Personal Evangelism 101: Man’s Condition

I remember hearing that song for the first time. When I first got saved, I started listening to. I'd been going to concerts all my life till I got saved. The wrong kind of concerts.

And then when I got saved, I started listening to. I was introduced to the cathedral quartet. Hot dog boy, that was good stuff. Cathedral quartet, gold city, Florida boys. Yeah, good stuff.

All right, well, what we're going to do now is we are going to finish up section number two. Man's condition. I want to finish that up before I jump to the next section.

And we're going to do something, actually, before we even get to section three. So go ahead, and if you have your outline from last week, we're going to finish that up. If you don't have it. I did. I did bring some.

They're on the back counter by the bookstore if you want to grab one. We're going to finish them up. I'm going to try not to spend too much time on it.

And because I want to spend a few minutes before we get to section three. We only have six sections, and it should take us all the way through. Hopefully the nine weeks. Hopefully we'll get finished.

We will get finished with it. And if we get finished sooner, that's fine, but we don't want it to take longer. So in section two, we were looking at man's condition.

I'm not going to go over the whole thing. Just I'm going to hit these highlights real quick. We talked about the fact that man was made in the image of God.

Tripartite or trichotomy, if you prefer. Body, spirit, and soul. He was made for God's purpose. He was made for God's pleasure. And then we talked about the fact that he was.

He was fallen from a perfect, sinless state. First we saw the created state of man. And then we see the corrupted state of man.

And we looked at the fact that man's spirit died when he sinned against God. God said, in the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die.

And while he did not physically die and keel over right then, the death process began. The aging process began. And the death began to work in his body. And the curse set in. But his spirit died.

And that part of man that God used to communicate with him was gone. So man's innate ability to communicate with God was gone. And because man's spirit is dead, we picked up right there. Right. That's where we left off.

Because man's spirit is dead. That's letter circumflex. Because man's spirit is dead. He is totally and completely depraved. He is totally and completely depraved. We talked about.

Before we got to that point, I mentioned this and I went over it pretty hard, that for many individuals, there's a vacuum in their heart. And a lot of times I've heard preachers and people say, that's a God made whole. God made. It's not a God made whole. It's not a God created vacuum.

It's a sin created vacuum. God didn't put that hole there. Sin put that hole there. Sin put that vacuum.

Many know, or at least sense that there is more to life than what they are presently experiencing, but they don't. But they don't realize that what or who they need is God. I still believe the Bible when it says none. There's none that seek after God. No, not one.

People may say, I found God. You didn't find God. He found you. And if you came to God, it's because he drew you to him. And God does use many different ways to do that.

He'll use circumstances as he did in my life. He'll use people as he might have in your life. But without the word, no man can be saved.

We are born again by incorruptible seed, not by corruptible seed. So this is why. Because man is totally depraved. That's why we knock doors. That's why we print tracks. That's why we do events.

That's why we invite our lost friends to church to hear the gospel. Because the gospel says. Romans 116 says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

It is the power of God unto salvation to save them which believe. To the jew first, and also to the greek, we have to give the Holy Spirit something to work with. The Holy Spirit.

The sword of the Spirit is the only tool that he has to bring people to himself and to convict us. John 644, Jesus said, no man can come to me except the father which hath sent me. Draw him. How does he draw him? Many ways.

Through, like I said, circumstances, through other people, and through the word of God, convicting the heart. So this is why Satan works so hard at two things. This is where we left off. He worked so hard at two things.

Number one, keeping the mind of the lost blind. If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not.

And then secondly, he works so hard at keeping the saved complacent and apathetic and comfortable and self centered. Because if we're self centered, we don't care about our neighbor. We don't care about those that are lost. We only care about me and mine. That's it.

And the devil would love for us to stay that way. I've often said that the greatest hindrance to revival is comfortable truth. Comfortable truth.

We don't like the hard truths, but that's what's necessary for revival. Romans 310 18 says, as it is written, there's none righteous, no, not one. Listen to what the Bible says. There's none that understand it.

There's none that seek after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher.

With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of Asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

Destruction and misery are in their ways and the way of peace. Have they not known there is no fear of God before their eyes?

That is the commentary of God upon the human condition of man, the fallen condition of man. Romans 718. I know Paul said, in me that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. And you and I know that for to will is present with me.

