This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, clearly declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. And reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

But anyway, next statement, not a letter C. Don’t put him on the defense by condemning and underline these two things. religion or opinion. In other words, because you can just start an argument right off the bat because you know they don’t believe right and they gave you an opinion about something in government or whatever it might be and you don’t agree with that and you can just start up an argument just like that. But is that what you’re after?

So you say you know that’s interesting. I see you kind of like where you’re coming from and you can just let it go. And not sometime I have a person ask me a question and she said, no, that’s a good question. When we get through talking about this, remind me and I’ll try to answer that for you. Now, what I did, as I didn’t tell him I couldn’t answer, I just told him that this is more important and that I’ll answer that later, you remind me.

So if we never get to it, you didn’t remind me. Sure fault, not mine. And then by the time we get through talking, it never comes up. But if I hadn’t have done that, they would have eat up all my time. Remember, time is valuable. Redeem in the time because the days are evil. You don’t have forever to do this. Look at the next statement. Don’t be self-righteous or fair seagull by talking down to the prospect and giving the impression that you are better than he is.

In other words, write this little statement down so that you’ve got it in those notes, don’t you? You know, I used to be ignorant like you. I used to be ignorant, just like you. Now, you may be telling the truth, but do you want to win them or start a fight? Now, if they’re bigger than you, I wouldn’t do this unless you’ve got to choose on and you can run fast. Because sooner or later, somebody’s going to give you a Hawaiian punch.

Now, notice, letter E, don’t be guilty of having an underlying these two little words, bad breath. Don’t get in somebody’s face like it. Let me show you what the Bible says. And there is a path out. Or just, you know, you don’t want to be like, huh. So you get the point, right? Good breath. And I mean, if you’re just going to go smooching, you didn’t know what you would do, try to smell good. Don’t you all do that.

Against the rules. Now here we are, we’re moving right along. Letter F, don’t be rude or blunt like a lawyer on cross-examination. Don’t be so forceful. You wanna lead him. The next statement. Don’t lean on the center while dealing with him. Keep your hands off the person. Don’t be a spiritual psycho or religious nut. Don’t be hollering, jerking, shouting. Exhib it, a sane, simple, pleasing disposition. In other words, it’s like witnessing two Jehovah’s Witnesses. One is usually a trainer and the other one’s a learner.

One knows what they’re doing, the other one hasn’t got a clue. And if anybody loses their temper, let it be them. You stay under control because when you lose your temper, people turn against the persons usually that loses their temper. They lose control. Because if you’re a Christian, why are you losing your control? See, they just expect more of you than probably what you think that you should do. Look at the next statement. Don’t wear out your welcome. Now, I have gone to many homes.

I’ve gone to the hospital. I’ve gone to nursing homes. I’ve gone to restaurants and all these things that you meet people. And sometimes if they’re on the job, they’re working. Respect. That they have a job to fulfill. You don’t take all their time. If you can talk to them very quickly, briefly, that’s fine. But you cannot hog that person’s time and they’ve got places to serve, things to do, and you can’t eat up all their time because I don’t think that’s wise for you to do so.

I was in one restaurant and I was coming through South Dakota and I was so hungry, I stopped there. I think maybe it was with me this time. in this time. And there’s a lot of people in there. And the waitresses were busy carrying stuff all over the place. And I had left the track and I got rid of living. She said, sir, sir, sir. And we’re standing there. I’m standing up. And there’s people everywhere. And people to be served.

And she’s got, she says, can you explain that to me real quick? Can I explain to her? Now if she asked me that, I’m going to take this. What time it takes explaining to her. And I explained to her and she trusted Christ as her Savior just like that. It was just like she was ready. She was right. And she asked me if I would explain Now, should I say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I can’t do that.

Learn how to have some sensibility in some of this stuff. But remember, if they’re on the clock, another man’s paying that person for their time. So you want to be as wise as you possibly can. Do what you can, but respect their time. The last thing down there is don’t rush him, lead gently. Don’t rush him, lead gently. gently because that’s what you’re trying to do. You want to lead a person. Think of the next statement. At the top of the page, or write this little statement down, in soul winning, you must make a spiritual transition.

