Personal Evangelism 101: The Simple Plan of Salvation

Amen. Yes, they do. I love it when we have a beautiful song, but I love it even more when the person singing the song lives it.

And I'm not saying it's just because she's my wife. Maybe I am, but I don't know a godlier woman that just emulates the Lord Jesus Christ in her life. Kindest person I know.

Say it before she comes back in kind. I'm telling you, she won't talk bad about anybody in this room. She just won't. She just won't. She just. She's teaching. She's teaching Spanish.

She doesn't speak Spanish, but she's teaching it. But it's okay. It's videos, right? So she's monitoring, but she's learning along the way.

I heard somebody came in the office the other day, and Miss Tanya was in there, and I was in my office, so I could hear what they were talking about. I don't remember who it was, but somebody said something about, she can give them demerits.

And Miss Tanya said it would take an act of Congress for her to give them a demerit. And it's true. She gives merits, not demerits. She's just that way. All right, well, we have outlines, of course. I believe in outlines.

I had a notebook for everybody, but let's do outlines. If you didn't already have an outline, we've got a couple of guys in the back that are waiting to hand them out. I've got one.

It's the simple outline, the simple outline of the plan of salvation. And then we have three or four pages together. If you need one, hold your hand up, and they'll make sure you get one. Does anybody need one?

Brother Jance needs one of each. All right, I think I got plenty this time. I think I made about 120 copies, so this is good.

All right, I'm going to go over the simple outline of the plan of salvation. First of all, we're going to spend about five or ten minutes on that.

And I know this is probably old hat to some of you, and to others it may not be, as I said before.

Now, for those of you who may not know what we're doing in here, we're actually taking what was going to be the Heritage Baptist Bible Institute on Tuesday nights in the other room for ten weeks.

Pastor asked me to go ahead and teach this particular series of lessons to the entire Wednesday night service on evangelism, personal evangelism, on soul winning. Now, as I said, some of you probably already know how to lead someone to Christ. But I know that.

I know that just from speaking, from years of experience in the ministry. I promise you, I just know this.

And I'm not judging anybody, because there are a multitude of reasons most christians do not know how to lead someone to Christ. Most christians do not take the time to witness to others. And again, I don't know who does and who doesn't.

I mean, I know a few in here who do, but I don't know who doesn't. Because you live your own life.

You've got your own sphere of influence, and perhaps you do, but for those who don't, or maybe those who do, can learn. I'm ever the student. I'm always looking to learn more from somebody who knows more about it than I do.

I don't think I own a corner on the knowledge of winning people to Jesus Christ. And so I hope to help you. Okay.

As I said last week, before I even went to Bible college, I was in immersed in a church that was extremely militant and not in a bad way, but militant. Very aggressive. Not in a bad way, but very aggressive in its soul winning. Just. That was all. It was just soul winning. Soul winning. Soul winning.

And that's not a bad thing. That's where I learned it. However, I didn't know anything about sowing. I didn't know how to do it.

And so the pastor just gave me a little gospel tract. And he said, just read the tract. Just follow the track. There was a five simple steps, five.

Five things that a person needed to know in order to get to heaven. And that's how I started. Now, over the years, obviously, we built on that. We've added illustrations to that. We've added verses to that.

We've changed some verses. And if you continue to do this using a tract or whatever, you will eventually have your own presentation.

And I say that, and we'll talk more about that later. But this is the simple plan of salvation that I use. This is the bones, and we'll hang meat on it along as we go. I'm gonna go over this every week.

There are some verses here that you ought to memorize. You don't have to memorize all the ones that I use, but there are some that every person ought to memorize.

And if you'll use those, you can win someone to Jesus Christ with those. And then you'll add to them as you go. You will, you'll just build on that. One of the reasons I like to memorize it is because a couple of reasons.

Number one, you might be somewhere where you don't have your Bible, and you just get the opportunity to start telling somebody about Jesus, and they want to know Bible. And besides that, it's the word of God that is the power to save people, to salvage. Right.

It's the gospel that has the power to save, not my presentation. And so we need to know the word of God, hide it away in our heart and use it.

And the other reason is many times if I'm sitting at the table with someone or if I'm at their door, I will take my New Testament and I will turn it around and I'll let them read it while I'm quoting it. And it just helps. It just really does. They can read along with me. One reason I do that is I just want them to see it. I want them to see it sometimes.

I'll ask them to read it. Now, you gotta be, you have to be careful how you do that, because the best way to do it honestly, and this isn't a trick.

It's just to help you and them. I will ask them, I will say, can you see this well enough to read? Do you wear glasses or contacts? Can you see that well enough to read it?