But how to perform that which is good? I find not every time I want to do right, evil is present. One sitting on this shoulder, one sitting on this one.

We've seen the caricature of it all the time. Always we try to do right. But there's someone over here saying, nah, this feels better. This looks better. This smells better, this tastes better.

This is better. And so we have to make that decision. Consider the state of man in the days of Noah. Genesis, chapter six, verse five. You have this.

All these are printed up in your outline. God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Can you believe that? I mean, I do believe it because I'm reading it and it's in the word of God. But can you? I can't get my head around that.

I mean, seriously, he says every. Every. The Lord doesn't just put words in the Bible just because there happens to be a spot that needs a word. Right.

Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. There's some serious emphasis going on here. Man was wicked. Extremely wicked. Romans 323. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Romans 512, wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.

What we're trying to do at this juncture in our lesson is to emphasize the condition of man now, right now, because we live in Hachlett, Texas, where there is no south side of Fort Worth, there is no east side, there is no north end. All of hachlet's nice. And it's hard for us to imagine that depraved, complete, utter wickedness lives next door.

Hard to believe, but it's absolutely true. It might not manifest itself in the ways that it did in the days of lot or in the days of Noah. I'm sure it does in some junctures.

Maybe not on your street, but it does. It manifests itself that way. Romans 512. Wherefore, as by one man. I just read that, but follow my thinking here.

There are many uncivilized people groups in the world that are not governed by laws written by men of God like we are. Within these uncivilized groups, one will find entire societies governed by ideas of debauchery and evil, wickedness.

We, while we're not, there are many people, the majority of people in America are not saved. They have had the privilege and the benefit of growing up in a christian nation. We have that legacy.

We may not be christian now, but they grew up there, and so this country is still considered. You know, if you want to compare it to some of the uttermost parts of the earth, we're pretty moral, pretty good, comparatively speaking.

The farther away from God America moves, the deeper into immorality we sink. Would everyone say amen right there? The farther away from God America moves, the deeper into immorality we sink.

Our country is deconstructing Christianity from the inside out. Our public schools have rewritten the history books so that they do not reflect a nation with judeo christian foundations.

And it might not take one more generation for us to find ourselves in the same condition as we find Israel in judges. After Joshua died, we see that in judges, too. The Bible says in verse ten, and all that generation, they were gathered together under their fathers.

And there arose another generation after them which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Balaam.

And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt and followed other gods of the gods of the people that were round about them. And bowed themselves unto them and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtaroth.

And I'm glad that we do live in the age of grace. I'm glad that we're there, because I'm telling you, we have brought such wickedness upon ourselves.

God would be if we didn't live in the age of grace. God would be unjust not to just destroy us, just like the other nations that he did in the old Testament.

The babies, the innocents that we have killed, that we've allowed to be butchered, and the fact that christians haven't spoken up like we should. But I'm glad we live in the age of grace. Praise the Lord for that.

So the majority of mankind believes that he must earn his way to heaven and that surely God will not count all his efforts as meaningless. Surely. Well, what we have to do now, see, this is the thought of Mandev. This is the thought of most of the people on your block.

This is how most people in America think. Well, surely God's. Surely the things that I've done good. I mean, we're in America.

You know, we're not in, you know, the deepest regions of Africa or the deepest regions of Timbuktu. We're not there. We're in America. And we're pretty moral people. And, I mean, I'm on the PTA, and I even go to church. I give to the church.

I give to the Baptist Mission Society or the. I give to this and to that. And so I'm a pretty good. Surely all of that counts for something. And I'm telling you, that's how people think.

That is how your neighbor thinks.

That is how the people that we're going to be speaking to, door to door, going with flyers, going with door hangers, going with tracks, talking to in the restaurant, talking to at the ballpark, wherever. That's how they think. Absolutely how they think. So God will not count all his efforts as meaningless.

We've got to help them understand the concept of original sin. I'm not talking about original sin in the catholic sense. I'm talking about the fact that Adam's sin and that original sin passed to us.

We've got to help them to understand that.

If we can get them to acknowledge that everyone who is born into this world is born in total depravity, then we'll have a better chance that they will see their need for the savior. Knowing the truth will allow us to be better, more compassionate soul winners. No matter how frustratingly heart breaking it can be.

We have to get people to understand that the way forward is backward. Now, how in the world do you mean?

