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Title of the sermon this morning is How to Give the Gospel. And before we get into the nuts and bolts, I wanna look at a few different stories in the Bible. Look at verse number 28. It says, the woman then left her water pot and went her way into the city and said to the men, come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Now in this story, I really like this story because we're talking to a woman who's not the greatest person. She's not living the most righteous life. Look back at verse number 17. This is what Jesus is speaking to her. He says, the woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said under, thou was well said, I have no husband for thou has had five husbands. And he whom thou now has is not thy husband. And if thou saidest thou truly, the woman say, then I'm sure I perceive that thou art a prophet. So when he's talking with this woman, this woman's had five husbands. And now the person that she's living with, she's not even married to this guy. I mean, she sounds like a celebrity. She sounds like one of these Hollywood actresses that, you know, they just get married every few months to this guy and this guy. Now she's just living with the guy. Now she doesn't even, she's like forsaken marriage. Well, keep your finger here. Go to Romans chapter number seven. Romans chapter number seven. We'll see what the Bible says about this. Look at verse number one. Know ye not, brethren, if I speak to them that know the law, how though the law hath the meaning of our man as long as he liveth, for the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she should be called an adulteress, but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. According to the Bible, if someone gets divorced and then remarried, they shall be called an adulteress. This is in the New Testament. So this woman's done it five times. I mean, based on the story. And now she's, you know, just committing fornication or I don't know how you would word it. It's like both, fornication and adultery at the same time by just living with a guy. So is this person just living the most righteous life? Is she got it all together? She's not even of the Israel. She's a Samaritan. That means she's not going to church. She's not hearing God's word. She's not reading her Bible. She's mixed up on doctrine. She's got a little bit things right. She's like, I know Messiah's gonna come, but that's really all she knows. She doesn't really know much. She's not going to church. She's an adulteress. She's living a wicked lifestyle. But what happens when she gets saved? What happens when she's confronted with the Lord Jesus Christ? She asks us for the living water and he gives it unto her. Now she has everlasting life. Now she's saved. So what is she going to do? Well, what is her immediate response? Go back to verse 28. Then the woman left her water pot and went her way in the city and said to the men, come see a man, which told me all things that ever I did is not this the Christ. You know what this woman's response was? I'm going to go get people saved. Hey, it doesn't matter what my past was. It doesn't matter what I've done. It doesn't matter the fact that I haven't been going to church. I know how to get saved. I'm going to go out and tell other people. I'm going to point other people to the Lord Jesus Christ straight away, immediately. I'm going to go out. This tells me that anybody can go out and preach the gospel and get somebody saved. Anybody can go out and just open up. If you're saved, then you should know how to get somebody else saved. You should be able to say the same things that you believe, the same things that the Bible taught. So we're going to make a practical this morning, but look at verse 39. And many of the Samaritans of the city believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified, he told me all that ever I did. So a lot of people got saved. Not only should he go out and preach in the gospel, she was successful. And the Bible says he that go forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. If you go out and preach the gospel faithfully, you will get people saved. That's how the gospel, the gospel is the power. The gospel is what gets people saved. The gospel is what's going to change people's hearts and minds to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He just wants somebody to go do it. Now, obviously, if you're a clean vessel, God is going to use you more than if you're an unclean vessel. Look at the rest of this verse. Look at verse 40. So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them and he abode there two days. And many more believed because of his own word and said unto the woman, now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. You know what this tells me? It tells me that you can become a better soul winner. Because we see the Lord Jesus Christ, he gets even more people saved than just the woman. So look, if you go out and you preach the gospel, you say, I've just started going to church, or I just started reading my Bible, you will get people saved. You know what? If you memorize the verses, if you get faithful in church, if you start praying, if you start seeking the Lord, you start working on your gospel, you're gonna get even more people saved. And look, the Lord Jesus Christ, that's the best soul winner there is. Everything coming out of his mouth is the word of God. So we know that you shouldn't just decide, well, I've got some people saved, I'm done. No, we should continue to strive to being a better soul winner, a better at giving the gospel, being more godly, more separated, more like the Lord Jesus Christ, then we can get even more people saved. And I'll tell you there are people that if they put more effort in, more care, more purpose into their soul winning, they would get more people saved. They just leave, they leave some of the fruit. Now here's the thing, there's so much fruit just laying on the ground that we just need people to go out and just pick up all the fruit that is laying on the ground. The people that are just like, hey, I want to be saved, just tell me how to be saved. And they're like, it's right here. Here's the gospel. I want to show you, all right? Go to Acts chapter number nine. Acts chapter number nine. So to spend just a few minutes emphasizing the point that once you get saved, the goal should be to go out and get people saved right away. Some people have this idea that giving the gospel is just so hard. Or I need to prepare for months. I need to be working for months and years. I need to really take all this time and it's all this effort. Look, preaching the gospel is actually simple. It's simple to be saved and it's simple to preach the gospel. Unfortunately, people don't make it practical. They don't give you easy steps to do. So people are intimidated or fearful. We're going to try and make it just as easy as day. Look at verse 17. And Ananias went his way and entered into the house and putting his hands on him said, brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest has sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales. And he received sight forthwith and arose and was baptized. And when he had received meat, he was strengthened. Then was Saul certain days of disciples, which were at Damascus, and straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues that he is the son of God. But all that heard him were amazed and said, is not this he that destroyed them, which called in his name in Jerusalem and came hither for that intent that he might bring them bound to the chief priests. But Saul increased the mourn strength and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ. You know what Saul, he didn't have a great past either. You know, he taught false doctrine. He was persuading people against Christ. He was even taking people to jail and was consenting unto the death of Christians. But as soon as he got saved, as soon as the scales fell from his eyes, he straightway went and preached Christ. He immediately went out and started getting people saved. He immediately started pointing people to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the attitude we should have. We should have, it doesn't matter what your past is. It doesn't matter what you did before. Now that you know the gospel, now that you have the gospel, we need to go out and preach the gospel and get people saved. Go if you would to 2 Corinthians chapter number three. 