Because quite honestly, some people might not be able to read very well and are very embarrassed to read it. And you don't want to ask me how I know that, right? And so it just helps you. It helps them.

So anyway, that's just a little something I'll throw out there for you. You might not ask them to read it. Ask them if they can see it well enough to read it, and if they can, then have them read it. Okay, so here we go.

Simple outline of the plan of salvation. The question that we ultimately want to arrive at is, if you died today, are you 100% certain you would go to heaven?

Now, again, I start there, but there are going to be a lot of people that we talk to. They're not interested in heaven. They're not thinking about heaven. That is a spiritual subject.

And quite frankly, I've talked with many people who said I hadn't really thought about it. I said, well, don't you concern yourself with when you die? Not really. I mean, there's a lot of people like that, but this is the starting spot.

And again, we're not trying to deal tonight with atheists and agnostics. We can deal with that at another time, maybe in our apologetics class.

But what we're doing is we're teaching you how to take a person who is interested, or at least will listen to the gospel all the way through to the end and how to win them to Jesus Christ. And so I asked them, I try to get to that question, if you died today, are you 100% certain you would go to heaven?

I try to always get to that question, because it's not about just inviting them to church. And sure, we'd love for them to come to church, but the Bible doesn't say, go out and gather everybody under one roof. What if you're in an airport?

Maybe they're on their way to Chicago. They're never going to probably darken the door of your church.

But if the Holy Spirit is speaking to your heart to hand them a gospel tract, he probably wants you to talk to him, too. And it'd be all right to win them to Jesus Christ if they never had the opportunity to come to your church. Amen. So it's okay.

But ask them this question now. If they say yes, I always, always, always follow that up with, well, how can you be so sure? What makes you so sure? What do you base that on?

I want to know where they're coming from. Now, if they are truly saved. If you ask a person, if you died today, are you 100% sure you go to heaven?

If they're truly saved, they will answer right away without hesitating. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I know I'm going to heaven, no doubt in my mind, and I'll still follow it up with, well, how can you be so sure?

And if they're truly saved, they won't hesitate.

Well, because I accepted Christ as my savior, or Jesus Christ died for my sins, and I something to that effect, and you'll know immediately they're saved. Now, there are a lot of lost people who will say yes as well.

And when you ask them that second part, that will tell you whether they really are or not, when you say if you died today or you're 100% sure that you're going to heaven and it's a lost person, and they say, yeah, I'm sure. Well, how do you know that? How can you. What do you base that on? How can you be so sure? Well, because. Well, because I just. I get.

And they'll give you a string of reasons why without one time mentioning Jesus Christ. So a lot of people will say yes, but some, if they say no, then of course. First, John 513.

These are some verses that you should have highlighted that you should know. First, John 513. These things have I written many times. They'll say, well, no one can know. Can anybody know for sure?

First, John 513, these things have I written unto you that believe in the name of the son of God, that you may know you have eternal life. You can know. You can know down in Corpus Christi, there's a lot of Catholics there, and they call that the sin of assumption.

If you say you know, they say, you can't know. That's sin. That's a sin. That's the sin of assumption. You can't know you're going to heaven.

And I've told them, I said, but if you read it in the Bible, if the Bible said, because I know that you believe the Bible, I know you take this, the word of God is the word of God, and you believe that. So if you read it in the word of God, would you believe it?

And many of them would say, yes, but there's many of them that say, well, I don't want to talk about it, but if they say yes, then I turn that Bible around and I show them. First, John 513, these things have I written unto you that believe in the name of the son of God, that you may know you have eternal life?

First, John 513.

And then there are going, continuing on with this, there are three basic things the Bible teaches that a person must believe in order to know for sure that they are saved. You don't have to give them these. These are for you. The why, the who and the how.

I never even thought about it like that until pastor brought that to my mind. I never heard it put like that. But that is very simple.

It's easy for you to remember if you want to win someone to Christ, why I need to be saved, who can save me, how I get saved, and if you want to share it that way with them, that's fine. But in order to answer those questions, why do I need to be saved? Why? Because all are sinners. All right, this is your bare bones.

I'm just, I'm gonna run through this now real quick, because all are sinners. You need to memorize Romans 310 and Romans 333. 13. Memorize those. Memorize. Actually, that should be 323. Romans 310 and 323.

And then, so all are sinners. But most of the time, people are gonna. Most people don't have a hard time admitting that they're sinners. Most people will admit that.

But what we have to do is we have to convince them that the sin that they've committed is against God. We've sinned against God. You have to take it there and you have to explain the difference between breaking man's laws and breaking God's laws.

