Basic Home Page
Needed School Material
Weekly Assignments
Sections & Chapters

Textbook Illustrations
Certificate of Completion

 _________________

layevangelism.com

Advanced Evangelism
Training Program

Author
Contact
 Order Books
Bible Internet Quick R
Topical Scriptures

1 Corinthians 9:11
"If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we should reap material things from you?"

Evangelism:
The Time Is Now!

Section 1, Chapter 9

A Field Presentation
of the Gospel Using

What Is Eternal Life?

Chapter Illustration

Page 2 of Pages 1, 3, 4
Study Questions

The Purpose of Page 5: Today’s generation is completely oblivious to the consequences of sin as you will discover in reading the field testimonies in Section 6 of this Textbook. As long as men are relying on and hoping in their own works for salvation and do not know clearly that the bible teaches that the only way they can pay sin’s penalty is through eternal separation from God in a fiery hell forever, they won’t recognize or be open and receptive to God’s ONLY remedy for their sins which is Jesus’ death and shed blood on the cross. Therefore, the purpose of page 5 is, first, to establish clearly that the penalty of sin is eternal separation from God in a fiery hell forever and that no amount of works on our part can remedy this fact. Once this is established they will then be able to hear clearly without confusion or misunderstanding what God’s only remedy for their sin is: Jesus’ death and shed blood on the cross. Page 5 also establishes how we know this to be an absolute truth which is Jesus’ Physical Resurrection from the dead.

Another purpose of the presentation on this page is to correct false notions that many cults have about the existence of hell. Both Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses teach the non-existence of hell. Jehovah witnesses teach that when we die we are no more, we cease to exist. Jesus’ statement in Mark 9:47-48 not only establishes clearly hells existence, but that people who go there do not die and that this torment is forever.

One time while sharing this Salvation Tract with a Jehovah witness on the field, when I shared Jesus’ statement in Mark 9:47-48, he commented that he did not know that this passage was in the Bible and wanted a copy of the tract to look up the references later. You will find that this tract covers and corrects most major cult issues without having to comment on them directly as in this case with the Jehovah Witness.

The Purpose of Page 6 is to explain what it means to receive Jesus as Savior. There are many ways to salvation proclaimed by the religions of the world: through works, through water baptism, through speaking in tongues and through repenting of our sins. While repenting of our sins is the first step toward God’s salvation for us (John 3:19-21, Luke 24:46-47), the Bible is plain that salvation through the law or works or repentance is impossible. Jesus Himself stated very clearly in Matthew 19:26 that with man salvation is impossible. The reasons for this are made very clear in Chapter 6 of this Section and Chapter 1 of Section 3. Why then did God give us the Law if not for salvation? Paul explains to us in Romans 3:20 and Galatians 3:24 that God gave us His law to show us that we are hopelessly lost sinners in need of a savior and therefore to point us to God’s means of salvation for us through Jesus Christ. Therefore, receiving Jesus as Savior first of all means that we recognize that we cannot save ourselves through our own works.

If we cannot be saved through our own works, how are we saved from our sins? Paul tells us plainly in Romans 5:8-9: only through the death and shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Therefore, second, by receiving Jesus Christ as Savior we are telling God the Father that we are coming to Him for the forgiveness of our sins through His Son’s death and shed blood on the cross and that alone to save us, nothing else.

The Purpose of Page 7: is to explain what we mean by receiving Jesus as Lord. What does it mean to receive Jesus as Lord? It means that God has a will and plan for our lives and that there is no other way to that plan except through Jesus. That is why Jesus died on the cross for our sins, so we would not spend the rest of our lives focused on trying to gain God’s forgiveness through works. Why? Because God has a purpose and plan for our lives and He wants us focused on that, not on trying to gain His forgiveness. The writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 10:10, 12, & 14 makes plain that Jesus’ death on the cross has paid the debt of all our sins past, present and future. Once we receive Jesus as Savior and Lord we are forgiven and then free to focus, not on trying to gain God’s forgiveness for our sins which we already have through Jesus, but on the will and plan that he has for our lives.