2 Corinthians. It's gonna be just a few more books in the Bible forward. In Proverbs 11, the Bible says, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. And he that winneth souls is wise. You wanna be wise this morning? You wanna be someone who's smart in the eyes of God? You're gonna go out and get people saved. That's what the Bible says. You go out and preach the gospel and get people saved. God looks at you and says, you're wise. You know why? Cause that's the whole goal of you being on this earth. You say, what's the purpose of me being here today? To preach the gospel. What's the purpose of my life? To preach the gospel. Why, what should I do? Go out and preach the gospel. This is what God's calling us. This is a great commission, is to go out and get people saved. And what could be more important than pulling people out of the fire, than helping people not go to hell? Now look, this does not mean that we don't have other things to do in our life. God's called men to work. God's called women to raise the children and to guide the house. God's called us to love our brethren. God's called us to go to church. God's called us to praise the Lord. God's called us to do a lot of things, but you know what's the first works? Going out and preaching the gospel. That's the goal. That's the reason why you're on this planet, is to get people saved. And I don't care if you're an adulterous. I don't care if you haven't been going to church. I don't care if you went to the bad church for your whole life. Look, as soon as you get saved, go out and preach the gospel. Get people saved. I don't care where you're at, what your age is. If you're male or female, boy, woman, girl, anybody that has a mouth and is saved, can go out and preach the gospel. And you can do great things for the Lord. You can receive great rewards in heaven. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter number three. Seeing them that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech. Well, I just think that the gospel is really complicated. No, it's simple. It's very simple. I think even this would maybe turn some people away. They would think, well, I mean, it's just, you know, the Romans road, we got to make it really cool and inventive and try to change it and add all these different verses. No, just make it plain. Just use the same verses that soul winners have been using for hundreds of years. Go out and preach the Romans road. Just use the same gospel and get many people saved. You know, the best soul winners I've seen, they always do the same thing over and over and over. They have a really solid gospel. It's very simple. It's based on what the Bible says. And they just say the same things over and over and over and they get many people saved. Why? Because it's the gospel that has power, not you coming up with your own special plan that's super cool. Oh, have you seen how I do it? Look, we should all be doing the same thing basically. It should all be very similar. Now I'm not saying you have to copycat what I say, you have to copycat verbatim what other people say. I'm just saying, if it doesn't sound very similar, there's probably something wrong. You're probably not doing it right. This is the tried and true, the Romans road. Preaching that we're sinners, that we deserve to go to hell, to believe on Lord Jesus Christ and that you can't lose your salvation. That's the gospel we should all be trying to preach. Now go, if you would, to Romans chapter number three. I'm gonna quote for you in Habakkuk, the Bible says, and the Lord answered me and said, write the vision and make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it. What is the goal this morning? The goal is to make giving the gospel plain, to make it simple. Now, does anybody not have one of these sheets that I had in the bulletin? If you don't have one, I wanna give you one right now. We're gonna be going over this. Here, you wanna hand a few of those out for me? Back there, thank you. Okay. So how do we give the gospel? How do we make it practical? Well, what I've done is I've put on this sheet the core elements of the gospel. Now, if you've been giving the gospel for a while and you say, I like to do things a little bit different, that's fine. This is mostly to give people a very solid foundation, a very solid core. This, you say, how do you give the gospel? Like this. You say, yeah, but like what verses do you use? These ones. You say, well, what order do you use it? This order? You say, I wanna know how to give the gospel. It's right here. Now, I'll be honest, there are other verses that I will use from time to time. There are other things that I will say, but I'm just giving you a very core version because that's all you need. And look, the woman at the well, she probably wasn't the best soul earner in the world when she went out to preach, okay? She wasn't the Lord Jesus Christ preaching all of the word of God at the time. But you know what, she got many people saved. And if you learn this sheet and you can do this sheet, you will get many people saved. And then as you get consistent, as you do it over and over, you can learn how to do things better, you can say more things, you can get more people saved. But let's just start with the basics, okay? So introduction. Now this is sometimes probably the hardest point, especially if you're not doing door to door. If you're talking to a family member, if you're talking to a friend and you wanna give them the gospel, it sometimes can be very intimidating, very difficult to start that conversation. So what I like to do is to say, look, your first question, if you were to die today, are you 100% sure to go to heaven? That's always your gateway into the gospel. That is how you're gonna give somebody the gospel. It doesn't matter if it's your friend, a coworker, if you're going door to door, it doesn't matter. Now, if you go door to door, we usually will start off just saying, hey, we're from Pure Words Baptist Church, inviting people to church, do you go to church anywhere? And no matter what they say, I'm gonna ask this question after they say something. I'm gonna say, well, more important than church, if you were to die today, are you 100% sure you go to heaven? How would this work in the real world? You're talking to a friend, just bring up church. Do you go to church? Did you go to church Sunday? What do you think about church? You know, and as soon as they say something, well, more important than church, if you were to die today, are you 100% sure you go to heaven? And you know what I've noticed? If you're gonna approach a family member or a friend or a coworker with a gospel, the hardest part is asking question one. Everything from there is just easy. After you get that first verse, after you get that first question out on the table, once you just address the issue, everything else is so much easier. You just gotta get that question out. You just gotta throw it. Hey, more important than church, if you were to die today, are you 100% sure you go to heaven? Now you're starting the dialogue to give somebody the gospel. Now, just like I said, no matter what they said if I was inviting them to church, I'll ask question one. I'm gonna ask question two, no matter what they say again. So how hard is it? I'm just gonna say question one, and then I'm gonna say question two, okay? And question two is very important because this is how someone's gonna tell you what they believe to go to heaven. So you say more important than going to church if you were to die today, are you 100% sure you go to heaven? Now no matter what they say, they say yes, no, maybe, no one could know. It doesn't matter what they say. I just say, well, what do you believe someone has to do to go to heaven? Even if they said yes, it doesn't matter what they said, I'm gonna ask them what they believe. Now here, we're wanting a person to tell us what they believe, okay? I will sometimes ask more questions to try and figure out where they're at, but the goal right here is just to get a clear statement of what someone believes. Why do you get a clear statement? Because that's how you're gonna help them get saved. We need to show them repentance under life to change what they believe. So if they're saying go to church, live a good life, repent of your sins, get baptized, whatever they're saying, we need to identify that statement so that we can help address the gospel with them. So here's the thing. Sometimes people are really vague in question number two. They'll say, or they'll just throw a lot of things at you. They'll say, yeah, it's just believing in Jesus or accepting in your heart or and kind of living a good life. And you're not really sure where they're at. Maybe they give a really vague answer. Sometimes I'll drill down and I'll ask them just a few more questions based on this type of question. I'll say, well, do you think someone could believe in Jesus Christ and then live wickedly and still go to heaven? Now you're gonna really identify if this person means it's just by faith or you also have to do both. Or I'll even ask the second, another question I'll ask is I'll say, well, do you think we're saved by faith alone or faith plus living a good life? If they really gave you a vague answer, those two questions will make it clear what they believe. At that point, they're pretty much gonna identify with you, no, it's just by faith or it's yes, it is plus living good life or doing good things. Now after you've identified what they believe someone has to do to heaven, maybe they answered it right away, just roll into question three. Well, do you think someone who believes in Jesus could do anything to go to hell or lose their salvation? So now we're identifying, not only do you think it's just by faith, are you sure that you're just trusting faith to save you? Are you still mixing in works there somehow? Because someone who believes that, well, you can't just live however you want. Well, you can't just commit a big sin or if you stop going to church or if you stop being faithful, you're gonna lose your salvation. Those people don't really believe the gospel. They don't really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you're gonna be able to show