Because generally you don’t start off with, you know, let me tell you about Jesus Christ, or what you trust Christ as your Savior. Usually there’s got to be some approach to it ahead of time. Now, when you go out cold turkey, you don’t take a lot of time. You may just hit him right between the eyes with some of these questions that we have here. And if you can do that, fine. But generally, if you’re talking to somebody in the hospital or somebody home, you don’t walk into a hospital room.

Do you know where you’re going when you die? No, you may want to take and be a little bit more subtle than what they are. Oh, I hear you’re not going to make it through the night. But you’ve got to figure out a way to say things that will not be so scary for somebody. Dr. Curtis has a doctor who came to his meeting and he was explaining how that she’d got a witness So the doctor told him says I’m gonna do this I have not done this in my job and I need to do more No witnessing on the job and so this guy came in there and just so Just a regular check up physical check up and make sure he’s healthy and all I got and so he said I need to witness to this guy so he went and got in my track and he came back

He says do you know where you’re going to die? Let me be on a die. It’s my heart. It’s my hard knock. And the guy, he thought he was going to have a heart attack Because the doctor asked him, you know where you’re going you die. Well, he learned how not to do it quite so boom and So hopefully y’all will learn how to do that But look at the first day, but this is the fear of beginning the spiritual conversation You can talk about things in general, but when it comes to making the transition You can talk to him about football, baseball, you can talk to him about the weather, you can talk to him about anything that you want to.

Okay, now how do I make this transition? Because you’re going to go from these natural things to these spiritual things. And so you’ve got to, there’s got to be a bridge somehow. You’ve got to figure out a way to how to get from where you are to where you want to be. and you’ve got to get him to follow you. And some people you can talk to them, but when you mention anything about the Bible, I’m sorry, I got to go.

I don’t want to hear that. And they know whenever you have made that transition, some of them are aware enough, and they’ve heard enough preaching over the years, and I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to talk about that. I’ve had people say, but I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to talk about death. I just can’t handle it. But if they only knew the truth, they could handle it. but they don’t know. And so you’re gonna have to deal with that.

Look at the second statement there. You have no difficulty talking about current events. But, underlying this, changing the conversation to the spiritual can be frightening because you are entering into another world. This is where Satan will attack as much as possible because see, the other can be a gradual conversation about anything and most people don’t have a problem that. That’s not the part of getting started. You can do that and that’s not a problem. But when you start on the spiritual things, that’s when the battle starts.

That’s when your mind begins to rage and you become afraid of saying something because you don’t always know how they’re going to respond. You don’t want to be rejected and all those things. Look at the next statement. These are some of the fixed approaches that I have seen. I’ve used and I’ve done a lot more than these. Just questions that you would have in your mind on how to open up a conversation. Because you want to know how to date the line that can get that fish’s attention and lure them and you want to get them on the hook.

But a lot of people can do very well on that, but they can’t get the fish in the boat. You’ve got to know how to draw the net. How do you draw the net? Oh, words, get them into the boat. Look at number one, if you were to die today, are you really sure you would go to heaven? Have you ever accepted Jesus Christ as a personal Savior? There’s nothing wrong with any of these questions, but you might have to find out what works for you and what works for somebody else may not work as smoothly for you.

You have to find out what you’re like and how you can best present the gospel, though the gospel has to be the same thing, but you’re opening and closing, that’s a personal touch that you need to develop. And you can listen to me sometimes in church and you’ll hear how I word it, but you may word it just a little bit different, but it needs to be you and it needs to be natural. And you need to get it to where you can just flow with it, where it’s not a hard complicated thing.

After you’ve done it about five, ten thousand times, it’ll come to you. You only you have to think about it. It just come naturally. But think of how many times you think I have probably given the gospel. I’ve worn out wallets by many times. So anyway, look at the next statement. Number three, have you ever had anyone take the Bible and show you how to be certain of eternal life? If you were to die right now, are you 100% sure you’d go to heaven?

Have you ever thought about where you would spend eternity? Do you know where you’re going when you die. Aren’t they all good questions? They are very good leading questions. And do you know where you’re going today? In your opinion, what would you believe a person must do to inherit eternal life and go to heaven? In your opinion. That’s a good one. You notice a lot of times I use the one about, and I started mentioning that because I started doing it a little bit more, and that is, you know, when Christ died on the cross and paid for the sins of the world.

