I'll see you in the next video.
At this time, I'm going to talk about explaining the gospel.
So in the last discussion we had, we got up to the point where you've started the conversation
and you're just about to present the gospel.
Now when it comes to explaining the gospel, you have two goals.
First of all, you want to use the Bible, right?
Because the Word of God is what has power and the Bible says that faith cometh by hearing
and hearing by the Word of God.
And then your second goal is to make the Bible easy to understand.
That's what it means to explain something.
You're breaking it down and making it simple.
This is the essence of what it means to be a teacher.
You take something that's complicated or difficult and you make it simple and easy.
So your goal when you're out soul winning is to teach people the gospel of Jesus Christ.
You're using the Bible but you're explaining it in a way that people can understand.
So you want them to understand it no matter what their intelligence level is.
Whether they're very intellectual or a very simple minded person, a good soul winner is
going to be able to break down the gospel to them to where they walk away understanding
it.
Whether they accept it or reject it, we want them to understand it, right?
Think about what the Bible says.
Can anyone heareth the word of the kingdom and understandeth it not?
Then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart.
This is he that received seed by the wayside.
We don't want the seed that we plant to fall by the wayside.
We want to make sure that people understand the word that is preached unto them.
Now one of the most important things about making the gospel understandable is that your
gospel presentation makes sense and is logical and is following a path that goes from A to
B to C to D. You don't want to just be all over the place, jumping around all over the
place where people are confused and they can't follow what you're saying.
Now a lot of people feel like they have to come up with a new way of giving the gospel
or some kind of an avant garde or cute approach.
But the best advice to somebody who's a beginner is just do it the way that you see other
experienced soul winners do it.
I mean that's how we all learn.
The way that I learned soul winning was just going out with somebody else, watching what
they did, and then I did the same thing.
And I followed that example that was taught to me.
Then once I got good at that, once I was comfortable with that, then I began to customize it a
little bit and make it my own.
So you start with what you're taught and just don't get all crazy with it.
Just stay with what you're taught, get good at that, get comfortable with that, and then
go ahead and personalize that.
Or if you can find a way to tweak it a little bit, improve it, make it suit your personality
more, God can use us all in a unique way.
But don't go try to reinvent the wheel.
The Romans road has been around, it's been a great plan.
You can build on that, you can adapt that, but there's no reason to just go back to the
drawing board and come up with these crazy gospel plans.
And the biggest thing I see with some people's gospel presentation that gets too avant garde
is that it jumps around too much, it skips around too much.
So what I want to teach you right now is just a logical way to explain the gospel that makes
sense.
Just a logic where one point leads to the next.
So obviously the first point that we need to get across to people when we're out soul
winning is the fact that everyone is a sinner, that they are a sinner, right?
Because we're trying to show people that there's a problem.
What's the point of being saved unless there's something to be saved from, right?
So the first thing that we point out is the problem of sin.
So the verse that I go to and most people go to is Romans 3 23, just a clear verse for
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
We have all sinned, I'm a sinner, you're a sinner.
And because of our sins, we come short, we don't measure up to what God expects.
So point number one is that we're all sinners.
Now this is usually a really easy point to get across to people because 99% of people
that you talk to already know that and are ready to admit that immediately that they're
a sinner.
So I'm not going to spend a whole bunch of time on that point telling them something
that they already know.
Now there are other soul winning programs out there that just want to spend 90% of the
time on this point.
Just telling you what a sinner you are, telling you how rotten you are, telling you how bad
you are and how you've done all these wicked things.
And they try to prove that they've broken every single one of the 10 commandments.
That's not necessary because guess what?
You don't have to break all of the 10 commandments to go to hell.
You just have to break one of them because the Bible says whosoever shall keep the whole
law and yet offended one point, he's guilty of all.
So your first step when you're explaining the gospel is just to get the point across
that we've sinned.
And this is very easy, Romans 3 23.
This takes very little time and the vast majority of people are just immediately going
to agree to that.
They already know that.
They already realize that.
That's why they're even talking to you.
Every once in a while you'll get that wild eyed Pentecostal who believes in sinless perfection
and they don't think that they've ever sinned or at least they haven't sinned in the last
five years or whatever.