them, well, actually the Bible says you can't lose your salvation. Can I show you? Hey, actually the Bible says it's just by faith. Can I show you? So once you've asked these three questions and you say, how many times do you ask these three questions? Every time. Every single time I ask these questions, right in a row. So you say, hey, how hard is it to memorize three questions? It's not that hard. And once you get these questions over and over, the goal of an introduction is to get a clear statement of what someone believes. Because if they say they believe the gospel, you don't need to preach them the gospel. But if they say they don't believe the gospel, you wanna identify why they don't believe the gospel. Do they not believe it because they think they have to confess their sins to the Catholic priest? Do they not believe it because they think they have to get baptized? Do they not believe it because they just don't believe the Bible? I mean, all these things are gonna make you presenting the gospel or trying to give the gospel easier. It's gonna be easier for you to present the gospel when you know what they believe. Now, no matter what they say, I always try to contrast what they said they believe with what the Bible teaches in the gospel. So if they said, well, it's faith plus living good life, I'll say, well, the Bible says it's just by faith. Can I show you? If they say you can lose your salvation, you can't just live however you want, I'll say, well, the Bible says you actually, once you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you could never lose your salvation. Can I show you that? It's whatever they say, I'm identifying to this person, I'm gonna show you something different. This is one thing I don't like is when you walk up to somebody, I've seen people do this in soul winning, and they're talking to somebody and they say, what do you believe someone has to do to go to heaven? They say, believe in Jesus and go to church and live a good life. And they say, well, you know, the Bible says it's just believing in Jesus that we're saved. Can I show you? And the person's like, sure. At this point, a lot of people don't actually understand what you're gonna show them because they said that they believe in Jesus. They don't even know that you're saying something different. They're saying, well, I already knew that. So I guess, you know, it's fine because he wants to show me something in the Bible, but I don't know why he's talking to me. I don't know what the purpose of the conversation is. And you'll have people even interrupt you in the middle of the gospel and say, you know, why are you showing me this? I already told you I believe the gospel. I already told you I believe in Jesus Christ. So it's important that whenever you're approaching somebody, you're showing them something different. Can I show you something different? Or the Bible says something a little bit different. Or the Bible makes it clear how you can know. I know, hey, he's gonna show me something different. It's not the same. There's a contrast here. And I do it politely. I'm not gonna, you know, if they say, hey, it's, you know, by confessing your sins and getting baptized, ha ha, wrong. You're on your way to hell, buddy. No, I'm gonna be nice about it. I'm gonna be kind and gentle under the person, loving, showing the truth in love, and say, hey, the Bible does say something different. A lot of people do believe that, but the Bible says something different. Can I show you? Can I show you how you can't lose your salvation? Can I show you how you can go to heaven? Can I show you how you know for sure? Can I show you it's just by faith? Can I show you how it's so simple to be saved? So let's review the introduction. What's the goal of the introduction? Get a clear statement that somebody believes, right? That's the whole goal. The goal is to get a clear statement. So we're addressing the question with question one, right? We're just getting the person on the conversation topic. Question two is where you're really trying to identify what they believe, right? What do you believe someone has to do to go to heaven? What is question three? If someone believes in Jesus, could they lose their salvation? These are gonna help you identify whether or not this person's trusting Christ, or they're trusting something else. So once they've identified this, we're talking about a very receptive person, someone that wants to hear the gospel, you say the Bible says something different, and they say yes. Yes, I want to hear what you're about to tell me, or what's different from the Bible. I always go to Romans 3.23. So let's look at Romans 3.23. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. So what am I doing in this verse? I'm just helping them understand the fact that we're all sinners. What's the first goal, to admit that we're a sinner? And even if you get the card that's for our church on the back, the first point is just admit that we're a sinner. Now this is the easiest point you will make. This is the one that everybody will agree. 99.999% of the time, you say we've all sinned, they all say yes. Nobody's perfect, nobody's done right. So if somebody's already agreeing right away, I don't want to beat a dead horse. I don't want to sit here and spend 20 minutes explaining to somebody how wicked of a sinner they are, and every sin they've ever committed. Hey, do you know the thought of foolishness is sin? And when you look upon a woman to lust after in your heart, you've already committed adultery with her. You know, all these different things. I'm not going to try and browbeat this person. Let's just get the main point. We are sinners, right? For all have sinned. And I just say, what is an example of a sin? Because some people actually don't know what a sin is. I would say it's about 50-50 from my personal experience that when I ask this question, do you know what an example of a sin is? That they don't really give a very accurate answer. So then I just say, well, if sin is a transgression of the law, it's if we break one of God's commandments. Then we can just remind them, hey, thou shall not kill, or thou shall not steal, or thou shall not bear false witness. Just one of the commandments, or some of the commandments, is reminding them, hey, it's if we break one of God's commandments, that's a sin. And the Bible's just saying we've all broken some of God's commandments, at least one of his commandments. So I've spent 20 or 30 seconds talking to this person, not even very long, okay? We admit that we're a sinner, we know what a sin is, and that we've done one of those, okay? Then I say, well, there's a punishment for our sin. So what was the first point? We've all sinned, what's an example of sin, right? So to make the transition from Romans 3.23 to Romans 6.23, I just say, well, there's a punishment for our sin. And I read the first part of Romans 6.23. For the wages of sin is death. We're all gonna die one day, and there's only one of two places my soul can go. Heaven, or where? So see, I have at the top, that's the question I ask. I say, my soul can go to heaven, or where? And I let them tell me hell. I let them give me that answer, because it already gets their mind thinking, is making a little bit more sober? They admit they're a sinner, they realize there's a punishment. Now some people spend even a lot of time on this verse. They'll explain what a wage is. They'll say, hey, do you know what a wage is? People say yes, okay? Then you say, well, what's a wage? And they're like, uh, you know, uh. I mean, now you're making the person feel dumb, now you're wasting time, and is there even really a point to make, is this really important to the gospel? Understanding what the word wage means. If you really wanna emphasize this word, just tell them the answer. Just say, hey, a wage is something you earn when you go to your job, right? Yeah. And then you can just say, well, we've earned death. Well, we've earned a punishment for our sin, and if we physically die, our soul can go one of two places. It can go to heaven, or it can go where? Because to me, I don't wanna spend a whole lot of time on these points, because everybody's gonna get these points. And honestly, these points don't really get people super excited to hear the gospel. You know what's really exciting? When you start hearing, it's just by faith. When you start hearing, eternal life. When you start hearing, you become a child of God. That's really exciting. That's where it gets really interesting. Hey, you deserve death, buddy. You deserve to go to hell, buddy. You're a wicked sinner, buddy. Let's just move on once they agree, once they get the point. Now, if someone's struggling in one of these points, yeah, show them more verses. Take the time to explain it to them. But like I said, 99% of the time, everybody's gonna agree, I'm a sinner. We're all gonna die one day. There's one or two places my soul could go. Heaven or hell. Catholic might try to argue about purgatory. I just say, well, the Bible says there's only two places. Heaven or where? And they say hell. And then I turn to Revelation chapter number 20. Revelation chapter number 20. So what's the point of this verse? Well, I throw this verse in to just give a sobering realization of what hell is. Because a lot of people, they'll even say, well, hell's on earth, buddy. You know, hell is just where we at, man. Hell is my life. No, let's see what the Bible says hell is, okay? What does Revelation 20 10 says? It says, and the devil that deceived them was cast in the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. So I like to show this verse because it's giving description of what hell is like. Because when I say, hey, there's one or two places my soul can go. Heaven or where? They'll say hell. As I'm flipping to the next page, as I'm flipping to Revelation, I just say, well, do you think hell's a good place? Is hell somewhere somebody wants to go? What do you think hell's like? Just giving them dialogue, right? We're kind of talking about it and it's an easy transition. Well, let's see what the Bible says hell's like, right? It's a lake of fire. It's a place of torment. And I'll say, does it ever end? No. And I say, well, I just met you. I don't want you to go to hell. The devil's gonna go though. I said, but unfortunately, a lot of people go. So what was the point of this? Hey, we're just describing hell. That's a terrible place. We want them to know, hey, this is a horrible place. I don't want you to go there. This is why I'm preaching to you. This is why this is so important, right? Then I just roll into Revelation 21. Look at this. 