Second, to receive Jesus as Lord means to repent of our sins. Jesus said in Luke 24:46-47,

"And He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day; and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’"

Repenting of our sins will not save us or gain God’s forgiveness, but only after we have repented of our sins will we be able to release our faith to receive God’s forgiveness for our sins through Jesus’ death and shed blood on the cross. Martin Luther was a very holy man. He had long confessed and repented of His sins; but after confessing and repenting of his sins, he did not have assurance of salvation or God’s forgiveness until he received God’s forgiveness for his sins by faith through the death and shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. However, neither was Luther able to release his faith in God’s salvation through Jesus’ death and shed blood until he first confessed and repented of his sins. His problem was not needing to repent of any sins, but rather how to gain God’s forgiveness for sins already repented of. This is why just repenting of our sins will not save us.

However, there are many who teach and preach that all you have to do to be saved is receive Jesus as Savior without needing to repent of your sins. Jesus made plain in John 3:19-21 that this is impossible. He wrote:

"And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." (John 3:19-21)

Jesus made plain that until a person repents of His sin that that person will not turn to Him. This is in fact why John the Baptist was sent first to preach to the people to repent: so they would turn to Jesus when He manifested Himself publicly. That is why we are to preach to people to repent of their sins and what the Bible teaches sin is that they need to repent of, because until they repent of their sins, they won’t turn to Jesus or be interested in the salvation He has for them.

One of the things that motivated me to write this tract on salvation, besides emphasizing the relational aspect of Christianity, was that in sharing the Gospel on the field in the past several years I came to realize that this generation does not know what the Bible means by sin. That is why on this page I quote 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. When I come to this page and quote this passage, especially to college students, I get the following responses:

"Homosexuality is sin? I thought it was genetic, my professor teaches it is genetic."

"I thought sex outside of marriage was okay as long as two people are consenting. Isn’t this necessary for two people to know if they are compatible before getting married?"

Part of the job of sharing the Gospel is explaining to people what the Bible means by sin. WEL is intentionally designed to do this on this page.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Galatians 5:19-21, Ephesians 5:5-6, and the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 10:26-27 make it plain that if a person does not repent of his sins, that Jesus’ death and shed blood on the cross will not save him:

"For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries." (Hebrews 10:26-27)

In order to receive Jesus’ death and shed blood on the cross, we must first confess and repent of our sins. This is why in our sharing the Gospel we also need to preach to people to repent of their sins.

What is involved in repentance? The word repent, in the Greek metanoew,¹⁷² means three things according to John the Baptist in Matthew Chapter 3: first, it means to confess our sins to God, to agree with God that what we have done is wrong (3:6). Second, repenting of our sins means to make right the wrongs we have confessed (3:3). Luke records in Luke 19:8-9,

"And Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.’" (Luke 19:8-9)

Jesus and John the Baptist make plain that repentance involves making right the wrongs we have done. Third, repentance involves bringing forth fruit in keeping with repentance. When the Pharisees and Sadducees came to John the Baptist to be baptized in water for the forgiveness of their sins who had no intentions of discontinuing or making right the sins they had committed, he gave them the following response:

"You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." (Matthew 3:7-10)

Therefore, third, not only does repentance mean to confess our sins and make right the wrongs we have confessed, but it also means to then in life style and practice to continue to bring forth fruit in keeping with what we have repented of.

What does repenting of our sins not mean? As we have already shared, it does not mean we can be saved through repenting of our sins. Some religions will tell you that to repent means to do penance. Penance involves doing something like community service, saying prayers over and over again. During the middle ages it would involve all kinds of self-abasement like whipping oneself. This is again just another way of trying to gain God’s forgiveness for our sins through our own works. Martin Luther, before he discovered that God’s forgiveness was received by faith, would crawl on his knees up and down stairs while saying many prayers. This however is not what Jesus meant when He said that we must repent in order for His blood to be applied to our sins. The only thing repenting of our sins means is to confess our sins, make right the wrong confessed and then continue to bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance which means to continue to do what is right, not what is wrong. Repentance does not mean anything beyond this.

Study Questions
Continued on Pages 3, 4; Back to Page 1
Bibliography & Notes
Section 1 Chapters

Top of Page