He came back from the dead and all he wanted you to do was believe he did it for you. You can handle that can’t you? I’m there has a no I can handle that wasn’t me I can handle that that’s all I got to do well it is all they have to do was you believe he did that for you and it’s a good way of doing it and another one that I use that I don’t have it down here and that is simply that isn’t it true that you’ve heard all your life that Jesus Christ down the cross and paid for all the same world I like to use that Then another one that I just developed not long ago is if you knew for sure that you had eternal life and you knew positively that you were going to heaven when you died.

Would you tell me? Isn’t that a good question? I did what one person didn’t work out too good, but I had some that would. So sometime it worked, sometime it don’t work. Find out what works. Look at the next statement. This tragedy of these approach questions is to draw the prospect out by letting him talk as much as possible. possible. Ask the question and then be quiet. Wait for him to response. When he is finished, go to the next question.

Do not correct him. Underline this statement. Do not correct him or disagree with him at any of these times. Just let him tell you what he thinks. Because you’re not going to quit. But you can throw a it’s like trying to get a man to swallow a gristle. And they can’t swallow the gristle. So they choke something so they can’t eat no more. So don’t give a man a gristle. Don’t argue about them and trying to shove it down his throat.

If truth can be understood a person can agree with it and you say does that make sense? Well kind of but what part doesn’t make sense to you and you want to lead them you want to answer their questions and it will help them tremendously. Or you can simply say something along and do you mind if I shared with you what I found out? Now you didn’t you listen to Him. Do you mind if I take just a few minutes and tell you what I found out or how I know that I’m going to heaven?

You don’t have to correct anything they said or did. Now you may know that everything He said was wrong but you don’t have to start an argument over it. We’ve done notes at the bottom. Following the approach question is best to underlined this, get their permission. I use this all the time. Can I give you my picture? John John says it’s his but the thing is, can I give you my picture? I want you to remember me and I didn’t do it one day the other not long ago.

I says you know we never met before I have a so we can’t be enemies we must be friends so if we’re friends I want to give you my picture and it just happens to be on this little boot track. But on the back of it, it got my name and I want you to know who I am. I said like Yankee, see that Yankee that? Have you ever heard a Yankee doodle? Yeah, yeah, that was my dad. And I said that’ll laugh too.

And I had a bunch of them say really? Because everybody’s heard of a Yankee doodle. I said that was my dad. Really? No, no, no, no. But you’ve got to find out something that might be a little humorous, but everybody has their own unique way of doing things. Find out what works for you. But something you’re doing. your way will work. Let God use you, be creative. Look at the next thing. Do you mind if I took the Bible and showed you a couple of verses on how to be, do you mind if I take the Bible?

Do you mind if I show you something that may love you? Do you mind, that’s acting permission. It’s not just ramming things down the throat and it can be a little softer, be a little more soothing to them. Or the last statement I have down there on that page is would you like to know? If you could know you could have your turn wouldn’t you like to know? Or look at the top of the next page, top of the next page, the fear of not knowing how to present Christ.

This is why you come to college. This is why you learn. And so there’s a little statement here. The last line in the first paragraph here, the solution for counteracting this fear lies in goodness, mastering a presentation of the gospel. How are you going to present this message? Now, I want you to notice there, the next paragraph says, decide what the soul winner’s message really is, then develop a plan of presenting it. And then underline this statement. I got the right turn, you know, but underline it.

It is true that salvation is not a plan, it’s a person. But you must have a way of introducing this person. I want to introduce a person to God Almighty. Did you know that God wants to know you? And did you know that you want to know God? Isn’t it a shame that two people who want to know each other don’t get to meet each other? You’re helping to introduce a person to somebody who would give their life to know you.

That’s powerful. And I want to introduce you to this person. Now look what we have here. In the next paragraph, not only must one know what the underlying or circle this word. Message, you gotta have the message, pull the center is, but also one should develop a simple and then circle this word, presentation. You gotta have the message and you gotta have a presentation, a way of presenting that message. And then we should know the underlying these words, proper scriptures to use.