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 burned the fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Once we have identified we sinned, once we identified that we're gonna die, once we identify that hell's a horrible place, well, let's figure out who's going there, right? Well, what does it say at the very end or I haven't read, all liars. Now, this is the thing I like to focus on because everybody can admit they're a liar. Not everybody's gonna admit that they're a thief and an adulterer or a fornicator or all these other things. Lying is the easiest thing to get someone to admit that they've done wrong. And I say, hey, if I told you a lie, what would you call me? They say a liar. I mean, nobody has a problem calling me a liar, okay? Nobody's gonna have a problem calling you a liar. But a lot of times, people, when they present the gospel, they're basically presenting the gospel towards a person. They're saying, well, have you lied, buddy? How many times do you lie a day? You know, and it's just like the person's getting offended and kind of defensive. It's like there's no point. You're just trying to emphasize that liars deserve to go to hell. So make everything self-reflective. Try to make it as plain and as least offensive as possible. I say, hey, if I told you a lie, what would you call me? They say liar. Exactly, yeah, I'm a liar. And I say, I think everybody could admit they've told at least one lie, right? They'll say yes. So that would mean we all deserve to go to hell. What is the point of Revelation 21 eight? It's helping people understand they deserve to go to hell. So what have we done? They admit they're a sinner, and now it's the second point, they deserve to go to hell. This is the beginning of the foundation. If you realize that you're a sinner deserving of hell, guess what, you need a savior. You need some rescue. You need to get out of that. That's the whole point of showing these verses. What must I do to be saved? Isn't the question safe from what? Well, from going to hell. That's the whole point that we're addressing here, okay? And whenever I'm preaching this point, I think it's important to address, you don't have to get them to admit it, but at least if they admit it as a confirmation that we deserve hell. I'll say, so we deserve hell then? They're like, yes. Because I've had people actually, at the end of the gospel, literally, I preached them the whole gospel. I thought they got all the points. Then we start praying, and I say, dear Jesus, I'm a sinner, and I deserve to go to hell. And the person just abruptly ends the prayer and says, I don't deserve to go to hell. And I was like, what? I thought I just showed you, like all liars and all these things. So I had to go back and show these verses and get them to understand that point again. Well, it's much harder to get someone to understand your point when you have to go back, you have to reread the verses. It's better to get people to understand the points while you're on the point. Hey, we're sinners, right? Yes, they're getting to admit that point while you're on the point. Then we're at hell, everybody's deserving of hell? Yes, they're admitting and understanding this point while you're talking about it, while you're discussing it with them. So what's the point? Help them understand we deserve to go to hell, all right? Now, once you've kind of gotten to this point, if I have someone that's real receptive, I'll be honest, I've probably only been talking to them for two, two and a half minutes. I mean, I'm not, this is not very long. Hey, you know, for all sin and come short of the glory of God, for the wages and his death, then we describe hell, right? The lake of fire, then I say all liars shall have their part of the lake which burneth the fire and brimstone which is the second death. I just ask them one or two questions kind of in between the verses to kind of keep the dialogue flowing. And at this point, we're prepped to go in and actually preach the gospel. Now we're ready to help somebody understand, well, God does not want you to go to hell. And once I've addressed the point that we deserve to go to hell, I'll ask this question. Well, do you believe that God wants everyone to go to hell? And everybody without fail, no. You're right, God is love. Or they'll even say that sometimes. I'll say, well, God loves us. Or God, you know, doesn't want us to go to hell. That's exactly right. So then I'll flip back to Romans chapter number eight. And since I was in Romans, you know, here's your tip. I just keep my finger where I was in Romans and then whenever I'm ready, I just, oh, I'm right back at Romans five, eight. I don't even have to waste any time turning pages and doing all this stuff. I'm just right there. So God committed his love toward us and that while we're yet sinners, Christ died for us. So now I'm ready to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I'll even explain this verse a little bit. I'll say, so God showed, that's what commend means, commendeth, showed. He showed his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So God showed his love to us by sending his son to die on the cross for us. Have you heard of Jesus Christ? 99% of people, yes. So now you just want to revisit parts of the gospel. You want to explain the gospel to people. And in here, you know, you can basically say whatever you want. You're just preaching the gospel. Hopefully you know certain elements of the gospel. Here's five elements that I like to emphasize every single time I preach the gospel. First is that Jesus is the son of God. Now we just had in this verse, we're talking about God and then Christ died for us. So I can say God sent his son to die on the cross for us. So you've heard Jesus Christ is the son of God. Already admit, you know, yeah, he's the son of God. Most everybody's gonna admit he's the son of God. Then I say, well, the Bible says that God came down born of the Virgin Mary and became a man. So the second point I like to emphasize is that Christ was born of a virgin. And you could either say this before or after, but the fact that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. So he's not just the son of God, he is God manifest in the flesh. He's both, he's both the son of God and he's also God at the same time. So you can just address these two points. Now I'll say this, most people will agree. If someone were to disagree on one of these points, you would have to try and address it with them. You would have to try and maybe show them some other verses. So just for, I'll show you one easy way to do this. Go to Matthew chapter number one. That's pretty easy to remember, right? First book in the New Testament. So you wanna prove that Jesus Christ is both the son of God and that he is God, okay? So we'll go to Matthew chapter number one. Look at verse number 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise, when as his mother Mary was a spouse of Joseph before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Look at verse 21. And she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. So right here, you can say, hey look, we got the virgin birth, we got the fact that he's born of the Holy Ghost, whose son would he be then? The son of God, right? Okay. And then you can go straight into verse number 23. Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is, and I'll have them read the last part. God with us. So I say, who is Jesus Christ? He was God with us, right? So you're on the same page. You can prove the virgin birth. You can prove that he's the son of God. You can prove that he was born, but he's also God with us. So you got all those on one page. And if somebody is gonna really argue with you on these points, listen to me very carefully on this, okay? You say, well, I'm not prepared. I'm not prepared to just show like 10 more verses and really prove the deity of Jesus Christ. If you had to do that, that person 99% of the time wasn't gonna get saved anyways. They're like a Jehovah's false witness or they're in a cult or they're a false prophet and they're trying to detract you from even giving the gospel, okay? So if you can show them one other verse or you can show them a few other verses and they're not getting it, most of the time it's because that person wasn't gonna get saved. They're not gonna believe the gospel. I'm not saying don't get better at presenting the gospel. I'm not saying don't learn other verses. What I'm trying to teach you is that the simple gospel will get a lot of people saved. But there's some people that won't get saved, okay? Don't worry about those people. Worry about the people that wanna hear the gospel, that wanna believe what the Bible says. The Bible's what has power, okay? And if you can't show them just the clear verse of the Bible and get them saved, just move on to the next person, okay? You've given them something to think about. So let's go back to our list. So we're talking about Romans 5.8. And when I'm on Romans 5.8, I just preach him the gospel. I don't turn to any verses. I'm not going anywhere else. I'm just preaching him, hey, Jesus Christ came to this earth. He was born of the Virgin Mary. He became a man. He lived a sinless and perfect life. So we've emphasized that Jesus is the Son of God, that he was manifest in the flesh, that he's born of a virgin, and none of that, that he lived a sinless and perfect life, okay? That Jesus Christ, was he perfect? Yes, absolutely, he was without sin. The Bible says he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. So I'm emphasizing that he had a perfect life. Then I'll say he said that he was the Son of God, okay? I'll say he did a lot of wonderful miracles proving he was the Son of God, but he said he was the Son of God. That's why the Jews crucified him. I've heard a lot of people say different things about why Jesus died on the cross, but the reason why he went to the cross is because he said he was the Son of God. If you look at the dealings he had with the Jews, he's like, you know, why are you gonna stone me? For a good work, we stone thee not, is what they said. But because thou blasphemous, and say that they're the Son of God, you're making yourself equal with God. Why did the Jews want to kill him? Because he's saying he's the Christ. Because he's pointing to people, the fact that he's the Christ, telling them believe on him. That's why they crucified him. That's why they wanted to kill him, okay? So that's what I say. And you could even say in Mark chapter number 14, I'm not gonna remember the exact verse, but Caiaphas asked him, he says, art thou the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus Christ says, I am. He clearly says, I am the Son of the Blessed. He said that he was the Son of God, okay? Because you'll have Muslims say, where did he ever say he was God? Well, we don't have an exact, you know, verse where he says that, but he does say he's the Son of God many times in the Bible, okay? And then the last point that I make is he's crucified. Okay, so he's the Son of God, he was born of the Virgin, he was God man of the flesh, he was perfect, and that he was crucified. Now I say the Jews put him on the cross to kill him, okay? But I say he willingly went to the cross, didn't he? He wasn't forced, he wasn't taken by man, he laid down his life for us, he went to the cross and I'll say he bare our sins and his own body on the tree. So what does that mean? He took all of our sins, past, present, and future, Jesus Christ paid for on the cross. So let me put this together in how I word this, just to make it really clear, okay? So we've turned to Romans 5.8, I say, but God committed his love toward us, and that while we're yet sinners, Christ died for us. So this verse is saying that God loved us, he sent his Son to die on the cross for us. You've probably heard that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, right? Version's like, yeah. And I say, the Bible says that Jesus Christ is not only the Son of God, he is God. God came down, born of the Virgin Mary, and became a man, the man Jesus Christ. He lived a sinless and perfect life. And the Bible says that he did a lot of wonderful miracles proving that he was the Son of God, but even said that he was the Son of God. The Jews did not believe him, so they ended up crucifying him. But the Bible says that he went to the cross willingly, he laid down his life for us. And when he was on the cross, he bare our sins and his own body on the tree. That means every sin you've ever committed, and ever will commit, Jesus Christ paid for on the cross. So I probably took 25, 30 seconds. I just kinda go through, I have a simple gospel. If you wanna say some other different things, if you wanna talk about other aspects of his life, go for it. But I just have a 20, 25 second, you know, simple gospel. Jesus Christ came to this earth, he was born of a virgin, he's a son of God, he was crucified, and he paid for all of our sins. Right, that's pretty simple to remember. If you're saved, I sure hope that you remember that Jesus Christ was perfect. I sure hope you remember he went to the cross. We're supposed to preach Christ and him crucified, is what the Bible says. And as I'm giving the gospel, I'm flipping in my Bible to Acts chapter number two. Acts chapter number two. And I always ask this question, I say, now after he died on the cross, do you know where his soul went? And now most every single person will say heaven. I mean, just 90% of the time, they're gonna say heaven, okay? And I say, you would think that, because he was perfect. But the Bible says his soul actually went to hell, because that's what we deserved. We deserved to go to hell, so Jesus Christ took the full penalty by going to hell. And I say, but he was not left there. Let's look at what the Bible says in Acts 2 31. He's saying this before spake of the resurrection of Christ that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. Now this point is not 100% crucial for someone to be saved. Someone wouldn't have to understand that his soul went to hell to be saved. But I like emphasizing this for two reasons. The first reason is it helps understand the fact that Christ paid for all of our sins. He took the full penalty. He went to hell for us. Secondly, most everybody does not know this point. Most people, when you're showing this, they don't know it. And when you show them this verse, they're like, yeah, that's what the Bible says. Yeah, they get it. So you've already helped this person understand something they didn't already know. And it softens their heart. It humbles them a little bit to help them want to believe the gospel, to want to learn something else that's new from the Bible. You just show them something that they didn't necessarily know. It was really straightforward. And now this person's like, hey, I could admit other things are different too. Because it just seems like once you get past the first domino of helping somebody realize something they didn't realize, it's easier for them to want to learn even more. They have a little bit more respect for what you're showing them. Because everything else that you've already showed them, they probably already agreed with. They probably already agreed they were a sinner deserving of hell and they believed the gospel. So now you're just trying to break down a wall and say, hey, here's something you probably didn't know. Now I'm not going to say it that way. I'm just saying this is something that I like to do. I think it really helps when presenting the gospel. And I'm already an ax. So now I just get to flip over. And I'll finish off the gospel. I'll say now after three days in hell, what happened? A lot of people can answer and say he rose again. I'll say, yeah, his soul came back into his body. He came out of the tomb. He showed the disciples the holes in his hand and the hole in his side. And then 40 days later, he ascended up into heaven where he's seated at the right hand of the father. Okay. Now I've mentioned a lot of things like God the father sent his son. I've mentioned here that Jesus Christ is a citizen of the right hand of the father. Okay. I've said a lot of Trinity statements out of my mouth. I don't prove the Trinity when going soul winning. Okay. But I make a lot of Trinity statements out of my mouth. If somebody were to start, you know, attacking my Trinity statements, then maybe I need to address that, that Jesus Christ, you know, explained the Trinity. But I don't think it's necessary just to explain every doctrine of the Bible when you go soul winning. Let's preach Christ and then crucified. But I purposely use Trinity statements out of my mouth or examples so that these people are understanding what I'm saying. Again, most people, they believe the Trinity. They believe the father, son, the Holy Ghost. John 3.16 clearly emphasizes there's a father sending his son. People will get that. People understand that. We understand by faith. Okay. Now I'll say after I've said this, that's the gospel. And you know what? If you go soul winning here a lot, it's very important to emphasize that this is the gospel because if they go to these Pentecostal churches, they'll believe the gospel is something different. They believe the gospel is speaking in tongues. They believe the gospel is getting baptized. You'll even see signs that say full gospel church. You say, what does that mean? They try to take the great commission and