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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 4, Chapter 9
A Field Presentation
Of the Forgiveness
Tract
Page 1 of 2 Pages
In this mock demonstration, I want to illustrate what to do when after asking the person which person on p. 11 (Text only) of What Is Eternal Life? best represents their life, they answer some where in the middle. This usually means that the person has received Jesus into their life in the past, but either because of ignorance or self-will they have retaken control of their life and are no longer walking with Jesus today. The purpose of this mock presentation is to show you how to use the Forgiveness Tract titled, Jesus Is The Answer To Your Needs to bring a Christian back to Jesus by accomplishing the following five objectives:
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Attain, first, a clear indication and confession from the person about how and when they first received Jesus into their hearts as Savior and Lord.
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Second, to give the person assurance of Salvation by going over page 13 (Text only) of What Is Eternal Life?
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Third, to explain to the person how to release their faith in Jesus’ forgiveness for sins confessed and repented of.
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Fourth, to explain to the person how to resurrender the Lordship of their lives to Jesus and be refilled and stay filled with the Holy Spirit.
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And then finally, fifth, to show them how to draw upon Jesus’ grace, strength & power to overcome the problems in their lives that led them to backslide in the first place and stay strong in Jesus to live an ongoing victorious Christian life.
After a person states that they are somewhere in the middle of the two people on page 11 (Text only) of the Salvation Tract What Is Eternal Life? do the following to lead them into the Forgiveness Tract: Jesus Is The Answer To Your Needs and accomplish the above five objectives:
Layman Evangelist (LE): John, which of these two people best represents Your life?
John: Oh! I am some where in the middle.
LE: Have you ever prayed and received Jesus into Your life before?
John: Yes.
LE: How did you first come to receive Jesus as Your Savior and Lord?
John: When I was in high school, a friend on campus shared with me about Jesus and with him I prayed and received Jesus into my life as Savior and Lord.
LE: John, if you did receive Jesus into Your life in the past, He is still in Your life though He may not be perfectly Lord of Your life. We know this is true because of His promise given to us in Hebrews 13:5. Jesus said in this passage (pointing to it on p. 13 (Text only) of the Salvation Tract), "I will never ever desert you, nor will I ever, ever, ever forsake you." (Heb 13:5). This is a literal translation from the Greek text which has a double and a triple negative stated: "never ever" and "never, never, never." Jesus wants us to know emphatically that He will not! leave or forsake us. The significance of this truth is stated in this passage above in 1 John 5:11-12. John tells us that God the Father has given you and I a testimony about what determines whether or not we have eternal life and will go to heaven. John tells us in this passage:
"And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life."
John, God the Father tells you and I that what determines whether or not we have eternal life is not whether we belong to the perfect Church or whether we have lived the perfect Christian life, but by whether or not we have His Son Jesus Christ living in us. Since Jesus said that once we invite Him into our lives that He will not leave or forsake us and since the Father says to have the Son is to have eternal life, even though you may not be in right standing with the Lord in Your life, based on these promises of Jesus, you can know that you do have eternal life and that you will go to heaven because Jesus lives in You.
Explanation: When a person believes he has lost his salvation over past sins he believed he could not overcome, he is not going to be receptive initially to your talking to him about his need to repent and rededicate his life to Jesus. Therefore, the first thing you need to do is establish with them that even though Jesus may not be presently Lord over their lives that He is still in their lives and that because this is true they do have eternal life. Their knowing this first, which is positive, will make them then receptive to hear what you have to say about Jesus’ forgiveness for their past and present sins and about their need to repent and rededicate their lives to Jesus.
LE: John I have another Tract here that I think would better minister to Your need. It is called Jesus Is The Answer To Your Needs. The book explains how to experience Jesus’ forgiveness on a moment by moment basis.
The first page (Text only) here explains that the Bible talks about three kinds of People: Soulish, Spiritual and Fleshly. A Soulish Man117 is a person who is motivated and controlled through their Soul: their intellect and feelings, and through their Flesh: their appetites and desires. This is a person without Christ and devoid of Spirit, our means of communicating with and having a relationship with God. The Apostle Paul wrote:
"But a man who is motivated-and-controlled-through-his-soul does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are discerned through the spirit." (1 Cor 2:14)
A Spiritual Man118 (p. 2) (Text only) is a person who has received Jesus Christ into his heart as Savior and Lord; and who as a result is motivated and controlled by Jesus through their spirit. The Apostle Paul wrote:
"But he who is motivated-and-controlled-through-his-spirit discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned by no man. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor 2:15-16)
A Fleshly Man120 (p. 3) (Text only) is a Christian who because of ignorance or self-will has retaken control of his life. As a result, like the Soulish Man, he is again following the leading and motivation of his Soul: his intellect and feelings, and his Flesh: his appetites and desires. The Apostle Paul wrote:
"And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to men motivated-and-controlled-through-your-spirit, but as to men motivated-and-controlled-through-your-flesh, as to babes in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still motivated-and-controlled-through-your-flesh. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not motivated-and-controlled-through-your-flesh, and are you not walking like mere men?" (1 Cor 3:1-3)
John: I am not sure I understand what you mean by being motivated through the spirit? What is the difference between the spirit, soul and body?
