Lesson number two, the questions, the questions, page number eight.
So number one, we must ask questions. That's your key word there.
We must ask questions. After we've knocked on someone's door and invited them to church,
we ask questions as a way to, number one, see if a person is saved and they need the gospel,
and also number two, as a way to set up the gospel presentation.
So letter A, ask questions to get their salvation testimony. That's your key word there.
Ask questions to get their salvation testimony.
Psalm 107 verse 2 says, let the redeemed of the Lord say so.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. So people should be able to tell you that they're saved.
We want to ask questions to get their salvation testimony.
So number one, we cannot see a person's heart whether they are saved or not.
Number two, we can only base their salvation by their testimony, what they say.
Now, just for sake of clarity, the Bible does teach that there are some other ways
that somebody can engage whether somebody is saved or not,
but you're not going to be able to do that in a two-minute conversation at somebody's door.
In a two-minute conversation for somebody you just met,
the only way for you to know whether they're saved or not is to just ask them for their salvation testimony.
Letter B, Christ would often engage in conversations and ask questions.
We could spend all day going through example after example where you see the Lord Jesus Christ doing this.
I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to say, as you read the Gospels,
you'll notice that this is a tactic that Jesus used often.
He used questions to guide conversations, and we're going to get into it a lot.
You're going to notice that it's very rare in my presentation that I, it's rare that I tell people anything.
I usually read verse to them, explain to them, and then ask them questions that lead them down that road to understand that,
and we'll talk about them, but we must ask questions.
Number two, we must ask effective questions.
We must ask effective questions. You say, what does that mean?
Letter A, don't ask vague questions. Don't ask vague questions.
You say, what are some examples of vague questions? Here's some examples.
Number one, are you a Christian? Number two, are you a believer?
Number three, are you born again? Number four, have you accepted Jesus in your heart?
Number five, do you know if you have a home in heaven?
All right, these are all, I'm not saying these are terrible questions.
I understand people use these questions, but in my opinion, these are vague questions.
You say, what makes them a vague question? Here's what makes them a vague question.
Any one of these questions listed here, and these are not all the vague questions.
Obviously, these are just some examples, but any one of these questions, a Mormon would answer yes to.
Are you a Christian? Yes. Are you born again? Yes. A Catholic would answer yes to these.
So, a vague question, in my opinion, is a question that just any religion would say yes to.
Any sort of Christian type denomination. So, we don't want to ask vague questions.
Letter B, our questions need to be directed towards what they believe.
So, what we're asking, though we are asking, are you a Christian? Though we are asking, are you a believer?
We're going to word the question in a sense that tells us what you believe about being a Christian,
because that's what we're trying to get to. If they don't believe, we want to get them to believe.
So, our questions need to be directed towards what they believe.
And then, letter C, don't be satisfied with vague answers. Don't be satisfied with vague answers.
And what we teach people, and you'll notice there in letter D, is this.
If they give you a vague answer, then ask follow-up questions, okay?
So, here's an example of a vague answer. We ask people how they know that they're on their way to heaven,
and they respond with some vague answer like, because of my faith, or because of Jesus.
Well, if somebody gives you that vague answer, that doesn't really tell you anything.
So, then we're going to ask follow-up questions. So, letter D, if they give you a vague answer, ask follow-up questions.
So, if you turn the page, we're on point number three. We must ask a series of questions.
We must ask a series of questions. And what I teach our soul winners is to ask three different questions,
or there are three different questions that you may ask in a situation to assess whether somebody is saved or not.
So, we begin with the introduction, of course. Hi, we're coming from Verity Baptist Church.
Just wanted to give you and your family an invitation to church.
So, number one, I like to ask people, do you go to church anywhere? You may or may not want to ask that question.
I like to ask people, do you go to church anywhere? This tells us a little bit about their background.
This tells us a little bit about their background. So, if I ask somebody, hey, do you go to church anywhere?
And they're like, yeah, I go to the Oneness Pentecostal Church.
Then I know, okay, if I start giving the gospel to this guy, there's going to be some things I have to deal with.