And I propose that you use the Ten Commandments to do that. Use the law of God. I'm not going to get into that now. I have some tracts I'm going to hand out for you at another later date, maybe next week.

I'll give you those gospel, those ten commandment tracts and keep those. I used to use the Ten Commandments stamped on a penny. I would give those away, and people thought that was very, very novel, and no one refused it.

Everyone would take that, and I can't find those anymore. But we need them to understand that they have sinned against God. Use the law. The word of God will convict them.

And at the end they will say, I will say, if you were stood here and you had to, if you died today and you stood before God and you were judged by his laws, because that's what he's going to judge you by, would you be innocent or guilty? They will say, I'd be guilty. I don't have to tell them they're guilty. You use the law of God, they'll admit that they're guilty.

Okay, so thou shall not bear false witness. Have you ever told a lie? Everybody's going to say, yes, they've told a lie. Thou shalt not steal. Have you ever stolen anything?

Most everybody will admit to stealing. However, they'll only admit to stealing as a child. You've heard me say that before. I'm telling you, you talk to them.

Most of them will say, well, only as a kid. It's amazing we have no adult thieves. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Most of them have done that, and they'll admit it.

Honor your father and mother. Oh, yeah, I always honor my father and my mother. I always honor my parents. Really?

You just admitted to being a lying, thieving individual who uses God's name in vain. Does that honor your parents? And honestly, they'll think about that. No, I guess not. Now, here's where I usually stop.

There's no need to go on over all of them. I'll stop right there and I'll say, look, we've only gone over four. You're swinging a thousand. You're batting a thousand.

You're four for four at that point. That's when I ask him if you stood before God. Now and he judged you by his law, would you be innocent or guilty?

And most of the time, they'll see, if they let you get this far, they'll admit it. I'm guilty. And that's where you go to the next one. There's a. Because they have to understand that sin is against God. This is not.

You didn't just run a stop sign. You didn't run a stop sign. That's not the laws we're talking about. We're talking about sinning against a holy God. There is a penalty. Number three.

There's a penalty for our sin. Romans 623. Y'all need to remember that verse. Memorize it. Memorize that verse.

You see, if we were doing this in our class, it'd be a much smaller area where we're down to 20, and we'd be repeating these verses over and over. For the wages of sin is death. Romans 623 a. The first part is where you'd use this, for the wages of sin is death. Now, the second part is.

But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But we want to do the first part right now.

At this point in my gospel presentation, I just want them to see that there's a penalty for the wages of sin is death. Romans 623. Now, you can add on to that. I have other verses there that I use.

Romans chapter 20, verse eleven through 15, I show them that there are two deaths. And I ask them, did you know that there are two deaths? I've never had anybody say, yeah, I knew that almost 100% will say, nah, I didn't know that.

Then you can show them the death of the soul, death of the body. And I ask him, Hebrews 927. It is appointed unto man once to die, but after this, the judgment.

So I ask him, I say, so, if the body dies, if you die and the body goes into.

If you're cremated or you're lost, you're lost in the ocean, you burn up in a fire, or if you're put in the ground, what happens to you after several months? And they will well, it decomposes. Okay, well, if your body decomposes, then what goes to judgment?

100% of the time, no matter how many times I've asked that question, and I promise you, I've asked it thousands, thousands of times. No matter how many times I ask that question, they will always answer, well, my soul or my spirit every single time.

It's amazing, because they don't even have to go to church, and they know. They know. They're an eternal being. They know it. And so you can use that. The second question is, who can save me? Number four.

Jesus Christ paid the debt that I owed when I broke his laws. And we see that in Romans chapter five, verse eight. And then.

But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And in Romans 623, the second part, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. And then how do I get saved?

Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth. Romans ten, nine. If thou shalt believe in thine heart and confess with thy mouth that Jesus Christ rose from that I'm butchering that.

Now if thou shalt confess with thy mouth and believe in thine heart that God hath raised thee from the dead, thou shalt be saved. I'm not saying that, right. I'm missing it. But anyway, memorize those verses. We're going to go back over it again each night. Memorize those verses.

Those are the ones you'll need. That if thou shalt believe in thine heart. If thou shalt confess. I'm butchering in that. I'm going to open it. I can't believe. I don't have.

I have it memorized, I promise. But you're scaring me. Romans chapter ten, 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. Don't leave off the resurrection. Do not leave off the resurrection.

Most of the tracts that you'll find that have a gospel presentation on them. Leave off the resurrection. You have to talk about the resurrection. You have to. You can't leave it off. And then verse ten.