We have to get them to understand that when the way backward equals progress is when you're moving forward and at some juncture you realize you're going the wrong way, then we have to get them to understand that, okay, you're going to have to turn around and go back to the point of restitution.

You're going to have to go back, not restitution, but you're going to have to go back to the point where you can get it right, get back on the right path. And so if not, then if they continue to move forward, you think about it.

If you're driving, if you don't recognize the fact that, well, even if you do recognize the fact that you made a mistake, but you just keep moving forward, what are you doing? You're putting yourself further away from your desired destination. And so what keeps us from moving? What keeps us from going backwards?

If we're driving and we know we made a mistake, what keeps us from going back? Pride. Pride. And that's man's biggest problem, pride. Nobody wants. They don't want to step over their pride. It is imperative. It is imperative.

I'm telling you, I cannot stress this enough because I think that we have definitely, especially in the fundamentalism movement, we have overlooked this in a big way to the detriment of many, many, many souls. It is imperative that we major on the condition of man before introducing the remedy.

Nobody is going to think that they need to be saved until they first realize they're lost. We have to major on sin. We must, we cannot soft soap it.

We cannot be so concerned with getting a prayer out of them or getting a, getting a, you know, a feather in the captain. We need to make sure they understand that they are lost and without hope.

If we move too quickly through the plan of salvation, it's possible to give people a false sense of assurance simply because they pray to prayer and they will never be able to sing with conviction the marvelous words to the timeless classic by John Newton.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me I once was blind but now I'm found was blind but now I see most people don't see themselves as wretched. Most people don't see themselves as lost or blind. And that's where the ten Commandments come in. That's where the law of God is so potent.

People have a tendency to compare themselves to other people, usually to people who are worse off than they are. When you're driving 90 miles an hour in a 60 and everybody else is doing the same as you and some faster, you don't even give it a second thought.

But when you crest that hill at 90 miles an hour in a 60 and you see Johnny law sitting down there, your heart sinks down into your stomach because the word of God says, in fact, look at Romans chapter five. Romans chapter. Let's look at just a couple of verses real quick before we move on to our next portion here. Romans chapter five.

And verse 20 says, moreover, I'll let you get there. I want you to see it. Moreover. Moreover, the law entered. You see that. That what? That the offense might abound. Now turn with me to chapter seven.

Look at chapter seven. Look at chapter seven, verse 13. He said was then, that which is good made death unto me.

He's talking about the law was that which is good made death unto me. God forbid, but sin that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good. That is the law.

That sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. See, you knew you were breaking the law at 90 miles an hour.

You knew it because you knew that speed limit was 60, but it didn't bother you because everybody else was doing the same thing and some were going even faster. So you knew sin was there. But when the law entered, sin became exceeding sinful. Does that make sense?

And so that's exactly what that is the efficacy of the law. That is the potency of the law. That is the power of the law of God, the efficacy. It will work in a person what God intended it to do.

The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, period. That's why we have it. God didn't give it to us to live by and work our way to heaven by. And I'm telling you, that's people think that.

They absolutely think that it is. Go ahead and look at that last page there and we'll move into something different after this.

So this is a fitting conclusion on the section man's condition. This is the back of page. This is page 16. More Americans believe in heaven than in hell. Everybody wants to believe in heaven.

No one wants to believe in hell. And I'm not going to go over this whole thing just the entire, just the first couple. Look at all us adults.

73% believe in heaven, while 62% believe in hell. 62% of the people surveyed said they believe in hell.

You know what else has increased exponentially in the last three years? Worldliness in churches. You know, it has decreased exponentially in the last three years. Christian influence in this country.

And so the numbers are probably conservative here. All right, so. So I want to move on to section three.

But before I do that, my plan is to take this simple outline of the plan of salvation, and I'm going to go over a little piece of it each time. Okay, I'm going to go over a little piece of it each week until we finish it. Now, again, there are some of you in here that this is old hat.

This is old, you know, all this. And so I hope that it's a. I hope that it's a good refresher for you. I hope that it helps in that way. But there are some who have never heard this.

And so I hope that in hearing it for the first time, it'll inspire you to want to get out there and tell others about Jesus Christ. And not only just to tell them, but to recognize our own responsibility in doing so. I'm going to ask brother Tice to come up and help me tonight.