Explanation: Unfortunately in Christendom, very few Christians have ever been taught or understand the Bible’s teaching about the creation and constitution of man which is a spirit, soul and body verses the secular view of man which is a soul and body and for many only a body. Because this is true, when sharing the forgiveness tract with a Christian, they may not always understand what you are talking about when you say "Motivated and controlled by the Holy Spirit through your spirit" and "Motivated and controlled through your soul." Therefore the question will come up: "What do you mean by motivated and controlled through your spirit?" The next several paragraphs explain how to adequately answer this question.
LE: John, I am glad you asked that question. When God created Adam and Eve, He created man with a spirit, soul and body.
Man’s spirit is the means by which man has God-consciousness and the means by which he communicates with and has a relationship with God.
Man’s soul is the means by which he has self-consciousness and relationship with self.
Man’s body is the means by which he has world-consciousness and the means by which he communicates with and has a relationship with the physical world
When God created Adam and Eve, His intent and plan for man was that he was to be led, motivated and controlled, by the Holy Spirit through his human spirit; not through his soul: his intellect and feelings, or through his flesh, his body: his appetite and desires. When Adam and Eve sinned, their sin was choosing to act out of the initiative of their soul and their flesh. When they did this, the Bible tells us that their human spirit died. This does not mean it ceased to exist, it means that its ability to communicate with and have a relationship with God ceased to function which is the Bible’s definition of spiritual death. Because Adam and Eve were no longer able to communicate with God through their human spirit they were left with only their soul: their intellect and feelings and their flesh: their appetite and desires to lead and guide them through life.
Because all of humanity were present in the loins of Adam when he sinned, the Bible tells us that all men are born into this world soulishly and physically alive, but spiritually dead, without capacity to communicate with or have a relationship with God. This is what is meant by being born with Original Sin.
This is also what we mean by men being in total depravity. The Bible’s definition of sin is anything we do that is not initiated by Jesus’ Holy Spirit through our human spirit first! That means that anything we choose to do that initiatives from the soul first: out of our intellect and feelings, and our flesh first, out of our appetite and desires, is sin. Passages in the Bible which teach this are Isaiah 30:1 which states "‘Woe to the rebellious children,’ declares Yehovah, ‘who execute a plan, but not Mine, and make an alliance, but not of My Spirit, in order to add sin to sin;’" and Romans 14:23 in the New Testament which states "But He who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin." John, the only time we are walking in the Holy Spirit, walking in faith, and doing that which is acceptable to God is when what we are doing is first initiated by Jesus by His Holy Spirit through our human spirit. Anything else is sin.
John, this is also why we cannot save ourselves. We cannot save ourselves because anything we do to save ourselves originates out of the initiative of our soul, not by the Holy Spirit through our human spirit which unsaved man does not have. Only what is initiated by God through the Holy Spirit through our human spirit is pleasing to Him and accepted by Him. This is why in order for us to be saved God Himself had to take the initiative to save us, and He did by sending Jesus to us through Holy Spirit conception of the Virgin Mary so that He could die on the cross for our sins.
When we believe on the Gospel and pray and ask Jesus to come into our heart as Savior from our sins and Lord of our lives, Paul tells us in Ephesians 1:13-14 that as a result of our saving faith in the Gospel, God automatically gives us His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then unites with our human spirit and brings our spirit back to life and back into unhindered communion and relationship with God. This is why Jesus told Nicodemus that in order to enter the kingdom of God he had to be born from-above, meaning spiritually by the Holy Spirit. When we are born from below, from this earth, we are born soulishly and physically alive, but spiritually dead. This is also why the concept of re-incarnation would never lead to man’s salvation, because no matter how many times a person would be reborn into this world, they would still be only soulishly and physically alive, but spiritually dead. Man’s dead spirit is his problem, not what he does or does not do. In order for our spirit to be brought back to life, Jesus said we must be born-again, born from above which means that when we receive Jesus into our heart as Savior and Lord the Holy Spirit comes to indwell us and regenerates our human spirit and brings it back to life and back into relationship with God. This means then we are again able to have a relationship with God and receive again His will and plan for our lives by the Holy Spirit through our human spirit. This then is what we mean by being motivated and controlled through our human spirit. Thus the damage done in the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve is reversed and God’s intended order for man is restored which is to be led, motivated and controlled by the Holy Spirit through our human spirit, not through the initiative of our soulish or fleshly desires.
John, being motivated and controlled by the Holy Spirit through our human spirit, however, does not mean that we are now zombies without free will anymore than it did for Adam and Eve. When we received Jesus into our heart our spirits were brought back to life so we could receive from God His will and plan for our lives, but we can still with our soul choose not to obey Jesus’ revealed will to us. This then is what Paul means by a Fleshly-Christian: he is referring to a born again Christian who is choosing to act out of the initiative of his soul: his intellect and feelings, and his flesh: his appetite and desires rather than to submit himself to the leading and guidance of the Holy Spirit through his human Spirit. Thus a spiritual-man is a Christian who is choosing to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit through His human spirit where as a fleshly-man is a Christian who is choosing to follow his own soulish and fleshly desires.