turn it into the gospel. And they say, well, unless, you know, but they use Mark chapter 16. They're using the signs of an apostle. And they're saying, look, if you're not handling dangerous serpents and you're not, you know, performing miracles and you're not speaking with other tongues, then you didn't really get the whole gospel, buddy. We're a full gospel church. That's not the full gospel. The gospel's defined in 1 Corinthians 15. It's the death, burial, and resurrection. And I emphasize this with a person. I say, that's the gospel. Jesus Christ died on the cross of your sins, was buried, and rose again. And I'll even ask the people. I'll say, what was the gospel? Death, burial, resurrection. I help them get that in their mind. That's what the gospel is. And it's clear that Jesus Christ paid for all of our sins. He didn't pay for some of them, He paid for all of them. So then I ask the question, well, if He paid for all of our sins, does that mean everybody automatically goes to heaven? So now I'm basically trying to ask the same question I asked them when I first got to the door. We had to lay down a little bit of a foundation before we could really address what they believe that was wrong, okay, to understand these points. But now we're going back and revisiting. And I'll say, the Bible says there's one thing we must do to be saved. Because they'll say no. They'll basically repeat whatever they said at the door a lot of times. They'll say, well, no, you gotta repent. No, you gotta get baptized. No, you gotta be a good person, okay? And if they didn't, I'll just say, hey, well, the Bible says there's one thing we must do to be saved. You know what that is? And they'll either say, I don't know at this point, because they've realized you showed them different stuff, or they'll just repeat what they said at the door. No matter what they do, I help remind them what they said at the door. That's why it's so important to get a clear statement out of them when you were in the introduction. They said, repent of your sins. They said, you know, get baptized. They said, you have to be a good person. Now, the Bible says there's one thing we must do to be saved. You know what that is? And they'll say, I don't know. Well, remember when I first got here, you were saying just be a good person, living a good life, getting baptized. They're like, yeah, yeah, that's what I said. Yeah, you're right, that is what I said. Then I just go, well, let's see what the Bible says. The Bible actually has that question in Acts chapter number 16, verse 30. And we read it. Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And what's the answer? And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. So we've gone through very quickly. Let's do a little recap again. We admit that we are a sinner, right? Very quick. Then we admit that we deserve to go to hell, okay? We realize there's a punishment for our sin and that sin would send us to hell if we got what we deserve because we've all lied before, right? Now I roll in, I'm preaching the gospel. At this point, I probably preached the gospel two or three minutes. So I took two or three minutes to explain that we deserve to go to hell. I spent two or three minutes reading the gospel. I'm not that far in. Now I'm gonna really just emphasize what it means to believe in eternal security, okay? So Acts chapter 16, I park it here and I wait until the person understands what it means to believe because I think it's important now that we have this clear verse to really understand what believe means before I move on. So whatever they said that was wrong, I'm gonna address it in this verse. I'm gonna say, so this verse said if there's one thing I'd do to be saved, what was that? And I let them answer. I want them to understand what this verse is saying because I can read it to them all day and they may have been zoning out, they may have been thinking about dinner, they may have been thinking about this distraction over here. Let's make sure they get what this verse just said. What did this verse say I have to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, right? I say, does this verse say go to church? Does this verse say repent of your sins? Does this verse say get baptized? Does this verse say anything other than believing on the Lord Jesus Christ? Get them to understand, no, this verse is saying is just by faith. And whatever they said that was wrong, I'm gonna say, hey, does this verse say you have to do that to be saved? And help them realize, hey, this verse is saying something different, okay? Then I'll also help them understand what believing on someone means. Now, this is where you could use a lot of different analogies. I've seen a lot of good ways to do this, but one of the ways I like to say it, which I think is universally works, is I will say if I believe I have to be a good person and go to church and live a good life and repent of my sins to be saved, am I believing in Jesus to save me or am I believing in myself? And a lot of people will get that. They'll say you're trusting yourself. I say is that gonna save me? And they'll say no. Now they already, they understand there's only one thing I have to do to be saved, and then it's not just saying you believe in Jesus, it's actually putting your faith in him to save you, not yourself, and I'll explain that to them. I'll say look, a lot of people say they believe in Jesus, but they think that they're gonna go to heaven because they're a good person, because they go to church, because they are repentant of their sins, because they do X, Y, and Z, all right? That's not believing in Jesus, that's believing in themselves, so it doesn't matter that they say that. You could use some other analogies. I'll give you a few other quick analogies. Maybe if it's a young kid or someone that looks athletic, I might say do you play a sport? Okay, and they would say sure. I play soccer, I play football. I say so there's a big game on Friday, and I said I believe in you to play in that game. Am I gonna play or are you gonna play? Like I'm gonna play, right? And I said so if I kicked you out of the game and I started playing, do I believe in you or myself? And they're like you believe in yourself, right? So now I'm helping them understand what it means to believe in someone or to believe on someone. It's trust, it's faith, it's confidence, it's all of these different things. So I'm gonna park it on this verse till they understand what believing on Jesus Christ really means. And this is why it's so dangerous if at the door, if they said believe in Jesus and be a good person, and you said well, I'm just gonna show you that it's just by believing in Jesus. When you get to these points, you're gonna struggle with them because they don't understand that you're showing them something different. They don't really understand what believing means. And if you don't spend the time to explain what believe means here and you keep going, they're gonna get even more confused. You wanna make sharp contrasts for these people and make it plain what believing on Jesus Christ really means when you get to this point. Once they've understood, hey, believing is putting my faith in Him. Believing is trusting what He did. His death, His burial, His resurrection, okay. Then I go to John 3.16. I say well even the most famous verse in the Bible, it says the same thing. 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. So I like this verse because it's a great transition verse. I've showed them as believe. Now we see that it's just believing and we can roll right into eternal security because that's this verse says what? Have everlasting life. And I'll explain everlasting life in this point. I'll say how long does that last for? I'll say forever, right? I said does it, or you could say this way, does it ever end? That's an even easier question for people to answer. Does everlasting life end? No. I say if you could lose it or it was taken from you, was it everlasting? No. So now they understand everlasting life, right? Once they get believe, let's move on to eternal security. I don't wanna show them 100 other verses about faith and how it's just by believing. I've seen some people, they just start battering people with believe verses. Well let's now go to Ephesians chapter two and now let's go to all these other John verses and let's go to, look if they got believe from Acts chapter 16, show them another verse and then let's go transition in eternal security. Now if they weren't understanding believe or they were coming from a really hardcore repent of your sins, I might just, while I'm in John, just show them a whole bunch of other believe verses. Just to really make a solid foundation is just by faith. But if they get by its faith, they get that it's everlasting life, let's go, or that it's just by faith, let's move into everlasting life. Now I explained what everlasting life is here briefly and that I'll use John 3.36 sometimes to say that he that believeth on the son hath everlasting life. Meaning as soon as someone believes, they have everlasting life. And I'll emphasize this point. I'll say so if God gave you everlasting life right now, is it possible for you to go to hell? Say no. And you can even use the rest of John 3.16, right? Should not perish but have everlasting life. So at this point, they've pretty much got