He's going to be my, my crash dummy the whole time that we do this, but tonight it's pretty minimal on his part. I told him already. I coached him. I said, don't get me off script now. Don't give me a hard time. He's going to be the guy behind the door.

So ultimately, as I said, the question that we want to arrive at is, if you died today, are you 100% sure that you would go to heaven? Now, again, there's a reason why we word it that way. In our survey, we saw that more people believe in heaven than they do in hell.

And so if we approach it from the perspective of if you died to heaven, are you sure you're not going to go to hell? Well, they're going to say, well, of course I'm not going to go to hell. I don't believe in hell. But more people believe in heaven than hell.

So let's approach it from that side. So based on the statistics that we just read, we're going to come across more people who do believe in God than those who don't.

Honestly, I run into atheists very seldom. Mostly, I run into christians or people who believe in God, but don't think it's any of your business. Right. It's true.

And so, so you can use this, then what we're going to do, how to arrive at this question, and again, I'm just giving you an example. You don't have to do it exactly as I do it. I don't think I'm the expert on this, but it's been effective. It's what I've always used.

And the Lord has just blessed it and I've used it, but it's not the only way. I just want you to know that I think if you have a way that's effective and you can lead people to Jesus Christ, then keep doing it. Amen.

So you can use this in a conversation with a friend, in a conversation with your family, in a conversation with coworkers, acquaintances, and so on and so on. So for the sake of our illustration, we're going to use our new move in bags. Okay. And I should have grabbed one of those, but I didn't.

I should have grabbed one. What was I thinking? I wasn't thinking. That's all right. We don't need it. So now our new move in bags are.

Is everybody familiar who is not familiar with our new move in bags? You have no idea what I'm talking about. Anybody? Okay, one. Anybody else? Couple. Okay. We purchase zip codes.

We purchase zip codes of people who have moved into the area in the last couple of months. And those people who have moved into the area are filtered. They are people who have moved into the area from out of the area.

Because if you don't do that, you end up with apartment hoppers and stuff like that. So you get hundreds of hundreds of people when you really, you don't want that many. And I know that because that's what we did.

So we have put together bags of, and it's kind of like your old welcome wagon concept. You know, we come to their home with a bag and we say, welcome to the neighborhood. This is a gift from us to you, basically. That's it, right?

It's pretty simple. But I want to tell you something. It is the best opportunity for sharing the gospel with our community that we at HBC currently have in place.

The best. Why is it the best? Because you have a name and you have a gift. You have a name and you have a gift. So it immediately turns into a warm call.

It's not a cold call. You're just not knocking on some stranger's door. It's a stranger, but you know their name.

And the fact that you know their name, their guard is immediately dropped exponentially. Maybe not 100%, but 70. I promise you it makes a difference. Now, I'll say this, and I'll back it up here in just a second.

If you're not knocking on the door of the house to which you already know the name of the occupant, you are not maximizing your opportunity to share the gospel. Now, don't get me wrong. It's never wrong to do right.

And if all you're doing is taking the bag and leaving it at their door without knocking, it's better that they get that than nothing. I mean that it's better. They will eventually open the door, see the bag, and perhaps they'll pull the track out.

And they probably will pull the track out, but maybe they'll get a chance. Maybe they'll read it. But it's a whole lot better if you can give them the track and explain it if you get that opportunity.

So what I'm saying is it's a great opportunity because you have their name. You have their name. So, all right. So at this point, I freely admit that up to a certain point, I will absolutely sound like a broken record.

I will sound like a robot. I will sound mechanical each and every time up to a certain point. And if you go with me long enough, you'll recognize, man.

Brother Stone says same thing every single time he goes to the door, and I do every single time up to a certain point. And here's what we do. All right? Now, again, there's no way that we can anticipate every scenario. That's why I gave him a script.

I said, we're just going to do a couple, because I promise you, this can go a thousand directions every single time. So I'm just going to use this. This is my new move in bag. Now, our new move in bag has a cup, a nice cup with Heritage Baptist church on it.

It's got some popcorn, it's got some candy in it. It's got some information about the church, about the school, about the daycare, about everything.

And it's in a nice bag that says Heritage Baptist church. And if nothing else, they can drink the coffee and have popcorn. And who knows? I've never had one person.