For with the heart, man believes unto righteousness. And with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. Memorize those two verses. All right, let's go ahead and turn then in your outline to page ten.

We're looking at man's condition. This is section two of our outline. Man's condition.

Again, I'll be sticking with my outline pretty close as time is the ruler tonight, it is tempting to take a lost person's rejection of Christ personally.

If we are not spirit filled when engaging the lost, we can even respond in kind to those who are venomous, hateful, critical, sarcastic and threatening or violent.

When a soul winner has a biblical understanding of Mandev, God's crown jewel of creation, and what he lost in the fall, it gives him or her a deeper, more compassionate understanding of the lost man's need, the scope of his ignorance, the depth of his depravity, and the reason for his resistance. And I'm telling you, if you don't, if you just mark chapter 16, the Bible tells us at the end of that chapter that the disciples were in unbelief.

And we're told in verse, chapter 16, verse 15, the Bible says that God, Jesus, upbraided them in their unbelief, and then he told them to go out and witness. And so we don't have to wait until we're spiritual to go out and witness. It's just the right thing to do.

If you have the opportunity, it doesn't matter if you're in a bad mood or not. If God puts somebody in your path who needs the Lord, if they come to you and they start talking about man, I just. I know you go to church.

What's so special about it? I mean, boy, God's opening that door. Doesn't matter if you're in a bad mood or not. And so it helps if when you do go out knocking doors or.

And even when you're going to do these door hangers, you might get the opportunity. Somebody may be standing on their porch, they may be in the garage. Remember, we're trying to win people, not doors.

So if you have someone who's there, a living person, a body, go ahead and give them the door hanger. Don't just hang it on their door and pass them. Give it to them, and you might have an opportunity to talk to them about Jesus Christ.

And so if you can go with a spirit filled understanding their condition as a lost man, I promise you, it will help you to understand them better. And then if they're venomous, if they're mean, if they're ugly, you won't take it personally.

You'll have an understanding of why they're responding the way they are. So that's what we're going to look into. So let's look, then, at man in the image of God. Man is made. In the image of God. He is created.

This is the created stage. What is man? He's tripartite. Or if you want to say it another way, trichotomy. He's a trichotomy. He's a three part God made us in the image of himself.

Genesis two seven. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

All right, fill these in. Number one, he was a body first. He was of the dust of the ground. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground. That's his body.

Number two, he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. That's the spirit. Breathe. Noustos spirit. He breathed into his nostrils. Now, I put out here created spirit.

God is not created, but the spirit that he gave Adam upon his creation was created spirit for Adam. Because, look, God doesn't die. God doesn't die. Amen. God is eternal. And we'll see here in just a little bit. When man sinned, his spirit died.

So when God regenerates us, he gives us, he gives us uncreated spirit. His spirit. Okay, so God gave him a spirit. He breathed into his nostrils. And then number three, a soul.

He says he, he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Now, what is the soul? It's the mind, the will and the emotions. That's your intellect, your volition and your affections.

Your soul is the vehicle of your, of your body. I mean, I'm sorry. Your body is the vehicle of your soul. Your soul is what makes you you. That's your personality. That's your disposition.

That's everything. That's you. All right. Letter B. He was made in the image of God, not only tripartite, but for his purpose, for God's purpose.

Now, in the seventies, there was a popular group going throughout the campuses of America and thank God for anybody that will try to reach university students, college students, with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Anybody remember what the name of that group was? Campus crusade. A lot of people got saved in campus crusade, and I don't.

And there was a, there was a, there was some faulty theology in that, not necessarily in their gospel presentation. That was fine. Lots of people got saved.

Now, I'm not faulting that, but there was something that they said in the very beginning of their gospel booklet that just isn't necessarily true, and it's not something that you would use to try to win a lost person to Jesus Christ. Does anybody remember what it said? God loves you and does anybody remember? God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

That was their opening phrase. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Well, that's faulty. It's faulty because that's not going to be true for everybody.

I mean, no one's, not everybody's. Philippians, chapter one, verse 29, says, it is given unto you not only to believe in his name, but also to suffer for his sake.

There are some people that God's plan is for them to suffer. Now, we first world individuals, we can't grasp that, and we think that's cruel, that's mean. I wouldn't want to. But you know what? There's.

The majority of Christianity in the world tonight is living in abject poverty. We are not the majority of christians in the world. We are the majority of spoiled christians in the world. We are not the majority of christians.

The majority of christians are living in poverty. And many of them, they know nothing but a life of suffering once they got saved.

But the thing is, once we are saved, like Peter said, we count it joy to be able to suffer shame for his sake. They counted it joy. They counted it a blessing.