But that is super rare.
So the first place I go is Romans 3 23, show them they're a sinner.
Step two is to get them to see that there's a punishment for our sin.
So it's very logical.
We're sinners.
There's a punishment with that.
Romans 6 23 for the wages of sin is death.
But then we go on to explain to them that physical death is not the end.
We're all going to die physically, but after that there's heaven and there's hell and hell
is known as the second death.
So I'll often take them next to revelation 20 14 and 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.
So the lake of fire is the second death.
Then I'll tell them, you know what?
There's a list of people that the Bible tells us are going to the lake of fire.
There's a list of people that are going to hell.
Revelation 21 8 contains that list.
Now I'll say this, every door I knock, I show them Romans 3 23.
Every door I knock, I show them Romans 6 23.
Sometimes I skip revelation 20 verses 14 and 15.
If I feel like the person already grasped what I've said very quickly and that they
already know about these things.
So on my list here, I put revelation 20, 14, 15 parentheses, sometimes I'll blow past that.
But I definitely always show them revelation 21 8 revelation 21 8 says, 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 point out to them that there are some pretty bad things on that list, murder, sorcery,
but how about all liars?
We've all lied before, right?
And also the fearful, unbelieving, you know, there's going to be something on that list
that anyone can identify with.
Every once in a while, you'll get somebody who will scoff at that and say, well, a liar,
that's somebody who lies all the time.
Well, if they pull that out, just go to the last verse in the chapter.
It's really easy to remember because the last verse in the chapter.
So if they scoff at all liars, which 99% of people will just accept, yeah, it says all
liars are going to hell, but every once in a while you get, well, I've lied, but I'm
not really a liar.
Then I just, I just take them to verse 27 and say, it's at the last verse in the chapter.
So it's easy to remember, Hey, this is a list of who's not going to heaven.
We had a list of who's going to hell.
Here's, who's not going to heaven.
And there shall no wise enter into it.
Anything that defileth neither whatsoever work at the abomination or maketh a lie, but
they, which are written in the lamb's book of life.
So that's one lie in case they balk at that.
It's funny because I've heard some people explain it like, Hey, how many people do you
have to kill to be a murderer?
And they'll say one.
And then, well, how many lies you have to tell to be a liar?
One.
One time I was out soul winning.
It was this young teenage boy.
And my soul winning partner asked him, he said, how many people do you have to kill
to be a murderer?
And he thought about it and he said, I'd say probably three people.
You know, cause you know, the first one might've just been an isolated incident.
Okay.
You killed a second person, but that doesn't really make you a murderer.
It doesn't.
But you know, by that third murder, there's a pattern emerging here.
I think you're a murderer at that point.
That's the only person I've ever heard give an answer other than one.
Right?
So, you know, the answer is right there in the same chapter.
So I don't spend a huge amount of time on these two points simply because most people
just readily accept them and readily understand them.
Now, if someone struggles with these points, then park on it, spend a little more time.
You could turn to other verses on hell that you've marked down or memorized or thought
about.
You know, you can go to Mark chapter nine.
That's a good place to turn.
If somebody just says, Hey, I don't really believe in a literal hell.
You can say, well, Jesus talked about a literal hell.
And Mark chapter nine just has all those back to back statements at the end of the chapter
about hell fire and everlasting fire.
And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.
There's a big, long, serious passage on hell out of the mouth of Jesus himself at the end
of Mark nine.
Places like that could be turned to if people scoff at this, but most people accept this
right away.
So again, my stripped down version of this would just be Romans three 23, Romans six
23, revelation 21 eight.
That's my stripped down version.
If I spend a little more time, I'll do revelation 20, 14 and 15, just to drive that in, maybe
turn to some other verses.
So those are the first two things.
You're a sinner and you deserve to go to hell, but I tell them, but God loves you.
So God loves you.
Do you think he wants you to go to hell?
No, of course not.
No one would want someone that they love to go to hell.
And then I point to revelation 21 eight and I say, but do you think he was just kidding
when he said that?
And they say, no, he's not kidding.
I say, well, yeah, because that's what we deserve.
We do deserve that, but he loves us and doesn't want us to go there.