If they say I'm a Jehovah's Witness, if they say I'm a Catholic, it gives you a little bit about their background,
so it kind of helps you to know what you're getting into. So, I like to ask the question, do you go to church anywhere?
Number two, I like to say, well, listen, more importantly than going to church,
something we're asking everybody in the neighborhood is, do you know for sure if you died today, are you on your way to heaven?
I like to say more importantly than going to church, this tells them that we're not interested in their religion,
we're interested in their salvation, and it is more important than going to church.
Obviously, going to church is important, but that's not worth dealing with right then and there.
Little FYI, I don't like to tell people we're not trying to steal you away from church.
This is something that a lot of soul-winners say, I hear a lot of our soul-winners say,
I don't necessarily correct them right then and there or anything like that,
but I often hear people say like, well, we're not trying to steal you away from church,
and what I think to myself is, why not? Because I am.
I'm not trying to get them saved and send them back to the Catholic church.
I actually am trying to steal them away from their church.
Now, I'm not going to tell them, we're trying to steal you away from your church.
I don't think you need to say that, but I don't think you should be telling them,
we're trying to steal you away from your church.
Actually, we are trying to steal you away from your church.
We're trying to get you saved, baptized, and in the right church.
So, I don't think it's honest to say we're not trying.
I understand why people say that, but I feel like you'll get the same effect by saying,
more important than going to your church.
But I just think when we speak, we should speak honestly.
And to say we're not trying to steal you away from your church,
it's not honest because I am trying to steal you away from your church.
So, I don't like to tell people we're not trying to steal you away from your church
because that's a lie.
And if they are in a false religion, then we do want to take them away from their church.
So, letter B, let's talk about the big question, the big question.
Your goal is to ask this question at every door.
Now, you may not be able to ask this question at every door because you might not get there.
They might open the door, you might say, hi, we're coming from Verity Baptist,
and they slam the door in your face, okay? We get that.
But your goal is to try to ask this question at every door.
Here's the big question, and it's geared towards what they believe.
Do you know for sure if you were to die today that you're on your way to heaven?
Hi, we're coming from Verity Baptist Church.
Just wanted to give you and your family an invitation to church.
Do you go to church anywhere? No, I don't.
Well, listen, more important than going to church,
something we're asking everybody in the neighborhood is,
do you know for sure if you died today that you're on your way to heaven?
Now, that's the question. That's the big question.
You should memorize that question. That's the question you want to ask.
That's not the only question. Letter C, we have follow-up questions.
The follow-up questions are determined by the response you get to the big question.
The big question is, do you know for sure if you died today are you on your way to heaven?
Now, let's say they respond not knowing.
You ask the question, do you know for sure if you died today are you on your way to heaven?
And they said, no, I don't.
Well, then at that point, you go from the big question to the final question.
If I could show you from the Bible how you could know for sure that you're on your way to heaven,
would you be interested in seeing it?
I asked them, do you know for sure if you died today that you're on your way to heaven?
They said, no, I don't know that.
Well, I can show you from the Bible how you can know for sure. Would you like to see that?
Okay, so you go from the big question to the final question if they respond not knowing.
Let's say you ask the big question, do you know for sure if you died today that you're on your way to heaven?
And number two, if they respond with a vague salvation testimony,
they give you a salvation testimony, but it's vague.
They say, yeah, I think I'm on my way to heaven.
Yeah, I'm saved or yeah, I'm a Christian.
Then the follow up question, and there's some examples here,
have to do with what are you trusting in to get you to heaven?
Because remember, we're gearing our questions towards what they believe.
So we ask them, do you know for sure if you died today, are you on your way to heaven?
Yes, I do.
Let's say they just respond that way. Yes, I do.
Or, yeah, I'm a Christian or yeah, I'm saved.
Then the second question or the follow up question could be,
well, what gives you that assurance that you're on your way to heaven?
Or what gives you that confidence that you're on your way to heaven?
Or what are you trusting in to get you to heaven?
Those words, assurance, confidence, trusting, they all mean the same thing.
And we're asking, okay, you just told me you're on your way to heaven.
Well, what are you trusting in to get you to heaven?