And when you, those of you who have been on the mission field, those of you who've gone with us, those of you who've gone on your own, you've gone to third world countries, how does it not humble you? How does it not make you come home and look at all that you have and say, oh, my soul, I am so blessed. I have so, God is so good to me.

And then we go there and we realize they are happy. We were at Brother coach Church in Guatemala, and that's the only one I have to talk about, brother. I've only ever been to one missions trip.

And the way they, they were poor. I mean, they were poor. They didn't have very much, those people, but, boy, you should have heard them. Singhead. Oh, my goodness.

Wasn't that something, Brother Scott, brother Johnson, wasn't that something? That was amazing. It just, I still got the video.

It was just amazing just to listen to them sing and see the joy and the servants that they were, they just wanted to help anyway. It's amazing. I don't know how I got off on that. So to say to every. What if you're. What if you're in a prison ministry?

Everywhere that I've pastored, I've been in the jail ministry. I've gone to county jails all over. Everywhere. Everywhere I've pastored, I had a county jail ministry.

Go in there and tell them, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And they're on their way to Huntsville. They're fixing to go to Beeville to spend the next 25 years. Some of them are lifers.

They're going to spend the rest of their life in the penitentiary. Now they need to get saved. Yeah, but can you really say God has a wonderful plan for your life?

I mean, we might understand that in one way, but try to get them to get that and so that was kind of a faulty plan.

And then those, there might be people that you're witnessing to who just went through some horrific trial, some horrific tragedy in their life, and then for us to come to their door and say, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Romans 828 says, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

We know that, don't we? But I want to tell you something that's not always even comforting for christians. It's just not.

I led a young family to the Lord and they had a little girl, and then eventually they had a little boy. And when that little boy was about three years old, or two or two or three years old, he got really sick. Really sick.

And he had heart issues with his heart, and he ended up being on life support. And they had to make the very, very. Can you imagine? They had to make the decision to take him off of life support.

And I was there in the hospital just before they did that. I was with them. And I.

That mother told me, she said, brother James, if one more person comes to me and says, all things work together for good, she said, I think I'm going to throw up. I mean, you can get that. I get that. And I was a Christian. So sometimes, you know, not every verse works. Just have to be wise. Amen. I. But we know.

Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame, before him in love. Now that sounds like his purpose to me. He saved us, that we should be holy and without blame. Verse five.

Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children, Pastor just talked about that. By Jesus Christ to himself.

To himself according to the what the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted. How? In the beloved. That's the only way in the beloved.

We're accepted only in the beloved, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of what his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself. Oh, my goodness.

Brethren, if we really, truly believe what the word of God says, we'd stop living so much for ourselves and stop and start acting, asking God, what would you like for me to do today, Father? Master, Lord, you saved me for your purpose. Am I living for you? Is my life designed for your purpose? Is it designed around you?

Or have I orchestrated it around me and my own purpose? God created us for himself, for his purpose. And then letter C. For his pleasure. For his pleasure. Revelation four, verse eleven.

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure. They are and were created. And that's us. That's us. Genesis three eight.

And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Adam and Eve. He created them to fellowship with him.

That was, he created them for himself so that they could have fellowship with him, and he could have fellowship with them. And one day soon. One day soon, and I believe it is soon, we're going to enjoy that again. Uninterrupted, unmolested fellowship with God. Amen.

First Peter one four says, it's an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not a way reserved in heaven for you. And I'm looking forward to that day. And even so, come Lord Jesus and all God's people said, I'm ready, brother. Get up a load of pumpkins tonight.

I'll jump on. I'm ready to go. Let the world have this mess. I'm ready to go. All right, number two, we got to move along here. Fallen from a perfect, sinless state.

This is the condition of man. He was made perfect. He was made in the image of God, created for God's purpose, created for God's pleasure. But he fell from a perfect, sinless state.

Now, that's the corrupted stage. First he was created, now he's corrupted. And let's just read through here. Genesis three. Let's read through this one through seven.

And then verse 22 and 23. Now, the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

And he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden. God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it. Lest ye die. And the serpent said unto them, ye shall not surely die.

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Well, he is slick.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her. And he did eat, and the eyes of them both were open, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves apron.

Verse 22. And the Lord God said, behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil.

And now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So letter a man's spirit.

At that moment, man's spirit died. That spirit that God gave him. In the very beginning when he created him, he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

He breathed into his nostrils. That spirit that he gave him. He formed him out of the dust. There's his body. He breathed into his nostrils. There's his spirit. He became a living soul.