So a lot of people know a lot of verses in the Bible, but they don’t have a working knowledge of the Bible. In other words, their knowledge doesn’t work from doesn’t produce anything. They’re just verses they know in the Bible. I’ve read the Bible. You don’t know the Bible, write this down. You don’t know the Bible until the Bible controls your life. You don’t know the Bible just because you memorize verses. You don’t know the Bible until the Bible controls your life.

Now look at letter D, it’s not written in here, but you can write down after that right before the words. There are seven basic things. Write this a D and fear of failure. The fear of failure or the fear of rejection can scare you to death. We want to be accepted. We want people to like us. But I know that when we get to heaven, those people you reached are going to be so glad you did. And the people that you witnessed too, that did not trust Christ as their Savior, are going to remember you did.

Look at the next statement. There are seven basic things a sinner must know in order to be saved. Likewise, there are certain scripture passages to use in pointing a sinner to accept Christ as a Savior. Now, underline this statement because it’s a good statement. There is a simple presentation of the gospel using the wallet illustration that many soul winners use. Some of the greatest, the best soul winners use the wallet illustration. Now, if you develop a better illustration, I’m going to be ashamed of you if you don’t tell me about it.

But so far, I haven’t found a better one after 55 years, it’s the best illustration I’ve ever seen because it helps to make the gospel clear to the lost man. Now, years ago, the man that I learned from was Dr. A. Ray Stanford. He’s one of the perfected the simplicity of the gospel using that wallet illustration. But when he’s sinned and messed up, there’s a lot of people who didn’t want to use that anymore because they associated that to Dr.

Stanford. No, associate that with the gospel. I don’t do it because somebody else did it. I do it because I believe it’s the best way to make it clear. And after 50-some years, I’ve seen a multitude of people that have trusted the Lord because they understood the gospel. So I didn’t want to become a Stanfordite, and I don’t want you to become a Yankeeite, or John Henryite. I just want you to be a soul-winner for the Lord. I just want you to be fruitful.

Now look at the next statement. It’s in the bowl there. Remember a poor presentation Is better than no presentation at all Wouldn’t you agree to that? Wouldn’t it be better for you to make a poor presentation than none? But isn’t it easier not to do anything at all Just go through life and live a happy go lucky life, and it doesn’t really matter There’s other people God will use somebody else, but see what I want. I want God to use me.

I I didn’t care how many other people God used. I wanted to be used. I want people to be in heaven because they heard the gospel because it shows I cared about them. Winning souls is the greatest thing that shows you really love people. Genuinely love people. All the other things you can do does not prove genuinely that you really love people because witnessing is the most difficult thing for anybody to do. inconsistently all your life. Try for 50 something years, 57 in my case.

Now notice the last statement here, you have in the middle of that page, the fear of rejection causes many potential soul winners to hesitate or fail to give an invitation at all. The tendency is to call the preacher for help or walk away saying, well I hope you’ll come to church this son and get it settled. The solution to this fear is to learn an invitation each time or give an invitation, anytime you present the God. If you can make it clear to the person and then you ask them this question, does this make sense to you?

Do you understand what I’m saying? Then I will ask them to trust Christ the Savior. If it doesn’t make sense, I don’t ask them to trust the Lord because it doesn’t make sense because then they’ll say word but they don’t really mean it because they don’t understand it. If you’re going to trust Christ the Savior, you should know why. Why? Because I’m getting fire insurance. I’m not going to go to hell. Christ died. He paid for all of my sins.

That’s how I know I’m going to heaven when I die. And so you want people to trust the Lord. So when you’re going to give an invitation, make sure it’s because you’ve already asked, does it make sense to you? Now down at the bottom down here, years ago, I learned how to do the Isaiah role road, and I’ve done the Roman road. And I like the best road is the wallet road. I believe it’s the best. So where I have the word, the best road, you circle that.

That’s what we teach and that’s what we preach. Now it’s good to know the other because when you witness to a Jewish person, you might wanna use the Isaiah road. Cause you go to the book of Isaiah and go right through the gospel with them. And you can use the Roman road because you’ll find a lot of people already know all those verses that are found in the book of Romans and you can go right through it and explain the gospel.