What gives you that assurance that you're on your way to heaven?
And then at that point, their answer is going to tell you a lot.
They might say, well, because I got baptized or because I spoke in tongues.
Or they might say, because I put my faith in Jesus Christ, He died on the cross for my sins.
They might give you a clear salvation testimony.
But the point is, we're not settling for vague answers.
So we ask the big questions.
Do you know for sure if you died today that you would go to heaven?
If they answer with not knowing, you go straight to the final question.
You notice the little arrow there, it goes straight to the final question.
If I could show you how you can know from the Bible that you're on your way to heaven,
would you be interested in seeing?
If they answer with a vague answer, or yes, I know I'm on my way.
Yes, I'm a Christian.
Then we follow up with what gives you that assurance?
What gives you that confidence?
What are you trusting in to get you to heaven?
Let's say they respond with the wrong answer.
Well, at that point, you go to the final question, but you go to the final question drawing a contrast.
So like, let's say I ask somebody, what gives you that assurance that you're on your way to heaven?
And they give me the wrong answer because of my works.
Because I'm a good person.
Because I live a good life.
Then what I say to them is, well, you know, the Bible says that going to heaven has nothing to do with being a good person.
You know, the Bible says that going to heaven has nothing to do with being baptized as a baby.
The Bible says that going to heaven has nothing to do with filling the blank with whatever they just said to you that was the wrong answer.
And say, can I show you what the Bible says?
How you can know for sure you're on your way to heaven?
So you're bringing them back to that final question.
Now let's say you ask the second question, what gives you that assurance?
What gives you that confidence?
What are you trusting in to get you to heaven?
And they still respond with a vague answer.
Do you know for sure that today you're on your way to heaven?
Yes.
What are you trusting in to get you to heaven?
My faith.
What are you trusting in to get you to heaven?
Jesus.
These are responses that we get.
Those are vague answers.
I don't know what you mean by that.
So then there's the third question.
Do you believe that there's anything that you can do that will cause you to lose that salvation?
And look, generally speaking, if somebody believes in eternal security, they're probably saved.
Okay, so the final question, if you're just like, you asked the first question, they gave you a vague answer.
You asked the second question, they gave you a vague answer.
Usually I ask, well, look, do you believe there's anything that you could do that would cause you to no longer be on your way to heaven?
Do you believe there's anything that you could do that would cause you to lose your salvation?
And then based off what they say, if they give me the wrong answer, then I'm contrasting that.
Well, you know, the Bible says something a little different.
Do you mind if I show you what the Bible says about how you can know for sure you're on your way to heaven?
Now, you say, what if you get to the third question and they're still giving you vague answers?
Well, look, if you get to the third question, they're still giving you vague answers.
They're giving you vague answers for a reason.
And in my opinion, I'm not going to sit there and play 20 questions with somebody at their door.
I feel like if I ask you these three questions and I'm still not sure if you're saved,
then I'm just going to try to give you the gospel.
Like, well, can I just show you what the Bible says?
And if they're not interested, then you're just going to move on.
I would not ask more than these three questions.
And if I get to the end of these questions and they're still just giving me vague answers,
I would just say, well, look, the Bible says you can know for sure you're on your way to heaven.
The Bible says you don't lose it.
Do you mind if I take a little bit of time and show you from the Bible how you can know for sure you're on your way to heaven?
But these are the questions.
The big question, do you know for sure if you died today that you would go to heaven?
The follow-up question, what gives you that assurance?
What gives you that confidence?
What are you trusting in to get you to heaven?
The third question in our follow-up, do you believe that there's anything that you could do that would cause you to lose that salvation?
And then the final question, of course, is if I could show you from the Bible how you can know for sure that you're on your way to heaven,
would you be interested in seeing it?
Now, look, I like to ask these questions because they're succinct.
When somebody opens the door and I'm just asking them questions,
sometimes people, and I'm not against people doing this, and if you do this, I'm not against you doing this.
I'm not even criticizing it. I'm just telling you why I don't do it.
Sometimes people like to set up this whole thing like,
what if you were to die today and you stood at heaven's pearly gates and the Lord Jesus Christ asked you, you know.