So here's what he did for us to save us so that we would not go there.
The Bible says, but God commended his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us.
And that's Romans five eight.
So Jesus Christ died for us, meaning that he took our place.
He took the punishment that we deserve and he died for us.
Okay.
So again, point one, you're a sinner.
Point number two, you deserve to go to hell.
Point number three, Jesus loves you and died for you.
That's how he saved you.
Now, at this point, I stop and explain to them who is Jesus, right?
Now we can assume that the people that we're talking to living in the United States of
America know all about who Jesus is, but it's pretty amazing how many people in our society
have become so de-Christianized that they don't even know basic things about the Bible.
I've spoken to teenagers who even said that they grew up in church and they didn't even
know that Jesus rose from the dead.
And I started explaining to them the bodily resurrection and Jesus walking out of the
tomb and showing them the holes in his hands.
And I had a teenage girl one time stop me and say, wait a minute, did this really happen?
I can't.
And she'd been in a Baptist church her whole life, literally, and she was 15 years old.
And it was one of these kind of woo kind of Baptist churches.
It was like a Holy roller type church, but still you'd expect her to know at least that
Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
But I'm running into a lot of people these days, even adults and teenagers were all from
all walks of life, we're all asked them, okay, so Jesus died on the cross.
What happened three days later?
I don't know.
He rose again.
You remember that?
Never heard of it.
You know, people now have never heard of Noah or Samson.
I mean, it's, it's getting pretty de-Christianized out there.
So we don't want to just assume that everybody knows everything about Jesus.
So it's good to do a little review of just, okay, here's who Jesus is.
Make sure that we're not losing them.
So again, you're a sinner.
Number one, number two, you deserve hell.
Number three, Jesus loves you and died for you.
And number four, I just explained to them who Jesus is.
So I explained to them that Jesus is the son of God, that he dwelt among us.
He is God in the flesh.
And I explained that he lived a perfect life that none of us could live.
He went about and performed miracles and he also preached the word of God.
And obviously when you speak the truth, some people aren't going to like it.
A lot of people got angry at his preaching and they ended up causing him to be arrested,
beaten, spat upon.
And ultimately he was nailed to the cross.
And the Bible says that when he was nailed to the cross, that he himself bear our sins
in his own body on the tree.
Every sin that I've ever done, every sin that you've ever done, it was as if Jesus had done
it.
Okay.
He died on the cross, they took his body and they buried it in the tomb.
But his soul went down to hell for three days and three nights.
Three days later, he rose again from the dead, walked out of the grave, showed himself alive,
showed him the holes in his hands.
I like to bring up the holes in his hands just so that people realize that bodily resurrection
and that it wasn't just some kind of a spiritual resurrection.
So again, you're a sinner.
You deserve to go to hell, but Jesus loves you.
He died for you.
Who is Jesus?
He's God in the flesh.
He's the son of God.
He lived a perfect life.
I just explained briefly that he performed miracles.
He preached the word of God and that he sacrificed his life on the cross for us.
So then fifth thing would be the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.
You know, I emphasize the death, burial and resurrection.
Now, the fact that Jesus died for all of us, though, that doesn't mean that we're all automatically
going to heaven, does it?
This is what I say to them at the door.
I say, look, are we all automatically going to heaven now?
No, because I showed you in Revelation where people were being cast into that lake of fire.
So the question is, what do we have to do in order to be saved?
And of course, the answer to that is found in Acts 16, 30 and 31.
They brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved?
And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house.
I'll explain that verse that it didn't say go to church and you'll be saved, live a good
life and you'll be saved, turn from all your sins and you'll be saved, join a church.
I say those are all good things to do, but when it comes to what we must do to be saved,
it's believe.
Then I take them to John 3 16.
And the reason I love John 3 16 is because most people have heard it before.
Most people are familiar with it.
And when you come at people with a verse that they already have heard and are familiar with,
then I think it's more powerful than a verse that they've never heard because they've all
heard it.
But did they actually understand it or believe it often they haven't, right?
How many times have I started to quote someone for God so loved the world and they jump in
and finish it for you?
That he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.