I've never had anybody not take the card, not take the bag until I started doing it here. And I had one person. One person. And she was mean. She was mean. And she said, she said, I gave her the bag.

I handed the bag out, and she said, I don't want that. She goes, I don't want anything in this house that has to do with church. I don't remember, it wasn't exactly.

That's what she said ultimately before I actually ended up walking away. But I asked her, I said, well, don't you drink coffee? I got a nice mug in here. Don't you want to drink some coffee? No, she didn't want that.

But I've only one time I've given a. I don't know how many of these away. We've done them for years, my wife and I, and people at corpus and in here we've done them forever.

And I've only had one person refuse the bag. Isn't that something? And some of you have had people refuse the bag, but it's not very often. So this is what I do.

All right, I'll stick to my script so that I won't mess him up. Alright, so oh, by the way, you'll have the paper in your hand if you've never done this before, you'll have the paper.

And what you want to do is you want to look at the name one last time before you get out of the car and go up to the door because the last thing you want to do is go up there and forget the name. And it's easy to do, it's easy to do.

So you want to look at the name and if you can't pronounce the name take the paper with you seriously and fold it to where their name is and say something like I'm sorry but I'm not sure exactly how to pronounce that. And if they see their name they're going okay, so anyway, all right, so when you go up to the door, ring the doorbell first.

That's why they put it there, right? Unless of course it says don't ring the doorbell.

I got baby sleeping and they're out there now that says don't ring the doorbell, don't knock on the door, don't leave anything on the door. I think sometimes those come standard with new homes. Now ring the bell first, unless it is a ring bell. Unless you like talking to doorbells.

I refuse to talk to a doorbell. So if it's a ring bell, I am not going to ring it, I'm not going to touch it. Now sometimes they'll see you there and start talking to you anyway.

And I hate that. I hate it. I won't talk to a stupid doorbell, that's just dumb. The devil's smart, isn't he? See what he's done created ring. So listen for the ring.

If you don't hear the ring, then knock on the door. And what do we do? We knock with purpose. Knock with a purpose. Mendez, I can understand women going up to the door and going, but you men, come on.

Don't knock on the door like a girl if you're gonna knock with a purpose. And I'm serious. Get them out of bed. I'll knock at least eight or nine times. I'm talking about in a row. I want them to think the law is at the door.

I want them to think it's important. I'm serious. Knock with a purpose. I will go loud if it's a metal door. I've taken my pocket knife out of my pocket before, and I.

With my pocket knife, I'll do it. I'm telling you. You just want to get their attention.

I don't want to be obnoxious, but I don't want them to be in the back room, you know, washing clothes and not hear me. So knock with a purpose. Amen. And then they're going to come to the door and I'm going to say. I'm going to say, hello, Mister Rippy.

I'm looking for tice Rippy. Now, tice is an uncommon name. Is it nothing. So I don't know if that's a man's name or a woman's name.

So I'm not going to come up and say, I'm looking for Mister Tice Rippie, because that, I don't know if that's a man's name or that's not a common name, so I'm going to say, if it's a man, I'm going to say, hello, Mister Rippie. I'm not going to say Mister tice Rippie, or I'm not going to say, hello, tice, because what if that's his wife's name and you've already strike one?

You're making that warm call turn into a cool call. Or you can say, I'm looking for Tyce Rippy. Tice would say, yeah, that's me. And I'm telling you, just as, just as neighborly as we can do this.

Hi, tice. And I try my best to shake his hand. Hi, I'm tice. Actually, I don't shake his hand. I'm holding a bag and I've got a track in one half.

Always keep a track so he can see where we're from. Of course, he can see on the bag. Heritage Baptist Church, but I always keep a track and a bag and. Hi, Tyce.

My name is James and I'm from Heritage Baptist Church. We'd like to welcome you to the neighborhood with this gift. Okay. And he's going to take it. He's going to take it.

It's rare that they won't take it, but you obviously will run into some that do. Now, here's the thing.

If they're fighting to keep the dog inside, and you've seen this, if they're fighting to keep the dog inside, they're taking just a moment to see if you are worth their time, because it's easy to tell that dog to get back. And so here's what's happening. If you are worth their time, they'll get rid of the dog or they'll leave the dog inside and come outside.

If you are not worth their time, they're going to continue to fight the dog and use that as an excuse to get rid of you. Oh, I'm sorry. You're just. I'm sorry. This is. We're just going to have to. Another time.

