Soul Winning Class

Think about the way you dress when you go soul winning. Avoid black pants and white shirts. You want to look approachable, and you do not want look intimidating or over dressed. Wear comfortable, business casual clothes. You don’t want to look like you just stepped out of the pages of GQ, but you don’t want to look like you just wrestled a grizzly either. Clean, attractive, business casual without a tie or jacket works best in warm weather. Simply add the jacket in cooler weather if you need to.

The Command for Soul Winning

Mark 16:15 15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

This is a very clear command from Jesus to His followers. Yes He was speaking to the eleven remaining Disciples, but if we read the parallel passage Matthew 28:16–20 16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. 17 And when they saw him, they worshipped him: but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Jesus has obviously commanded and taught His men to be what today we would call soul winners. In fact, we find what I believe to be the most pointed command in Acts 1:8 Jesus is one sentence away from ascending into Heaven and with His last sentence on this earth He says to His men, 8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all, Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

This verse says, “ye SHALL be witnesses unto me.” Now, I believe there is ONE interpretation to all Scripture, 2 Peter 1:20 20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. But I believe we can make applications to our lives. Here the interpretation is obviously the command that Jesus is giving, but we can also apply it in this way, “You are gonna be a witness unto me, the question is what kind of witness are you gonna be?”

With all of this being true, we also find Paul talking to Timothy, the young Pastor of the Ephesian church and telling him 2 Timothy 2:15 15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. We, too, ought to study and heed this verse. And with the subject at hand, we ought to be familiar enough with a verse, or preferably a set of verses to lead someone to the Lord.

The way that I will teach you is just one way. I DO NOT claim to know everything. I DO NOT claim that this the only way. I DO NOT claim that this is even the best way. It is just the way I have developed that works for me, and I believe can work for you. There are other verses that could be added, and there are verses that we will go over that you could omit from what you say to someone. THE IMPORTANT THING IS THAT YOU HAVE A PLAN THAT YOU CAN TAKE SOMEONE THROUGH SO THAT YOU CAN LEAD THEM TO CHRIST!!!!!!!!!!

The Plan of Salvation

Romans 3:10 10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

Have the location of this verse marked in the Bible that you use for soul winning. Have the reference to the next verse written in the margin at each verse so you do not forget where to go in the moment. Also, have each verse underlined or highlighted so that your eyes are immediately drawn to it when you get to that page.

This verse tells us a very sobering truth. The word righteous here means “Just; accordant to the divine law. Applied to persons, it denotes one who is holy in heart, and observant of the divine commands in practice; as a righteous man.” A simple way to explain that to someone is to tell them, “Now the word ‘righteous’ here means good. So what the Bible is telling us is that ‘there is NONE good.’ That means that I am not good, you are not good, and no matter who we were to think of that in the sight of God, they are not good enough to earn their way into Heaven.

“The Bible goes on to tell us the reason for this.”

Romans 3:23 23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Here we find that the reason we are not good, is that we have sinned. Now some may say, “well I haven’t really sinned.” This is an easy argument to overcome. “Well, I understand that you may not have ever murdered anyone, or stolen a car, or robbed anyone. But, be honest with me. Have you ever told a lie? EVEN A “LITTLE WHITE LIE” to get out of trouble?” They will have to answer, “yes.”

- If they don’t, I just call them on it. “Now, I know that we all have lied in the past. We did something as a teenager and didn’t want our parents or even our friends to find out, so we just said, ‘No. I don’t know what happened.’ At that point, they have to admit it, or they know you have them caught in a lie.-

So that means, just like the Bible says, “we all have sinned.”

“Now the Bible tells us what the result of that sin is.”

Romans 6:23a For the wages of sin is death;

Ask them, “Now, do you know what ‘wages’ means?” They will most likely know. If they don’t, simply explain, “Well, wages are the payment for something. If someone goes to work and works 40 hours for $10/hour, their wages are $400. So we see here what the wages or PAYMENT for sin is. IT IS DEATH! But it is NOT the death that we usually think of. It is not where the heart quits beating, the lungs quit breathing, the brain quits working, and our body dies! IT IS MUCH WORSE THAN THAT!