That's his mind, will and emotion. But now, since he sinned against God, that spirit part of him died. And we'll get to that. I'm going to explain that in just a moment.

But look at Genesis 216 17.

The Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Did he die that day? How? We know? Spiritually, yes. But did he physically die that day?

Death set in. The process of death began, the curse set in. But the thing that died was his spirit. That was the thing that died.

Ephesians, chapter two, verse one tells us. I mean, he died, he died, that spirit died. Verse one says, and you go ahead. I've got it there written out for you.

And you hath he quickened, which means made alive. You hath ye quickened who were dead.

You were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in time past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.

For by grace are you saved. We were dead because I can say we were right. We can identify with this. He says, you hath quickened who were.

If you're saved in here tonight, if you accepted Christ as your savior, if you have received Christ, God, he regenerated. That spirit he gave you of his spirit, he regenerated. He quickened your spirit, and he put his spirit in you. Uncreated spirit. His spirit.

That's why it's going to live forever. If it was created, it would die again. But it's not. It's uncreated. It's his spirit, and it's going to live forever.

Now, we were dead according to the word of God. Now, here's what you need to understand.

99.9% of the doors that you're going to knock, 99.9% of the people that you're going to approach about the gospel are dead. You think about the most wicked thing you've ever done in your life, and we've got the, you know, we've got a whole scale here, the whole spectrum.

We've got some who've never done any, hardly anything. And then there's some of you. You're glad it's only you and God who knows what you did. So you think about the most wicked thing that you did.

That's exactly what they're doing. Hopefully we don't do that anymore because we were dead and we're alive now. We're not dead anymore. God quickened our spirit, but we were dead.

Everybody that we talked to out there, they are dead. So that means, according to Ephesians, chapter two, verse two, wherein in time past you walked according.

They are walking according to the course of this world. They are walking according to the prince of the power of the air. Who is. Who? Who is that? The prince of the power of the air.

They are walking according to his craft and his guide and his path.

The spirit that now works in the children among whom we had our conversation in time past, in the lusts of our flesh, they are living in the lust of their flesh. They are fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, everything they can think.

There's so much wickedness going on behind these doors, we don't even know they are broken from the state that God made them in. They're broken completely. Their mind is broken. Their affections are broken.

Colossians 213 says, and you being dead in your sin and the uncircumcision of your heart, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses, I'm saved. But their trespasses haven't been forgiven. Letter B. Man's innate ability to communicate with God is gone.

When that spirit died, the innate ability to communicate with God is gone. Isaiah, chapter one. Let's go ahead and I didn't write that one in there, so I'm going to go ahead and turn to that one right quick.

Isaiah, chapter one. This is when we said Isaiah, chapter one, verse 15. He says, and and when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you.

Yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Isaiah 59 and verse one and two. That one you're probably more familiar with. Isaiah 59.

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins. And your sins have hid his face from you. That he will not hear.

He will not hear the prayers of the lost. He doesn't hear the prayers of the lost. They're dead. They don't have that spirit to communicate with God. That innate ability to communicate with God.

Now let's look at our outline. The part of the man that fellowshiped and walked and talked with God in the garden is now rendered dead. It can no longer communicate with God.

The spirit of man is how God communicates to man. That's how he communicates to us, is by the spirit that he gave us. That's why envision this. You've seen it all the time in cartoons.

You've seen it all the time. The devil on one shoulder, the angel on the other. Brother, there's so much truth to that. There is so much truth to that. You know it.

You experience it all the time. That's what Paul was talking about when he said, man, the things I want to do, I don't do. And every time I want to do good, evil's present.

That's because this guy over here is telling you, do right, do right. No, that's the left hand. Let's do the right hand. This guy over here is telling you, do right, do right. Here's the, here's the right thing to do.

But then this guy over here is saying, man, but this tastes so good. This over this. This feels so good. Think about the pleasure you'll get from this. This will make you money. Just, this is where you need to be.

No, this is what's right. And you got a decision to make. Now, as a child of God, we've got this to draw from. Fortunately, we can make this decision.

We can draw from this because we have the spirit of God. But they don't. They don't. And so because they don't, they don't have, their mind, doesn't have that spiritual information to draw from.

So, in fact, I wrote it down here. Let's look at it. The spirit of man. I'm in the middle. Let me start that over. That paragraph.

The part of man that fellowshiped and walked and talked with God in the garden is now rendered dead. It can no longer communicate with God. The spirit of man is how God communicates to man.

God does not communicate to man through his soul, but through his spirit. Man has the choice then to either receive from God the things of the spirit or from the flesh the things of the world. That's us.

