GOSPEL OUTLINE

Bro. Miles Crouse

23 June 2007

Evangelism Basic Training Lesson 5

Always remember that giving the Gospel is a spiritual transaction.  Without the power of the Spirit of God, a person can be educated in the Gospel, but he cannot be saved.  We must always remember that some plant, some water, but God gives the increase.

Step 1: Relate to the Person:

Basically when going on a pre-arranged visit, this step is simply going to be an introduction of yourself.  If you are in an open air environment, seek to relate with the person talking of sports, whether, current events, etc.

• “Hi, I’m John from Tabernacle Baptist Church”

Step 2: Ask spiritual questions

It is important that at this point you let the person answer and get to know them a little bit.  This step will reveal where the person is spiritually

• “Do you have a spiritual background?”
• “Do you have an interest in spiritual things?”
• “Would you consider yourself a pretty good, moral person?”
• “Have you ever considered that you are going to stand before God one day?”
• “If you were to stand before God, and He were to ask you ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?’ what would you tell Him?”

[Remember at this point you are trying to see the soil of the person’s heart.  Are they proud?  Are they humble?  A good rule that revivalists like Whitefield and Wesley used is ‘Law to the proud, grace to the humble’.  Even with hearts that have already had planting and watering done, I still at least briefly go over the Law.  Most of the time though, you will most likely be spending plenty of time at step 3].

Transition: At this point you most people are going to be saying that they are a good person (Proverbs 20:6, “Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness”), but the truth of the matter is that every person on this earth is “lawless and disobedient” (2 Timothy 1:9). Unless your mother, brother, friend, and co-worker come to that same conclusion, they will be lost for ever.  We need to remember as Psalm 19:7 says, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul”.  The Law of God is the schoolmaster that shows us our desperate need for Christ (Galatians 4:23).  So when the person says how good they are, you might say:

•  “Actually the Bible gives us a test of whether we are good enough to go to heaven.”
• “Have you ever heard of the Ten Commandments?”

Step 3: Convict of sin using the God’s Law

Remember, this is not a method, but a spiritual work of God in the heart, so rely on God’s Holy Spirit to lead you.  It is the Holy Spirit who will convict of “sin, righteousness, and judgment” (John 16:18).  Here you want to bring the person into the courtroom of God’s Justice and leave them totally helpless apart from the mercy of Christ.

• "Do you think you have kept the 10 Commandments?" followed by asking specifically if the person has broken commandments, with questions such as:
• "Have you ever told a lie?" (9th commandment)
• "Have you ever stolen anything, no matter how long ago, regardless of its value?" (8th commandment),
• "Have you ever looked with lust? Jesus said that “whosoever looketh at a women to lust after hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:28, 7th commandment)
• "Have you ever taken the Lord's name in vain, which is called blasphemy?" (3rd commandment).
• “By your own admission you are a liar, a thief, an adulterer, and a blasphemer at heart and you have to face a holy, righteous God on Judgment Day.”
• “Remember, ten out of ten people die, so you will face God on Judgment Day.”
• “If God judges you according to His Ten Commandments (and He will), do you think you will be innocent or guilty”

(If the person hedges, you can use the DVD Illustration)

• DVD Illustration:  “When God judges your life, imagine you are standing before Him, and He plays back your entire life, except He takes anything good you’ve done out of it.  So He plays back as it were, your life on a DVD, but it’s only back to back sins.”

Step 4: Present the 2 Key Questions and Answer Self Justifications

Key Questions: When you present the Key Question, this will determine whether or not their heart is good soil, or whether it is hardened soil.  Here you are going to have all kinds of justifications.

• KEY QUESTION #1: “As God reveals all the thousands of lies and sins you’ve committed, would you be innocent or guilty?”

Once you’ve asked them if they are innocent or guilty and answered their justifications, if they still say innocent you bring them back through the Law to show them that there guilty.  

• KEY QUESTION #2: “Guilty?  Well based on that do you think you’d go to heaven or hell?”

Answer Self Justifications: Many times people will say “Guilty, but I’d go to heaven.”  Now you need to answer more justifications.

• Justification: “I think my good will outweigh my bad”  or “I’ve done a lot of good”. 
• Answer: “No amount of good will erase your sin.  If I tell the judge after being convicted of a crime, hey, I’m a humanitarian, can I get off?  What if I paint your house, or start a school for the poor in the area, then can I get off?  Actually that would be a bribe, and we cannot bribe God.”
• Answer: “If you sin once, the Bible says you’ve ‘come short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23).  Now if I’m 99% good and God’s standard is infinite perfection, how far is that 1% that I’ve fallen short?  Infinity.
• Answer “Actually God says that even the good things we’ve done are ‘as filthy rags’ (Isaiah 64:6).  Even if you didn’t have any sins, God would be just to cast you into the Lake of fire, just for your so-called ‘righteous’ deeds.  Everything we do is so full of self-centeredness that it really is not a good deed.  The Bible says in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9  Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
• Answer (Good Judge Illustration): “Imagine you are convicted of a crime, say, running a traffic light.  You go into the courtroom, and the officer testifies to your guilt.  The judge says ‘guilty’.  And you say, ‘but Judge, I’ve been a good person.  I’ve fed the poor, helped people.  I’ve built orphanages and schools for needy children.  Can you just let me off this once?’ What is the judge going to say?  ‘No way.  No amount of good you have done will ever take away your guilt.’”
• Answer “Actually the Bible says that God’s standard for righteousness is perfection.  The standard is ‘be holy as God is holy; be perfect as God is perfect, be pure as Jesus Christ is pure.’  Have you done that?”