And here's the thing, I get the question and I'm not against people asking.
The only reason I don't like that question is because it's a big old setup.
This guy just opened the door. I'd just like to invite you to church.
More importantly than going to church, do you know for sure if you died today that you're on your way to heaven?
Yes, I do. What are you trusting in to get you to heaven?
It's just, in my opinion, we want to move quickly until we've got them hooked,
until we've got them to agree that we're going to give the gospel to them.
And then at that point, take your time to set up all the illustrations.
I'm going to show you all the illustrations I use.
But we're on a time crunch in the sense that we've got a few minutes at their door.
And look, you're like this.
I open the door, people knock on my door, I open the door and they go into some big old spiel.
Like they're not telling me what they're trying to sell to me.
They go into some big old spiel and as they're talking, I'm just like closing the door.
I'm like, you took too long. You took too long. I'm busy.
I was like, I don't have time for this.
So for whatever it's worth, I think it's effective until you've gotten them to agree to hear the gospel,
to be as succinct as possible, as quick as possible, and to try to get them hooked into the gospel presentation.
Page number 10, number four.
We must ask proper questions. We must ask proper questions.
So letter A, always get permission to give the gospel.
Always get permission to give the gospel.
Don't just start giving the gospel without asking permission.
I realize other churches teach different things on this.
I'm just telling you this is my position and this is our position at Verity Baptist Church.
Always get permission to give the gospel.
So why can't we just start preaching the gospel?
They open the door and just start.
Don't even say anything. Just as soon as they open the door,
for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Why not just start like that?
Well, number one, you're going to piss people off.
But even more than that, little FYI,
getting permission from people will keep you from wasting your time with someone who's too polite to stop you.
Because there's a ton of people,
now I'm not like this, many of you are not like this,
but there are tons of people out there that hate confrontation
and if you start preaching the gospel to them, they don't want to hear it.
They're rolling their eyes in their head the whole time.
They're daydreaming but they're just too polite.
This is why some soul winners, they get to the end and they're just like,
this person doesn't know anything.
Everything I've taught them, it's like they weren't listening.
It's not like they weren't listening, they weren't listening.
Because you forced the gospel on them and they didn't want to hear it.
So I'm not trying to waste my time.
When I give the gospel to someone, I want to give the gospel to someone who wants to hear it.
If I ask somebody, look, the Bible says something different than that.
The Bible says that you don't have to repent of your sins in order to be saved.
The Bible says you can know for sure you're on your way to heaven.
It's a free gift that God wants to give you.
Would you like to hear it?
And they're like, no.
I want to move on.
If they don't want to hear it, there might be somebody on the street that does want to hear it.
So this will keep you from wasting your time with someone who's too polite to stop you
if you just started giving the gospel without their permission,
even though they're not really listening or paying attention because they're not interested.
And by the way, it is a good idea to remember their name.
When somebody gives you their name or you ask their name, learn their name.
And I like to use their name throughout the gospel presentation.
And look, everybody likes for people to use their name and to remember their name.
Letter B, don't ask leading questions or give the answers in the questions.
I'm going to teach you to use questions throughout the entire presentation.
And I've noticed sometimes soul winners, they ask these leading questions
and it's almost like they know they've not done a good job at explaining the gospel.
So they're like trying to secretly give the answer to the person.
Look, if you're doing that, you're just wasting your time.
We ask questions to really know is this person understanding what we're telling them?
Do they believe what we're saying?
So don't ask leading questions.
Here's an example of a good question.
What are you trusting in to get you to heaven?
Here's a bad example.
Well, you're trusting Christ alone, right?
Not your works to get you to heaven.
It's like, well, what are you going to say to that?
Yeah.
Like, good, I did a great job.
It's like, no, you just gave me the answer.
All right, so don't ask leading questions or give the answer in the questions.
Ask questions to really get to know what the person believes, what they think, what's going on.
Let her see.
In the gospel, Jesus would often ask a series of effective questions and proper questions to help people learn the truth.
Now, if you flip over to page number 11, we have the questions flow chart.