Been there a hundred times, thousand times or who comes, who comes to the. To the door like this? Do you come to the door with your phone? Yes. Yes. What do you need? What do you need to. You don't do that.

Do you come to the door with the phone in your ear?

I'm telling you, I believe 90% of the people who come to the door with a phone in their ear when I'm at the door or when you're at the door, there's nobody even on the phone.

They just, they just don't want to deal with you, or they're going to give you an opportunity to see whether you're worth their time because nobody comes to the door with a phone in their ear. So anyway, we're getting to this tice. I meant to spend about five minutes here. Okay.

So anyway, now, the reason I know if they're fighting with the dog, they're giving you a minute because that's what I do. That's what I do. I have dogs and they want to get in everybody's business. She wants to know who's at the door. Who's at the door? Who's at the door.

And she's such a big sissy dog. All I had to do is say, ginger, get back. And she'll get back. But I let her come because I want to see if they're worth my time. Amen.

All right, so I've given him the track, I've given him the new move in bag, and he's giving me his attention. So I'm basically going to say something to this effect almost every single time.

Mister Ippy, when we get, when we get this list of new move ins, we're typically a month or two behind. So you probably already have been moved in for a month or two, correct? Yeah. All right. And that's the case.

We're usually a month or two behind with this list. So they've already been moved in for at least 30 days, sometimes 60 days, sometimes a little bit more if we're not behind on our list.

All right, so at this point, they already know you're from a church, so small talk isn't necessary. Just get to the point. You don't have to say, I just love your home. I love this type of brick. Oh, your garden is immaculate.

Mister Rippy, I don't know how you do it. Just leave it all off because it's unnecessary and you've imposed anyway. You don't know what they were doing, that you were uninvited.

So leave off the small talk. They know where you're at. They know who you're from, where you're from. All right?

So I just say, he said that he's been here already for a month or two. So my next question immediately is going to be, have you had a chance to find a church for you and your family yet? We don't go to church.

Speak up so they can hear you. We don't go to church. So now this is just one scenario. I said, okay, well, let me ask you this. Did you guys grow up going to church?

Do you have a religious background, a church background? I mean, I don't really have time to talk right now. He said, I don't have time to talk right now. I'm not even going to ask.

The fact of the matter is the majority of the people that you, that you give this bag to, they're not going to want to talk to you. That's just the cold, hard truth. That's why this is a numbers game. I don't like to use the term, but it is. It's a numbers game.

The more you go to, you'll eventually get to somebody who wants to talk to you. But the majority of them are going to have some excuse. Oh, I don't have time to talk. They'll take the bag. Oh, I don't have time to talk right now.

But if they say we don't go to church, I ask them, did you grow up going to church? Do you have a church or religious background?

Folks, there is no way to anticipate every scenario, because at this point, if he says, we don't, you know, he could have answered this 100 different ways. Do you have a church? Did you grow up going to church? Do you have a religious background? He could have said, no, we just don't believe in church.

We just don't believe. What's my answer? Then he could have said, yeah, you know, we went to pentecostal church. Growing up. We went to this church, growing up.

We went to that church. All of these are great answers. The fact that there's dialogue is great. He's telling me that he believes in works for salvation.

He's telling me he believes in baptismal regeneration. He tells me that he believes in praying to the saints. Whatever.

He tells me about the church that he grew up going to, that's good information for me because I know how to approach this thing. So he said, we don't go to church again. I can't go over every scenario. You'll learn this as you go, but you'll never learn if you don't go.

And I know that everybody in here would love to lead someone to Jesus Christ if you haven't already. And you're never going to get to do that if you don't try. And so just practice makes better never perfect, but better. All right.

So he says, I don't have time to talk right now. I said, and this is what I'll say. I'll say, okay, well, you know, I totally understand that. I came unannounced anyway, and I.

So let me extend an open invitation to you.

Our number is in the bag, and if there's ever anything that you need or if we can pray for you, please feel free to reach out to us and leave them with a good taste. Right? Leave them with a good flavor in their mouth. I'm never gonna. I'm not gonna push the issue if he says, don't have time to talk.

Okay, I'm imposing on your time. You opened the door. You took my bag. I want to leave a good taste in his mouth. Right? All right, so the next one.