And in the next breath I say, so what do we have to do to have everlasting life?
Go to church, live a good life, turn from your sins, you got to try to, you know, do
right.
And you just quoted it, but it's great to use that verse because people have already
heard it.
And then when you expound it to them, they'll have this light bulb go on in their head and
go, oh, you know what, that is what that verse says.
And I've had a bunch of people say, man, I've heard that verse so many times.
And why did I not grasp what it was saying?
Why?
Because how can they accept some man should guide them?
That's why we're there.
You know, we're there to help them understand.
So I like to use Acts 16, 30 and 31.
And then I like to go to John 3, 16 because it's such a famous verse.
And then I'll usually hit one more verse on salvation by faith.
Okay.
So just to back up again, point one, you're a sinner.
That's Romans 3, 23 point number two, the penalty for sin is hell.
That's Romans 6, 23 and revelation 21, eight, possibly 2014 and 15, right?
Point number three, Jesus loves you and died for you.
Romans 5, eight, Christ died for us.
Okay.
Who is Jesus?
I just explained to them in my own words, just a basic portrait of who Jesus Christ
is, what his ministry was, his death, burial and resurrection.
Just explain to them the wonderful story, the greatest story ever told.
Amen.
And then I get into, of course, at the end of that, the death, burial and resurrection.
And then that's the fifth thing.
And then the sixth thing is, what must we do to be saved?
That's where I go to act 16, 31, John 3, 16, and then I'll usually pick a third verse on
that point.
Now for the third verse on that point, I might use Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.
I might use John 6, 47.
I might use John 5, 42.
I mean, it really just, you know, close your eyes and open the book of John and put your
finger down and pretty much just, you know, you'll find that third verse on believe only
and thou shall be saved.
So, you know, there are a lot of different scriptures that you could use to make that
point.
And then the seventh element of my gospel presentation is I really drive in the eternal
security of the believer.
Now, I'm going to do a whole talk on that tomorrow because that's such an important
point that that deserves a whole discussion in and of itself, just about the eternal security
of the believer that we cannot lose our salvation.
So this is what I mean about it.
Making logical sense.
Think about how logical this is.
You're a sinner.
You deserve hell, but Christ loves you.
He died for you.
This is who he is, his death, burial and resurrection.
So what do we have to do to get saved?
Okay.
And then once we're saved, we're always saved.
See how that kind of just flows and makes sense.
And it's very logical.
So what we don't want to do is just, you know, start talking about how you can't lose your
salvation and then here, let me take you over here where you, how you deserve hell.
And then let me take you back over here.
You know, you don't want to just kind of be all over the place.
You want to have a gospel presentation that flows because your goal is to be easily understood.
That's the goal.
Now, as far as how much time I spend on this, I take as much time as is necessary, but I
don't take more time than is necessary.
So I don't beat a dead horse.
As soon as somebody knows that they're a sinner.
If I say, Hey, the Bible says, we've all said, yeah, of course.
Yeah.
Boy, do I know that?
Well, let me show you five more verses on that though.
Cause I'm so thorough.
There's no point, right?
It's it doesn't make any sense.
I mean, if I show somebody they're a sinner and just immediately, yeah, of course we're
all sinners.
Okay.
Point two.
We yup.
We deserve hell.
That's what it says.
No reason to just sit there.
Now some people just think, well, you can't be too thorough.
Yeah, you can.
Why?
Because people only have so much time.
You're going to lose people's interest.
People are going to get bored.
Now, on the other side of that are these kinds of wham, bam, one, two, three repeat after
me types.
And we definitely don't want to do that.
So we want to take as much time as is necessary.
And look, if you're dealing with somebody who's mentally disabled, this could take an
hour.
You know, this could take a really long time and it's worth it to take that time, but you
just have to gauge who you're talking to.
This is a dialogue that you're having where it's going to be different with every person.
You know, if somebody is catching on real quick, you move on, but typically point one
and point two go pretty fast usually unless they choke on it, then you have to kind of
park it.
Then when I get to the part about who Jesus is and explain that, if I get the feeling
that this person already knows a lot about Jesus, then I don't need to spend as much
time explaining who Jesus is as somebody who has no clue, right?