And I'll just go through this real quickly.
It's pretty much everything that we've taught in this lesson.
But just to kind of help you understand how this would flow in a conversation using this flow chart.
You begin with the introduction there.
Hi, we're coming from Verity Baptist Church.
We just want to give you and your family an invitation to church.
Now, if you notice the red arrows there, if their answer does not allow for the conversation to continue,
if they're just like, I'm not interested, get off my property, you know, something like that, then OK, have a good day.
I do like to, if they're not interested, they're like, I'm busy right now.
I'm not able to talk.
I do like to tell people, hey, on the back of this invitation, there's a QR code to video that explains how you can know for sure you're on your way to heaven.
When you have a chance, maybe you can check that out.
But you're saying that as you're leaving.
All right.
So if they don't want to talk, just move on.
But let's say you ask the question, hi, we're coming from Verity Baptist Church.
Just wanted to give you and your family an invitation to church.
And then if you look at the green arrow there, if their answer allows the conversation to continue,
then I like to ask, do you go to church anywhere?
Whatever they answer to that, it doesn't matter.
They say, no, I don't go to church.
They answer, yes, I go to church.
They answer, I go to Mormon Church.
I go to non-denominant church, whatever.
Whatever they answer, more important than going to church,
something we like to ask everybody in the neighborhood is, do you know for sure if you were to die today
that you're on your way to heaven?
Now, if they respond, if you look at the arrow on the left,
if they respond, I don't know, or I'm not sure,
do you know for sure that today you're on your way to heaven?
I don't know.
Then you can bypass all the questions and go straight for the salvation question.
Now, here's a little bonus question.
I like to sometimes ask people, if they say, I don't know,
I like to ask people, well, where would you like to go when you die?
You don't have to ask that.
That's just a little bonus question I like to ask, because I've noticed if I get people to say,
well, heaven, of course, and it's like, well, look, I can show you from the Bible
how you can know for sure you're on your way to heaven.
Would you like me to do that?
It kind of sets them up.
You already got them saying yes.
It's always good to get people saying yes, agreeing with you, being positive.
So you could ask, well, where would you like to go when you die?
Most people are going to say heaven.
If somebody says hell, it's probably not going to go well anyway.
Well, if I could show you from the Bible how you can know for sure you're on your way to heaven,
would you be interested in seeing it?
If they say yes, then you can proceed to give the gospel.
Now, let's say you ask, more importantly than going to church,
if you know for sure if you were to die today, you're on your way to heaven,
notice the green arrow there going to the right, and they respond with,
yes, I know I'm on my way to heaven, right, a positive.
We don't just, oh, well, good, you're safe, praise the Lord.
Keep going to that oneness Pentecostal church.
No, then we follow up.
Well, what gives you that assurance?
What gives you that confidence?
What are you trusting in to get you to heaven?
If they respond with a wrong answer, then we go into what?
The Bible says something a little different than that.
The Bible says you can know for sure you're on your way to heaven.
It's a free gift.
Do you mind if I show you that from the Bible?
But let's say they respond with a vague answer.
Then we follow up with the third follow-up question.
Is there anything that you could do that would cause you to no longer be on your way to heaven?
Is there anything that you could do that would cause you to lose your salvation?
And if they respond yes, then again, you go back to,
well, you know, the Bible says something a little different than that.
The Bible says that once you're saved, you're always saved.
If I could show you from the Bible how you can know for sure that you're on your way to heaven,
would you be interested in seeing it?
And get them to say yes.
If they still say no, I don't want to hear it,
then it's just, well, on this invitation on the back,
there's a QR code to a video that explains how you can know for sure you're on your way to heaven.
It's not that long. It's about 14 minutes long.
It explains how you can know for sure.
Maybe you can get a chance. You can check this out and move on
if they're not interested or if they keep shutting you down.
But if they say yes, I'd like to hear it,
then we present the gospel.
So we've talked about the questions.
Number one, we must ask questions.
Number two, we must ask effective questions.
Number three, we must ask a series of questions.
And number four, we must ask proper questions.
So that's the end of lesson two, the questions.