The next answer could be, well, we've been visiting around, but we haven't found one yet. That's really good information, isn't it? We've been visiting around, so at that point, I would say, man, that's great.

I hope that you'll consider visiting Heritage Baptist Church at this point, only give a brief summary.

Here's the king of verbosity telling you to keep it brief, but it is really important that you don't try to give every aspect of the church at this point. Try your best to keep this brief. A brief summary of the church. Well, okay. I hope that you'll consider coming to HBC. Just visiting with us.

We've been established in town for about 24 years and we've got something for every age group and life stage.

At this point, if they start asking questions about their life stage, well, do you have anything for kids or do you have anything for singles or do you have anything for middle aged? Do you have anything for seniors? But you've just given them something, you've just thrown something out there.

And if they start asking questions, that's awesome, because now they're engaging you in conversation. Now what if they say something like, we're attending fellowship at the parks? Ah, that's really good information.

I know that they're not Catholic, although they're probably not saved. That's mean. Shouldn't have said that. But they saying they're attending fellowship of the parks. Fact is, that's a non denominational church.

And I'll just say this because this is what I believe, and I believe that I can substantiate it. Look, after years and years of experience, this is what I've experienced. Non denominational churches are basically no label churches.

No label churches. You wouldn't go to the grocery store and start taking stuff off the shelf that didn't have labels on it and putting it in your cart.

You want to know what's in there. Labels are important. They tell you what's inside the package. We're a Baptist.

Well, first of all, by conviction, but I like the fact when somebody says they're methodists, I know what they believe. I know what their doctrine is. When someone says they're Catholic, I know what their doctrine is.

When someone says we're fellowship of the parks, or when we're the met church, or when we're the campus church, when we're Oasis Church, when we're this church and that church, you have no clue what they believe. You have no clue. And I'm not saying Baptists have a monopoly on the truth, folks.

I'm not saying that at all because I've known some Baptists that were bad twists, not Baptists. And so I'm not saying while Baptists don't have a monopoly on the truth, I want to tell you something.

This is what I believe and I think I can back it up. That circle is pretty small. So he says, we're attending the fellowship of the parks. Where do I go with that I would say this. Man, that's great.

Mister Rippie, I'm glad that you're attending church. You know what that tells me? That tells me you believe in God.

Because you'd be surprised how many people we run into just don't even believe in Goddesse. Well, I'm not here trying to steal you out of your church. And I'm not. That's not my intention. My goal is to win them to Jesus Christ.

Mister Rippie, I'm not here trying to steal you out of your church. I'm sure that you'd agree with me. Now, you might say this is a little manipulative. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but it is. I guess it is.

I'm not going to lie. It is a little. It is for a good purpose. The ends justifies the means. All right, so listen to what I'm saying.

I'm sure that you'd agree with me that when we die, God's not going to let us into heaven based on what church we went to. I know what he's going to say. That's why I asked that question. So I guess you could call it manipulative. I know where the question is.

I've never had anybody. I've asked that question 10,000 times or more and I've never had one person say, sure he will. Well, maybe if you church Christ.

No, seriously, I've never had anybody say, yes, he will. And so at this point, this is what I say. Okay, so let me back up, I'll restate that, and then we're done with this. Okay?

Mister Rippy, I'm not here to try to steal people out of their church. I'm glad that you're attending. That tells me that you believe in God. You'd be surprised how many people don't. Don't even believe in God.

But I'm sure that you'd agree with me that, you know, when we die and we stand before God, he's not going to let us into heaven based on what church we went to, right? Yeah. So let me ask you this. Putting church aside, since church isn't the deciding factor here. Putting church aside.

What if something happened to you today? What if something happened to you? If you died today, are you 100% sure you'd go to heaven? And that's how I got to that question. Thank you, brother.

That's as far as we're going to go with this tonight. You might think that's a long way. That's a long way around to get to that question.

Well, I'm telling you what, you may have to see 75 or 100 people before you can get to that point. I'm not exaggerating that you're going to pass out. You're going to go out with 50 to 100 bags before you let somebody get to that point.

Am I right, brother Cox? Am I right? Anybody who's gone out. Brother Efrain, you've taken these bags out.

Anybody who's taken these bags out, you know, the majority, the vast majority of people are not even gonna let you get to that point. But you keep going because there's somebody out there who will let you. There's somebody out there who does want to get saved.