So you kind of gauge their reaction.
You kind of look at them as you talk to them and decide how much time they need to understand
who Jesus is, to understand the concept of his death barrel and resurrection, which isn't
really that complicated.
It doesn't really take long to explain that.
And then as far as what must we do to be saved, if they instantly see that it's believed,
then two, three verses is sufficient, and then you move on to the eternal security point.
Now, how long does this take altogether?
My typical gospel presentation, if I walk up to a door and that person is very receptive,
it's just kind of that perfect door where it's sort of like the demonstrations that
we upload to YouTube.
Like, I have a video on YouTube called the basic soul winning demonstration video.
And I uploaded that video 10 years ago, literally.
And that video right there is just kind of a perfect scenario of that door that you want
to find, right?
Where that guy is just ready to get saved.
But let me tell you something, there are a lot of doors like that.
I've had a lot of experiences just like that demo.
So my basic gospel presentation, if it's a really easy door and people are just receptive,
takes me 10 minutes to go through the plan of salvation.
Because it only takes me probably one minute or a minute and a half to tell them that they're
a sinner and that they're on their way to hell.
Because that's not that complicated, right?
A few minutes explaining who Jesus is, a few minutes on the fact that it's believing.
And then I spend about probably four or five minutes on the eternal security of the believer.
Because that's the thing that people are usually the most messed up on or have the hardest
time grasping.
It's the concept that people struggle with the most.
I mean, we're a sinner, oh, it's easy to get people on their way to hell.
It's obvious.
It's right there.
We know hell is there for a reason.
You know, Jesus is the son of God.
You usually have people at hello with that.
You know, okay, Jesus died on the cross.
He was buried and rose again.
These are simple things.
But where the rubber really meets the road is what do we have to do to be saved?
You know, and the fact that we can't lose it because that's what really shows that we
believe it's by faith.
Because a lot of times this losing your salvation is a back door to work salvation.
Did I say a lot of time?
A hundred percent of the time that's what it is, okay.
So the point is that, you know, we want to spend as much time as is necessary, but we
don't want to beat a dead horse, okay.
And we want to spend most of the time talking about the things that they need to hear the
most.
Like about the fact that salvation is by faith and that you can't lose your salvation.
So those are the things that I'm going to spend the most time talking about.
Now in a super receptive, just unbelievable situation, you know, maybe this could come
down to like eight minutes or something possibly for me.
But usually it's going to take 10 minutes for an easy door and for a more challenging
door maybe 15 minutes.
But you could get doors where you spend 20, 30, 40, 50 minutes.
I've spent hours preaching some of the gospel.
And I'm not saying that that's the wrong thing to do because sometimes that's appropriate
as long as you're making progress that whole time.
I'm not going to spend hours just arguing with somebody.
But sometimes somebody is sincere, they're trying to understand, they're trying to learn.
Maybe they're mentally disabled or maybe they're just really steeped in a false doctrine and
they're trying to see it though or they're at least interested and receptive, then, you
know, I'll spend as much time as is necessary with that person.
I've spent hours with someone that eventually at the end of a few hours got saved, right?
But typically this process takes about 10 to 15 minutes in my experience.
So we'll get into more tomorrow as far as the eternal security point.
That's a key point.
And so that's a big part of the gospel presentation.
How do you learn all this stuff?
Well, you know, you could have taken notes just now.
That's what I just gave you.
But really the best way to learn is to get out there tomorrow morning, get paired up
with a talker and just watch somebody do it, you know?
Or watch the YouTube video, the soul winning demonstration video.
But really there's no substitute for getting out there and doing it.
I mean, think about it.
Are you going to learn martial arts from a book?
Are you going to learn how to be a mechanic?
Are you going to learn how to be an electrician or a plumber just from a book?
No, you got to get out there and do it, right?
You learn by doing.
That's how soul winning is.
That's why we're going to have soul winning tomorrow morning, a chance for you to get
out there and try it.
And not just tomorrow, but you need to go back to your home church and you need to get
out there and go soul winning, be a silent partner, learn the ropes, even if you have
to travel to a distant church and let them train you for a while.
But it's all about getting out there and doing it.
Amen.