But most people get hung up in the 10 chapter. So that’s why you have to be careful. And we’ll be covering more about that a little later. Let me show you this illustration that we’re using. Remember, you are going to have to give a demonstration of the wallet illustration. You’re gonna have to go through all seven steps and in order. Are y’all listening? And you’re gonna do it in class in front of everybody else. And you gotta stand up here and you’ve got to do it just like the preacher does.

Now, if you change it on down the road, I don’t care. But when you take my class, you’re going to do it the way I want it done. And I’m going to grade you on it. And I want to know that you say it right and that you do it in right order. Now, letting this hand represent you and me. And you don’t want to get this hand too close because it won’t look good. And whatever you do the wall of illustration, You always don’t go like this like some people.

Let this hand represent you and me, and this wallet represents sin. You see, people have a tendency to look at whatever you’re looking at. They’re gonna look at what you’re looking at. I want them to look at what I’m looking at. So I wanna look at what I want them to look at. This hand represents you and me. The wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us. Because the Bible says all of us have sinned. And the ways of sin is death.

So we’re all guilty and so we’re all eternally to be separated from God. We’re all going to die. But God loves us once as to go to heaven. To go to heaven, we have to be. Perfect as righteous as God because heaven is perfect. And we can’t get in because we’re not perfect. We have sin. And the Bible says you cannot pay for your sins by your good works. And if you’re already condemned to die and good works won’t pay for your sins, how are you going to get your sins paid for?

This hand representing Jesus Christ. He’s the Lord God in the flesh. He came into the world because He loves us, hates our sin because our sins separates us from Him. So Jesus tries who had no sin, didn’t have to die. So He took all the sin of all the world, paid for it on the cross, came back from the dead, and said that if we would believe He did that for us, He would give us as a free gift everlasting life and we can know that we’re going to heaven.

Now, that’s all seven steps in order. And remember this, when you get to where you put it in order, your help on a person’s mind to think in a logical way. Don’t do it backwards or don’t do it sideways. Which one of these points would you leave out? We have all sinned. Would you leave that point out? You’re talking to a lost man. No, he needs to know that right. The ways is of sin is death. Eternal separation for God.

Do you think you ought to put that in or just leave that out? If you’ve got to be perfect to go to heaven. You think we ought to include that or leave that out. I mean if you can’t earn your way to heaven should we put that in or leave that out. At this hand representing Jesus Christ should we leave that out? So we got to put that in here. Well all you have to do is believe it, should we leave that part out?

And if you’ll believe it you can know you have eternal life should we leave that out? Which one of these points would you leave out? None. And you needed the sequence because a mind can follow it logically. Now some people, they just throw it all out there, all seven points, but the mind doesn’t grasp it and they don’t, they will not have the amount of people trust the Lord like I’ve had over 50 years. I have followed the philosophy in this thing.

I don’t know if you could have come up with a better, simpler plan on how to present the gospel than what we have been doing. And I’m telling you, that’s what I believe is the truth. Well, with heads, bow nice, close, and no one looking around. If you’re watching by internet, right where you are, I want you to know that God loves you, and he really does, and that he paid for your sins. He did. He came back from the dead, and all he wanted you to do is the only thing you can do is to believe He did it for you.

Because God does not accept any of your works. You’re going to church, giving money, living a good life. None of that merits anything. Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy He saved us. So the only thing you have to do is the only thing you can do where you trust Christ as your Savior. And if you’ll trust Him, God will save you, give eternal life. And you can know that you’re going to heaven whenever you die.

Father, we thank you so much for this time together. Bless each one here. Thank you for this class and Christ’s name we pray. Amen. Are you a new listener to Bibleline? Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr. Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr. Arnold’s book, The Gospel-Driven Man. Every day we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works, and about how to share the gospel with friends and loved ones.

This book, The Gospel Driven Man, covers all those topics, and we want all new listeners of Bibleline to receive a free copy. There’s no obligation, no donation necessary, simply call us at 1-800-576-3771 or write to us and request your free copy of The Gospel Driven Man. The mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. And don’t forget to include your mailing address. And God bless you and thank you for listening to Bibleline. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline.

If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. And now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound and we will be changed. up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believe in that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.