I do like to mention here is that when Jesus rose again from the dead, I like to mention the fact that he showed to the disciples the holes in his hands and the hole in his side to show that he had really risen from the dead, that he rose again bodily. Now the reason I make a big deal out of this, I've literally talked to a teenage girl who'd grown up in a Baptist church her whole life, but it was one of these kind of woo kind of Baptist churches, and it was a lot of fluff, a lot of music, a lot of shallow teaching. And when I got to this part about the resurrection, about how Jesus walked out of the grave and he actually showed them the holes in his hands, she literally stopped me and said, wait, did this really happen? And I'm like, yeah, Jesus actually, he was dead for three days and three nights, and then he rose again from the dead. He actually walked out of the grave and even showed them the holes in his hands, so he physically came back from the dead. And I said, have you not heard that before? She said, no, I haven't heard that before. How do you grow up in church and not hear that? Maybe you're just not paying attention, or maybe the church isn't very good at teaching you stuff. Probably both. But I mean, it's pretty bizarre, but to some people this is a revelation. Also we know that there are a lot of heresies out there that Jesus just kind of rose spiritually or is kind of like a spiritual resurrection, that's what Jehovah's false witnesses and people will teach. And so it only takes a couple seconds to just add that, hey, when he rose from the dead he walked out of the grave and showed him the holes in his hands, just to really drive in the fact he rose from the dead. Now why is this so important? Because this is the crux of the gospel. The death, burial, and resurrection of Christ is the crux of the gospel. And we think of the famous verse that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. That's giving a really key place to the resurrection in our faith, isn't it? If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Now again, I don't have time to go through everything this morning, but I got through about half of what I want to talk about today, and it's always like this when I preach these kind of sermons about soul winning, but I hope that this sermon does a couple things for you. Number one, I hope that it will inspire you if you've never done soul winning to want to get out and do some soul winning. I hope it would inspire you to at least show up to one of our church soul winning times and just go out as a silent partner and just tag along with somebody so you can learn how to do this. Because listening to this sermon isn't really the best way to learn. The best way to learn is to actually go out and do it. I hope you'll be inspired in that sense. And number two, if you're already one who goes soul winning or if you're in the process of learning, I hope that what I've said to you would maybe help you tighten up your soul winning and maybe just, you know, rethink some of the methods that you're using if you're doing some of these things that I'm kind of saying, hey, these aren't best practices. Maybe you'll reevaluate some of your methods and think, you know, yeah, okay, I see what Pastor Anderson is saying and maybe tighten things up a little bit. And I would also encourage you to watch the soul winning demonstration video. You know, many, many years ago, 16 years ago or something, Pastor Burzins and I, we made a little soul winning demonstration where I knocked on my own door and then Pastor Burzins came to the door and I basically go through the gospel with him and get him saved. And so we know he's saved because we've seen it on camera. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, he was already saved. We go through this and it's nice to watch a little demonstration of this. It's a nine minute and 59 second demonstration. It's called basic soul winning demonstration video. I'm sure YouTube has deleted it five million times, but I'm sure you can find it somewhere. If you need help, email the church, we'll email it to you. It's still even on YouTube. Okay, yeah. Just a basic soul winning demonstration video. Watch that video so you can see it in action, but better yet, get your butt out there and watch it in real life as a silent partner. Okay. And then remember, if you're still there in Colossians four, you probably closed your Bible, but I'll just quote it to you. The Bible says that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak, right? This is what we're emphasizing, making things clear, not confusing people. Walk in wisdom toward them that are without redeeming the time. If I only have two minutes, I want to put that two minutes to good use. I want to be the guy who came to their door and spent two minutes telling them it was by faith alone, not the guy who listed all the wrong things and then told him it's wrong. I want to be the guy who spent the two minutes saying the right things and if I got 10 minutes, I want to make the best of that 10 minutes. If I get 15 minutes, I want to make the best of my 15 minutes. If I get 20 minutes, I want to make the best of my 20 minutes. I want to redeem the time. That's why if somebody already knows they're a sinner, I'm not going to spend 10 minutes telling them they're a sinner because I need to redeem the time. I can spend 10 minutes telling somebody they're a sinner and they're like, well, I got to go now. And then the pizza shows up and then, you know, their ride shows up and then, oh, I got to get back to work. You know, use your time wisely out there, people, right? And let your speech be all the way with grace. Be nice, be kind, be friendly, be gentle. And so I hope that the sermon will inspire you and also educate you when it comes to Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much, Lord, that you've given us this opportunity to win people unto Christ. Lord, help us to be faithful, uh, door to door preaching the gospel, but also Lord, just to our friends and loved ones and, and just in our daily lives, Lord, help us to take those opportunities to give the gospel and Lord help us to redeem that time and make the best of it. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.