all the essence of the gospel. They've got it all. I'm gonna show them a few more eternal security pieces because I think this is really important. So then I go to John chapter number one. John chapter number one. I like to prove to them that they have everlasting life and not only that, but they're a child of God, okay? Because these are two different things that prove once saved, always saved. And they're the simplest. The fact that if you have everlasting life, how could you lose if it's everlasting, right? The other thing is if you're a child of God, how could you change that? Look at verse 12. But as many as received him, to them gave me power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. So once you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you become his child. I think this is the strongest analogy to helping someone get the gospel, to helping them understand that it's just by faith because everybody realizes that following rules and being someone's child are different. This is how you can really pull apart faith and works in people's minds, okay? Because I'll say this. Now if I broke all of my mother's rules, would I stop being her child? No, right? And again, I'm making it self-reflective as much as I can, right? I'm saying, what if I broke all of my parents' rules? Would I stop being their child? They're like, no. Sometimes if you say this to them, because their parents kicked them out or they had a bad parent, they'll answer wrong somehow. They'll be like, yeah, I would stop being their parent or whatever, okay? But if you make it self-reflective, they understand you can't change who your parents are. They understand, no, you couldn't stop being their child. So I'll just say, hey, if I disobeyed all my mother's rules, would I stop being her son? They're like, no. I say, would she be pleased with me? Of course not, right? She would chase in and scourge me. She would punish me. The same is with the Lord Jesus Christ. When we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we become his child. Now that we're his child, it doesn't matter what we do. We will always be his child. Sometimes I'll even say this to the person to help them. I'll say, if I came to your house and I followed all of your rules, would I become your son? They're like, no, that's not how it works. I say, you're right. I say, so following God's rules, is that gonna ever make someone's God's son? Is that ever gonna make them God's child? I'm gonna say no. I say following rules is important, but it has nothing to do with being a child of God. It has nothing to do with who your parents are. And if you love your parents, you'll follow the rules. If you wanna be pleasing in their sight, you'll follow the rules. And just like God, if we break his commandments, if we go out and sin and cheat and steal and lie and do drugs, God will punish us on this earth. This helps people understand the contrast between once saved, always saved and having consequences to our sin, right? Because it's not a free license to sin. Some people say, oh, once saved, I'll always say it's a license to sin. No, it's not. And just because you don't have a part in the lake of fire if you sin, doesn't mean that it's gonna make me not wanna sin, okay? There's plenty of other punishments that I certainly don't want in this life, all right? So once you're talking about John 1.12, I help them realize what it means to be a child of God. This really solidifies what eternal security is. So then I'll go to Romans chapter number six, Romans chapter number six, and I'll say this, let's go back to where we started, Romans 6.23, right, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So according to the Bible, God wants to give you a gift and at this point, I've never asked the person's name and I don't like to because I'm really bad with names, all right? So if you're bad with names, I'm bad with names. You know, it's really easy to remember someone's name right after they tell you. So I wait till I get to this point and then I just say, now what was your name? My name's Pastor Shelley or my name's Brother Shelley or my name's whatever, okay? You say my name's Brother Eli or Brother Nick or whatever, okay, what was your name? And they say my name's John, my name's whatever. Then I'm gonna immediately use their name multiple times in a row so that I can get it stuck in my head, okay? So I say, okay John, if I was gonna give my Bibles a free gift today, but I asked for $100, is that a free gift? And they say no, all right? And I like to use $100. Some people say five, some people say a penny, and that's fine. The reason why I use 100 is nobody ever gets it wrong. I've seen people say, if I was gonna give you this $100 Bible for a penny, would it be a gift? And they're like, well, kinda. You know, and you're like, no, it's a good deal. But if I say, I'm gonna give you my Bible for $100, they will always say that's not a gift. They get it that it's not a gift, okay? I say, well, you had to go wash my car. Is it a gift? And again, I'm gonna use their name. Hey, John, if I wanna give my Bibles a free gift today, so I use their name multiple times because I'm really bad with names. So it helps me remember their name. And then I'll say, okay, John, if God says I wanna give you eternal life, but you had to go to church, you had to repent of your sins, you had to live a good life. Insert whatever they said at the beginning, okay? Is it a free gift? And they say no. Now they understand, hey, I'm understanding how this is different. I'm understanding how God wants to give me a gift. And you can even follow it up. I don't always say this, but sometimes I'll say, who pays for a gift? The giver or the receiver? And they'll say the giver. Well, sometimes you get it wrong, but you know, you're helping them. It's the giver, right? Okay. And you say, so who gives eternal life? The Lord Jesus Christ. So who paid for it? The Lord Jesus Christ, do you have to pay for it? No. Now they really are getting it. At this point, let me just say it this way. You could pray with people and get them saved, all right? I believe at this point, if they've got all these points, it's efficient to get someone saved. But I still like to go to 1 John chapter number five. And I like to prove this last point, because this is a lot of times what I said at the door. I said, well, the Bible says you can know 100% sure that if you died, you would go to heaven, that you could have eternal life. And so I'm gonna prove that point. I'm gonna say, now let me show you how you could know. Let me show you you're gonna have 100% certainty. Let me tell you how you can know for sure right now you have eternal life. Because they pretty much understood all those points, but now let's help them get it solidified in their mind how they can know they have it. Right now, I know I got eternal life. 1 John verse five, verse 13. These things have I written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God that ye may know that you have eternal life. I'm gonna use their name again. John, you can know that you have eternal life right now. Let's back up just a few verses. So we're on the same page. We're just going up a few verses. It'll tell us how we can know. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar because he believeth not the record that God giveth his Son. So I just read that verse, and then nobody has any idea what you just said. All right, let me just make that clear. Nobody knows what you just said. So you need to explain it to them. You say this is saying there's only two people in the world, John. People who believe the record of God and people who don't. They get that. And I say the record of God, that was the gospel. Do you remember what the gospel was? It was the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, right? So I'm saying, hey, there's only two people in this world, people who believe the record of God, people who don't. What was the gospel? Is the death, burial, and resurrection, right? And I say, so if someone believes the record, where do they go? Heaven, right? If someone does not believe the record, where do they go? Hell. And I'll say now it's important, John, how we live our life. It's important if we follow God's commandments, but does that determine if I go to heaven or hell? They're like, no. It's just by what we believe, right? It's our faith. And he's gonna tell us what the record is. He says in verse 11, and this is the record that God has given to his eternal life and his life is in his son. So I'm gonna explain this point too. The last verse, or the last phrase, is his son. I'll say, look, it's only through Jesus Christ that we're saved, right? It's through his death, burial, and resurrection. But not only that, the Bible says that he's given to us. So I say, John, if I have to be a good person to go to heaven, I think it's by following the commandments and getting baptized, do I believe it's a gift? And they'll say no. So is that gonna save me? They'll say no. And I'll say, and if I believe in him, what will he give me? Eternal life, right? Because I've been showing them his eternal life. I'm showing that's the gift. I'm showing that's what they're getting. What do you receive when you believe in him? Eternal life. So I say, if I could lose my salvation, do I really believe he gave me eternal life? They're like, no. I say, see, that's our trusting in ourselves. That's not putting our faith in him. At this point, I now am gonna ask them questions. I'm gonna ask them the questions to make sure they understand the gospel. Let me ask you a few more questions. Well, I'll say. I'll say, John, do you believe you're a sinner? Yes. Do you believe that we deserve to go to hell? Yes. You've already asked these questions before. You're just reviewing. You say, do you believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins and rose again? If you asked him for eternal life believing in him, would he give you eternal life? And if Jesus Christ gave you eternal life, could you do anything to lose it? At this point, once you've basically asked them these few questions and they believe the gospel, they believe what the Bible says, you can say, now the Bible said there was one thing we had to do to be saved. What was that? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. I say, the Bible tells us how we can do that. The Bible shows us what to do to be saved. It says in Romans chapter 10, verse nine, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. So I say, if you believe what I just showed you, John, the Bible says you would tell God that's what you believe and you could know you're saved, not because you said a special prayer, but because you believed it in your heart, okay? I say, now John, if I prayed and I asked God to give me eternal life, but I did not believe it, would that save me? They're like, no. They're understanding now it's the faith that saves us, right? I say again, if I prayed and asked God to give me eternal life, but I thought being a good person and going to church was gonna save me, would that save me? They're like, no, now they're getting it. It's just by our faith. And I say, John, if I prayed and asked God to give me eternal life, but I didn't really believe I was gonna get eternal life, I thought I had to continue being good to keep it or I had to do right things in order to stay saved, do I really believe he gave me eternal life? No. At this point, I can say, do you mind if I help you say a simple prayer and tell God that's what you believe so you can know you're saved? And I even emphasize this. You don't have to, but I'll say this. I say it's not the words that matter. It's what you believe in your heart because what was the one thing you had to do to be saved? It's just by believing in Jesus Christ. So I say, only pray this if you mean it. And then I just say, you can just repeat what I say. And then I just, we do the prayer, right? Dear Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner and I deserve to go to hell, but I believe that you died for me, was buried, and rose again. Please save me and give me eternal life. I am only trusting in you, not my works. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. At this point, you know, you can do whatever you want. I usually, what I do is I ask him the questions I asked at the beginning, again. I say, so now that you believed, you know for sure if you died, you'd go where? Heaven, right? And I say, why? I'm not even giving the answer, I just say why? And they say, because I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I say, yeah, what did he do for you? And they'll say, died on the cross for my sins. And I'll say, when you believed in him, what did he give you? They'll say, eternal life. And I'll say, could you lose that? No. At this point, look, if you walked to the door and you asked those questions in a row and someone gave you all those responses, you'd be like, that person's saved, right? That's the whole goal. The whole goal is to get people saved. And you know what? I'm gonna be as thorough as I possibly can to get someone saved. But at the same time, we can make it simple. It doesn't have to be a hundred verses. It doesn't have to be a whole bunch of extra things. It can be very simple. I mean, on this little paper, I mean, there's only like 14 verses, I think, is what I put on there, okay? And I would encourage you, hey, you could memorize them if you want. If you want to become a better soul winner, but hey, you can just stick in your Bible and just say, hey, I'm gonna go out soul winning and I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna try and give people these verses. I can go from point A to B. You say, well, I don't remember everything you said. Doesn't matter. Here's the core. Here's what the Bible is. The gospel is what the power of God is. And if you go out and guess what? Even if you fail, let's say you just, I don't know, like ran away. Like you're just like giving the gospel and you just run away or you just get so nervous, you can't talk. You're just like, ah. The person's still better off than they were before. Because you gave them at least a little bit. You can't fail by preaching the gospel. You know how you can fail? Not preaching the gospel. You know how you can fail? Preaching false doctrine. As long as you're not preaching a false gospel and as long as you're not going, look, you're doing what God's commanded us to do. Now I want to go in our Bibles to 2 Corinthians 4 and we'll finish, okay? 2 Corinthians chapter number four. So the goal this afternoon, I've provided some lunch. If you want to, you could try practicing with somebody. Going through the gospel, I'll try to help you. If there's a soul winning time at our church that doesn't work, come talk to me. I'll try to go out with you. Go out with someone that does know how to go soul winning. Watch what they do. Learn how they do it. Take the piece of paper, look at the verses, make a plan. You know, it's not hard. It's actually very simple. And I would hope that you wouldn't look at it and be like, it's too simple. Look, it is simple to get people saved and it's not intimidating. I know that I went over a lot of points and I know that I covered a lot of different scenarios but there's a lot of people in here that are in varying degrees of soul winning. People have been doing it for a while. People have never done it. So we're trying to cover the basics and then I gave a few tips and pointers that were made versus people that have done it for a while. But look at 2 Corinthians chapter four verse one. It says, therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonity, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, we are commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost. And in the God of this world, that blind to the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. So the Bible's saying, look, we have the ministry of reconciliation. God's given you the gospel. If you got saved, God gave you the talent. He gave you the benefit of knowing the gospel so that you could get other people saved. You don't have the light. So now you need to share that light with other people. And look, he says, because of this, we faint not. Look, there's no point in your life where you can't give the gospel. You say, I've ruined my life. You know, I've ruined my marriage. I've ruined my kids. I've ruined, it doesn't matter what you've done. You could always go out and spread some light. You can always go out and preach the gospel. You could be the woman at the well. Man, I've had five husbands. And now I'm just living with this loser who won't even marry me. Just derelict fornicator. But I can still go out and preach the gospel and get a bunch of people saved and have a bunch of rewards in heaven. Look, God can use anybody that's saved to go out and preach the gospel. But if we don't do it, they're not gonna get saved. People that don't have someone come and show them the gospel, they will never get the light. They will never go to heaven. It takes a person to just walk up and just say, hey, here's what the Bible says. Can I show you how to go to heaven? They say, sure. You know what, there's so many people that wanna get saved. I promise you. I promise you if you use this sheet, if you memorize the verses, if you go out soul-winding once a week, you'll get 25, 30 people saved in a year. I mean, you'll do it. If you go out and you preach the gospel once a week for one hour, you'll get approximately 25, 30 people saved in a year. And look, the Bible talks about trees bringing forth fruit every year, some 30, some 60, some 100. It's true. If you go out and you preach, I don't care what level of skill you have, I don't care what age you are, if you preach what I have on this sheet, it's not because it's me. It's not because I put it on here. It's not something special about this paper. It's God's word that has the power. All right? Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for making the gospel so simple. I pray that you would just give us boldness through your Holy Ghost, that you'd bring to remembrance all things that Christ commanded us, that we'd understand the importance of going out and preaching the gospel. And I pray that this church would just be a place where people could learn to preach the gospel, that it'd be very easy, very simple, and that you'd give them boldness to approach people with the gospel, that you would open their mouths boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, that many people could be saved because of this church, because of us going out and being faithful, and that you would give us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.