We have that without the spirit. Next paragraph. Without the spirit being alive to the things of God, then the mind has nothing truly to consider, nothing truly spiritual to consider.

So the soul, that is, the mind, the will and the emotions, live completely dependent upon the flesh and the world in which the body lives. So society, so it draws its completely upon the flesh and the world. In other words, society, culture, laws, or lack thereof.

That's what the mind pulls from, without the spirit.

That's why he's talking about here in Ephesians chapter two, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. You didn't have the spirit of God over here within you to give you good spiritual information.

So the fact is, the majority of mankind exists in this state from birth to death. The majority of mankind exists in this state without this guy over here to feed him good stuff, spiritual stuff from God, he lives without that.

And so most of his life he's following this side. That doesn't mean that there's not good moral choices that he makes, because there are, there's a lot of good moral people out there.

But unfortunately, good moral people, sometimes they go to hell because they live in a country that has a christian heritage. And the laws that we have in our country were made according to the word of God.

And for the most part, good christian men created those two corinthians four, verse three and four says, 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, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, which is the image of God, should shine unto them. Brother Stone, you just said that God only communicates to them through the spirit. But it says here that Satan is blinding the mind.

This is why we knock doors. This is why we print tracks. This is why we do events. This is why we invite our lost friends to church to hear the gospel.

Because Romans 116 says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to them who believe. What we are doing in putting out tracks and putting out door hangers and sharing the gospel and going door to door, what are we doing?

We're giving the Holy Spirit something to work with. I can't save them. I can't convict their heart. But the word of God is the tool of the Holy Spirit. It's the sword of the Spirit.

We give the Holy Spirit something to work with. John, chapter six, verse 44, says, Jesus said, no man can come to me except the father which hath sent me. Draw him. How is he drawn?

We're giving him the word of God. And the Holy Spirit of God is working on his mind.

And now he can make a decision because he's got the word of God, and the Holy Spirit is drawing him, and the Holy Spirit can draw us other ways. God can draw us through circumstances in life.

And sometimes, like me, I grew up in Tennessee, not going to church, except sometimes the church bus would come by the house and my mom would say, and my dad would say, get on the church bus. You're going to church. They want to get rid of us for a couple hours. So for a few years there, while I was a little kid, I heard preaching.

It wasn't true preaching. It was church Christ. But they taught out of the King James Bible.

I went to Sunday school, and the fact of the matter is, there was enough seed planted in me that God could use that.

And that could be the same for you, because first Peter, chapter one, verse 23, says, being born again, how not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. This is why Satan works so hard at two things. Number one, keeping the mind of the lost blind.

And then number two, keeping the saved, complacent, apathetic, comfortable, and self centered. That's what Satan works hardest at. He doesn't want us to share the gospel. He doesn't want them to be able to make a spiritual decision.

For many individuals, there's a vacuum in their heart, and this is not a God created vacuum. And I've heard many people say, that's a God created hole in our heart. No, it's not God created. It's sin created. God didn't create that hole.

Sin created that hole. Sin created that vacuum in the heart. It's a sin created vacuum.

Many know, or at least sense that there is more to life than what they are presently experiencing. But they don't know that what or who they need is God. Their innate ability to communicate with God is gone.

And so the mind must be externally stimulated to think. Hence I gospel, hence soul winning, hence passing out tracks, hence radio gospel, hence television. All the tools, hence Facebook.

All the tools that we have at our disposal, we should use them to get the gospel out there so that the Holy Spirit can stimulate the mind and give them something spiritual to make a decision about. Letter C. I think I'm done, aren't I? Yep. I'll finish this. You can read the rest because this is the last blank letter C. Because man's spirit is dead.

He is totally and completely depraved. Completely depraved. And we don't like to think about that. But that's because you and I are saved. I'm telling you.

But before we were saved, romans chapter three, verse ten through 18, said, as it is written, there's none. Listen to the Bible. There's none righteous, no, not one. There's none that. Understand? There's none that seek after God.

How many times have you heard somebody say, well, when I found God, or I was searching for. No, you weren't. And you didn't find God. He found you and you weren't searching for him. How do I know that?

Because the Bible says, there's none that seek after God. And I just believe what the Bible says, there's none that seek after God. We weren't looking for him. Only the.

Only we can say that, because what we really mean is God was drawing me. And I realize that now.

It took me a long time, but I realize now that when I told my roommate back yonder years ago, when I said, and his name was Jimmy, I said, hey, jimmy, man, we need to start going. We need to stop living like this. We need to go to church. And he told me, he said, you find one, we'll go. Now you know what was happening.