“TO SEE WHAT DEATH WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HERE, WE CAN GO TO”

Revelation 20:12–15 12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. 14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

We see here that everybody will “Stand before God.” The “small and great” means that no matter how unknown, poor, famous, or rich someone is, they will stand before God to be judged. Every President, King, movie star, every poor homeless person, AND EVERYONE IN BETWEEN will be judged. But, they aren’t being judged to see if they were good enough, we already read that they aren’t. They are being judged see if their name is, ‘found written in the book of life.’ If their name isn’t in that book they will be, ‘cast into the lake of fire,’ and that is what the Bible calls, ‘the second death.’ This is the same death from Romans 6:23.

Now, I know that all this is bad news. We have read that ‘nobody is good, the reason nobody is good is that we have all sinned. Because we have sinned, we have the wages or payment of that sin, which is death. Then, we just read how that isn’t even talking about our body dying, but about a second death of being cast into a lake of fire!’

“BUT NOW I WANT TO READ THE REST OF”

Romans 6:23 23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our “Lord.

“The word, ‘but’ here means the same thing it always means. There is a different choice than what we just read about! The wages of sin is DEATH! But GOD HAS A GIFT THAT HE WANTS TO GIVE! That gift is ETERNAL LIFE through Jesus! Now, do you know what a gift is?” Everyone, of course, knows what a gift is. I still like to reinforce that truth. “That’s right. A gift means that Someone else paid the price for it. They are now giving it to you for FREE! You don’t have to pay anything, the wages, or payment for that gift have already been taken care of. And we read here that this, ‘gift of God’ is ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ So that means that He has already paid the price of our salvation when He died on the Cross! All we have to do is accept that gift because a gift is no good if the person it is offered to will not take it.

“I HAVE ONE MORE VERSE I WANT TO SHOW YOU REAL QUICK”

John 5:24 24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

I am very deliberate here. This is possibly the most crucial part of the entire time you spend with this person. They are getting ready to make a decision that may well mean THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL FOR ALL OF ETERNITY FOR THEM! THIS MAY BE THE LAST CHANCE THEY WILL EVER HAVE TO BE SAVED!!!!

“Now this is Jesus speaking here.”

‘Verily, verily,’ means ‘truly, truly,’ so what He is saying TO YOU is, ‘now I want you to listen very closely, because I have an extremely important truth to tell you.”

“Now He says, ‘I say unto you,’ remember this Jesus speaking, so it is like He is reminding us that, ‘hey, I’m Jesus, the Son of God! And I really want you to listen to what I have to say!’”

“He goes on to say, ‘he that heareth my word.’ Now you have heard His word. We have just read all these verses about sin, the wages of sin, the second death, and the gift of God. So you have heard His word.

“Next He says, 'and believeth on him that sent me,’ So it isn’t enough to just hear. You have to make a choice to trust Him as your Saviour in order to receive that gift that we talked about earlier. Remember a gift is not any good until the one it is offered to accepts it.

“Now He says, ‘hath everlasting life.’ Hath is a present tense word, that means that Jesus isn’t saying that ‘he will have it in the future,’ but that, ‘he has it right now. At the moment someone trusts Him as their Saviour, they immediately have everlasting life. Now ‘everlasting life’ means just what it sounds like. It is, ‘NEVER ENDING LIFE.’ And life He is talking about here is just the opposite of the death we read about in Revelation.

“Next Jesus says, ‘and shall not come into condemnation.’ ‘Shall not’ means that there is no way, no matter what that this person who believes in God could ever come into ‘condemnation.’Condemnation here carries the meaning of separation from God, it is that same second death from Revelation. And Jesus is saying, ‘there is no possible way, by any stretch of the imagination that this person could ever be eternally separated from God and suffer the second death after they believe on Him!”

“Then He tells us why this is true. The last thing He says in this verse is, 'but is passed from death unto life.’ That means the condemnation, the separation from God, the second death, going to the lake of fire forever IS IN THE PAST! Now, the only thing in the future is life. ETERNAL LIFE, EVERLASTING LIFE in Heaven with Him forever!!!!!!!!!