• Justification: “That was then, this is now.  I’m really sorry.  I’ve changed”. 
• Answer: Again, use the Good Judge Illustration, except you say “’But Judge, I’ve changed.  I’m not going to do that anymore.  Can you let me off this once?  I’m so sorry’ What is the judge going to say?  ‘You ought to be sorry!  But no amount of sorrow and repentance will take away your guilt.’”

• Justification: “I don’t know, I’ll just have to wait and see.  It’s not that important to me.” 
• Answer (Selling of Eyes Illustration): “If I gave you a million dollars, would you give me your right eye?   How about a billion, would you give me both eyes?  No?  Why not?  Because your eyes are precious.  They are the windows to the soul.  Now if your eyes are so precious, how much more is your soul?  You don’t want to lose your soul do you?”

• Justification: “I’ll go to heaven because God will forgive my sin.  That’s His job...” 
• Answer “Why do you say that?  If I signed a contract to pay you $50 and I didn’t pay it, would you be morally obliged to forgive me?  If a drunk driver takes someone’s life, the life is gone.  Is the judge morally obliged to let him go?  Why should God let us go?”

• Justification: “I haven’t sinned so much that I deserve hell.”
• Answer: “God cannot have even one sin in His heaven.  (Satan illustration): Satan, the devil, was once a beautiful angel in heaven.  He sinned only once.  Do you know what his sin was?  Pride.  He said ‘I’ll be like the most High’.  That’s exactly what we do every day.  We sin against God in our pride when we want to make the calls for our life.  We don’t consult Him.  Well, for the one sin of pride, God cast Satan out of heaven, and he became the devil.  We’ve sinned a whole lot more than one time.”
• Answer “If heaven is a perfect place, how many sins would it take to make it an imperfect place? Just one.”

After each justification, ask the key question again.  “If God judges you according the Ten Commandments, do you think you’d go to heaven or hell?”  If they say Heaven, answer their justifications.  You might also quote John 3:18 that we are “condemned already” and John 3:36 that right now the “wrath of God” is already resting upon sinners.  If their hearts are humbled and they admit that they are on their way to hell, then you can present the Gospel.

Step 5: Proclaim the Gospel.

The only way a person can be saved is if they cry out for mercy to Jesus alone.  Salvation is by grace through faith.

CHRIST DIED FOR YOUR SINS (SUBSTITIONARY ATONEMENT)

KEY QUESTION: “Do you know that God did something wonderful so that you wouldn’t have to go to hell?”  (Let them answer).

• John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
• “This was actually promised long ago, since the beginning of the world.  In fact the prophet Isaiah talks about it in Isaiah 53:6, ‘All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.’”
• “Jesus promised to be our substitute.  God would only accept a sinless sacrifice”
• Christ had to satisfy the wrath of God for our sin (propitiation). Isaiah 53:11, “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.”

IMPUTATION

• “There is actually a great exchange.  The Bible says that when you put your faith in Jesus, all of your sin and guilt is put on Him, and all of His righteousness is put on you.”  (Romans 4:22-24, 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:”)
• “A person is made justified by believing in the death and resurrection of Christ.  He knows that no amount of good deeds will take away his sins—so he puts his complete faith in what Christ has done, and then on the Day of Judgment when God opens the books, there is no sin on the believer’s account, only the righteousness of Jesus Christ”.

REPENTANCE & FAITH

• “Jesus said, in order to have eternal life, you need to repent and believe (Mark 1:15).”

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO REPENT?

• Train Illustration: Imagine you have a Lazy Boy chair on the train tracks.  You have your head phones on, You are watching a movie on your MP3 player.  You can’t hear or see the train coming at you.  Now when God takes the earphones away and turns you to where you can see the train, what are you going to do?  You are going to hear the train’s horn and see the bright light of the coming train and you are going to leave all your comforts behind and flee for safety.   We are told in the Bible to “flee from the wrath to come” (Matthew 3:7). 
• “So you need to reject the way you’ve been living—lying, cheating, lusting, blasphemy—and turn from all of that.”
• Explain the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow (simple guilt over sin).
• Godly sorrow is to see your sin as God sees your sin.  (This is a gift from God).  It is seeing the cost of your sin—that your sin was so heinous that the blood of the infinite Son of God had to be shed for you.   What do we see when we see Christ (mangled and suffering) on the cross?  That is the cost for our sin.  All the wrath of God was poured out on Him.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVE FAITH?

• “Then you need to have faith in Christ.  You need to depend on Him for mercy”.
• Chair Illustration: Sitting in a chair is a good example of faith.  Faith is dependence.  I can say all day long that I trust the chair, but until I sit in it, I am not trusting.  Many people say they trust Jesus, but they never sit in the chair.  (Here you can demonstrate that unless I’ve put my full weight on the chair with feet off the floor, I am not trusting.  It is the same way with trusting Christ.  I cannot trust good works, church attendance, baptism, or anything else for heaven.  It is Christ alone). 

CONCLUSION

• If they are willing, then have them call on the name of the Lord. 
• Romans 10:9, 13, “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. 13  For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
• Let them know their faith, not some magic words, save them.  It is something in the heart.
• Allow them to pray to God, repenting of their life of sin and putting their unreserved trust and dependence on Christ—crying out for mercy.

Follow up: Give them a Bible and have them read Psalm 51 when they get home.  Also have them begin reading the Gospel of John.  Set an appointment for basic discipleship.