Why would I even think that way I didn't understand salvation. I didn't. I just knew that I needed something more. And I just kind of knew it was God. But I didn't really know how to go about it.

That was God drawing me. God was drawing me and he was orchestrating things in my life.

And he brought me to a point of decision after a bad wreck where I should have died or at least been killed. I mean, at least been badly injured and never got a scratch. I'm telling you, it's amazing. Anyway, look what he says. They are all verse twelve.

They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There's 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? You know what I'm reading? I'm reading your neighbor. I'm talking about the guy you stand next to every day at work, the condition of man.

And there's other stuff here and I may go ahead and. Yeah, I'll probably read the rest of it later when we finish up. I'll give you this, so bring this with you and we'll finish this up next week.

But here's what I want us to understand. Man is broken. The condition of man is horrific. We think, oh, that's such a nice family over there. You don't know what goes on in their mind.

You don't know what goes on behind closed doors. You don't know the wickedness and the vile, corrupt thoughts that those individuals have. You just don't know how they talk to each other.

And it's more than just verbal. Oh my goodness. We live in nice neighborhoods.

But there are areas, I'm telling you, even in nice neighborhoods, the police have gone in nice neighborhoods, the police have gone in and broken down, taken down crack houses, nice neighborhoods.

In nice neighborhoods, police have gone in and rescued girls from sex trafficking in nice neighborhoods, in nice neighborhoods, children have been chained to their beds. In nice neighborhoods, I'm telling you, because man is broken.

And if we go out and we start talking to people and we see and hear the, their utter repugnance toward God and Christ and the things of God will understand why. And hopefully in understanding why, it'll help us to understand the depth of their depravity. And the level of their ignorance.

And rather than get upset and say, just go to hell, then as you walk off, you know he's going to because he rejected you, he almost cussed you out. Well, let him go to hell.

If that's what he wants, let him go on to hell, then rather than have that attitude, which I'm telling you has come from me because I didn't go filled with the spirit, rather than have that attitude, maybe we can actually love them like Jesus did. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Oh, man. Stephen. Lord, hold not this sin to their charge.

You can only say that when Jesus is living through us and that's what we have to do. And when we understand why they're doing what they do, why they're talking the way they talk, that'll help us a lot. So this is just one.

One piece of knowledge that I think is important. When we go out and we talk to people about Jesus Christ, they might be ugly, and then they might be just ready. They might be low hanging fruit.

God may have been working in their heart waiting for you to come with the gospel. Amen. I hope that helps. We'll finish the rest of it next time. Well, let's go ahead and stand. This is more. This is a.

This was supposed to be like a 20 people classroom setting. I never actually planned on invitations, and so we're, you know, we'll get a little deeper into some more doctrine as well.

And so this is for all practical purposes. What pastor said was, go ahead and do it like this and kind of give them a taste of what HBBI will be like.

Only HBBI will be like in a different setting where you'll actually have an opportunity to ask questions. You know, we want to keep that, you know, under control.

Of course, we don't want it to get out of hand, but you'll have an opportunity to ask questions in a classroom setting where this isn't conducive for that. So. All right, well, we're not going to have an invitation then. I just feel. Let's go. Come on, brother. It's just terrible. I just can't.

We'll just have music. Yeah, just play through a verse. It's just hard. It just hurts me. Here. It wouldn't hurt me in the classroom, but here, it hurts me to not have one.

So, you know, I don't know how the holy spirit of God spoke to your heart. Maybe you do have somebody in your life right now that you know is man. They're just wicked and they're hard and they're calloused and they're.

They're just venomous toward the gospel. Pray for them. Love them. Do good for them. Right? Isn't that what Jesus said? Pray for your enemies. Do good to those that hurt you.

Do good to those that hate you. Pray for those that persecute you. Let's pray. Father. Lord, we love you. And we realize that when people reject you, they're not rejecting us.

And when they're hateful toward us, it's not us they're hateful toward, it's you. And, Lord, I pray that rather than get mad, you didn't get mad. There was no guile found in you. You didn't curse them when they hung you on the cross.

You prayed for them, you loved them. And you asked God to not hold it to their charge.

So, Father, I pray that you'd help us to understand not only the makeup of a man, but the brokenness of men. The brokenness of men and women. Teenagers. Lord, help us to love them with a heart that you give us when we go out. I pray it in Jesus name.

Let him play through. Just a moment. If the holy spirit of God spoke to your heart, let him play through. If you want to come to the altar and pray.

God, give me a heart to witness to my hard coworker, my mean boss, my ugly neighbor, ugly spirited neighborhood.