There is a Shaleen Steiger out there, right? One in 100. I bet you misses Watts. One in how many? A lot, right? One in a lot. But is it worth it? One is worth it.

And of course, we got two out of that deal, so. All right. I thought I was going to get to. I didn't think I was going to be that long up here. I told you. The king of verbosity. The king of verbose.

Was that helpful? Okay.

I still believe, I really, truly believe that the new move in bags are the best outreach tool we have because you have a name and you have a gift. Now, what I will do, I have this gift and I'm going to this home, and it's a warm call.

And whether they're home or not, if they're not home, I just leave the bag and go to the next one. But what I will do is I will go from a warm call to a cold call. How do I do that?

Because I knock on the door next to it, and then I'll knock on doors down the street, and then I'll cross the street and knock on doors. And all of those are cold calls. And that's a whole different story. That's a whole different scenario.

So you can see then if somebody comes to your house and they knock on the door and you peek through the peak hole and you're like, well, they don't look like Jehovah's Witnesses and they don't look, you know, they're dressed pretty nice. I guess I'll go ahead and I'll open the door. Yes, sir, can I help you? Hi, Miss Linda Smith.

Immediately your curiosity is up because how does he know my name? He knows my name. So you're going to go. You're going to let him go to the next step. But I'm here to tell you, you go to the door.

You go to the next door without a bag and you knock on the door and you're holding a track in your hand, which I absolutely advise you hold the track out so they can see where you're from. Hello? Hello? Yeah, can I help you? They already know they're looking at you. Yeah, I'm James Stone. I'm from Heritage Baptist Church. No, thanks.

Not interested. Or if they do open the door, you got to build rapport and you only have about 90 seconds to do that, if that much.

And so anyway, I hope that's helpful. We're going to go over a little bit of this each time. I promise not to take up the whole, the entire time.

Next time I'll write it out better next time. I didn't write that out very well, but like I said, there's no way to anticipate every direction that that's going to go.

You just, you come with me and you'll learn. You come with someone and you'll learn.

By the way, this is my final, by the way, if you want to come out on Tuesday nights with us, there's not always an extra person. If you're coming by yourself, there's not always an extra person for you to go with.

Most of the people who come on Tuesday nights go with their families or they have a partner that they're already going with. So it would be a good idea. Let us know ahead of time that you want to come. We will try our best to pair you up.

Or better yet, why don't you find someone who is going and say, hey, would you like to go? Someone who already knows? Or maybe you'd, maybe if you already know, you'd be willing to say, hey, I'm available.

I'll take somebody with me, man, that would be awesome because it's not doing any good to come out and not have someone to go with. Right. So we want that. I try to take, I try to go with Tyce. I try to go with Joshua. I try to go with, I still get to go with Brother Frius.

We've been saying we going to. We haven't yet. But he already knows. He knows how to do this and he's good to go by himself. He knows how to do. He's been doing it for years.

And so anyway, we do want to pair you up with folks. It's the only way to learn. Amen. All right, I'm done. 759. All right, let's stand together. We will not have an invitation tonight.

I hope that that helped you again, this is supposed to be instructional. This is a taste of what you get when you come to the class of 20.

So only there you'll have opportunities to ask questions not really conducive to that in this setting, so. All right, well, may the Lord bless you. I'm going to have. Who's this? Brother Shuler. Hell. He's saying now he gets to pray to.

Brother Schuller is going to dismiss us in prayer. Once again, I hope that was helpful. If you ever need any of these copies of these, I'll be more than happy to give these to you. Anything.

Let us pray. Dear gracious heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to come to your house tonight.

We thank you for Brother Stone, the lesson that he brought.

And dear heavenly Father, whether you're one here that's never heard this before or those that have heard it many times, always something new, a new approach, a new angle, a new something that we can apply. And, Lord, I pray that each and every one of us will apply it to our daily lives.

We can apply things that we learn here tonight in work conversations, in gas station conversations, in any conversation. It doesn't have to be knocking on the door. And, Lord, I just pray that you would burden our hearts to do more of that. We thank you for that.

Lord, we pray that you'll be with those of our church, family that are sick, those that are suffering. Pray that for our missionaries. We always lift them up. And, Lord, we just thank you for everything. In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.