NOW, THERE IS A VERY SPECIFIC WAY TO ASK THIS QUESTION!

Many people may not have a clear understanding of what you mean if you ask them, “Are you saved?” They may think, “saved from what?” They probably will have no idea what, “have you been ‘born again’” means. That is why I WANT TO BE VERY POINTED WITH THIS QUESTION!

SIR/MA’AM, BASED ON WHAT WE HAVE JUST READ FROM THE BIBLE AND WHAT I HAVE EXPLAINED TO YOU FROM THOSE VERSES, IF YOU DIED TONIGHT WOULD YOU GO TO HEAVEN OR HELL?

If they say they would go to Heaven, depending on the circumstances, I will probably ask them to tell me about the time they accepted Christ as their Saviour. If they have a clear testimony of salvation, PRAISE GOD!!!!! If they talk about works, or spooky things happening, or being saved WHEN they were baptized, or being sprinkled as a baby, or how they have just always believed, or.........the list could go on for ever.......then I may take them to other verses, or back to some the same verses we just covered. At that point, you just have to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and do what He says, how He says it!

If they say they would go to Hell, I will then say something like, “Sir/ma’am, I know that took a lot of courage to admit that you are lost, and going to Hell. I do want you to know however that you could change that TODAY! We read in John 5:24 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” Now you have hear, and you have even admitted that you have never believed, and that is the first step, admitting that you need to be saved. So the last question I have for you is this. WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACCEPT CHRIST AS YOUR SAVIOR TODAY?

At this point, you have done EVERYTHING you can do! It is now their time to make a decision. Remember, God has limited Himself to one thing in this world. That one thing is the free will of man. You have brought this person through a clear presentation of the Gospel, you have shown them from the Bible that they are a sinner, that they need to be saved, and you have told them HOW to be saved! Now they have a choice to either accept or reject God!

If they say “no.” I cannot force them to be saved. I say something like, “Well sir/ma’am, I want you to know that I will be praying for you. I hope that you choose to accept Christ before it is too late! On the tract/card that I gave you there is a phone number, email address, and physical address of my church. If you ever have ANY questions about what we have talked about today please do not hesitate to call us. We would love to talk to you, and try to explain anything about the Bible that we can. Have a good day.”

If they say “yes.” This is of course the answer you were looking for. So I say something like, “Sir/ma’am, I am so glad that you have chosen to accept Christ as your Savior. Now I want you to understand that I CANNOT accept Him for you. YOU have to be the one to ask Him accept they gift of Salvation.”

Then I would typically give them an idea of something to pray, “Now, what you need to do is admit to God that you are a sinner, tell Him that you are sorry for your sins, ask Him to forgive you of your sins, and tell Him that you want to accept Him as your Savior.”

They will usually begin to pray a prayer that is much like what you have just said, the thing to remember here is whether they basically repeat what you said or completely pray their own prayer the words ARE NOT what is important! Romans 10:10 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. What happens in their heart is the important part. The chances are that if they are really serious, they are already saved before you get to this point. When they said, “yes” to “would you like to accept Christ as your Savior?” they either got it or they didn’t. They were either serious or they weren’t. This is simply help them understand better what it is that is happening. We as human beings seem to work off of actions. We know that if they truly believed on Christ when they said, “yes” a minute ago, then the action has already taken place, but it will help them, and it will help show that they are serious to have them pray a prayer.

Now we need to get them in church. Offer to bring them to church with you and your family the next service. Tell them they can sit with you and that you will help them any way you can, AND MEAN IT. Offer to help them get on the schedule to be picked up by the bus route if needed and your church has one. Help disciple them in the Christian life. Whatever you do, please DO NOT get them saved and leave them hanging out to dry for some false religion to get their hands on them, or some dead, dry church relies on everyone else in town to do their soul winning for them to get because their buddy at work goes there. Get them rooted, grounded, and growing in the Word of God!