S01 The Salvation of your Soul

This is a basic salvation tract which we use on door to door evangelism every Saturday morning. It is designed to walk a person through the plan of salvation in about 5 minutes (provided the person listening doesn't start arguing). The advantage with this tract is that it is in black and white, (photocopies in a regular black and white photocopy machine very nicely so you can print up 200-300 copies Saturday morning without too much problem), and you can give a copy to the person you are witnessing to for them to keep. Verses are written out so that you do not have to be opening and flipping through your Bible to find verses, and you can concentrate on giving the gospel.

It gives a very clear plan of salvation. There are break off points throughout the tract which will help you deal with (1) Catholics, (2) Jehovah's Witnesses, or (3) Mormons. The front page has a basic general introduction which is designed to establish 2 basic points: (1) Everybody is either with the Son of God (saved), or not (unsaved). (2) Salvation is a personal relationshiip with the Saviour. Establishing these two key points is imperative before anything else is done. Usually there are no interruptions on this page except for people who will just slam the door in your face for you talking to them about religion. Some JWs will attack here with their rabbit trails.

Transition: There are 4 steps to understanding salvation at this point:
1. Recognizing you are a sinner.
2. Repentance.
3. Believing.
4. Confessing.

Note: Always read all the verses on the front fold, but from here on out, the verses are arranged with lines in margins for those you read to the person you are witnessing to (as a general always kind of thing), and the rest of the verses (those without lines in the margins) are used if they don't understand the point.

The first step in being saved is in understanding your need as a sinner before God. Without understanding that you are not "just going to go to heaven because you are not so bad", you will not go to heaven. Salvation is a remedy (medicine) for sin, and nobody takes medicine if they are not or do not think they are sick.

There are two basic points that I want to make in this section, (1) that the person realizes that he is a sinner, (2) there is a punishment for his sin, death.

Basically I believe that most people will accept that they had done something wrong in their lives. Perhaps they don't believe they should go to hell for it, but they will accept it. If the person objects that he is not so bad, he will say so up front usually when you touch this point. If the person objects I read the verses under "B. The Consequences of sin is physical and eternal death."

Death, a certainty for all sinners. Basically here I want to get in the point that God has fixed the time of opportunity is only until the person dies, which nobody knows if he will live 1 second longer. This is a break point. When you read this, the following responses are typical.

(1) Catholic - They will agree with punishment after death, but believe that you can pray a Catholic out of purgatory into heaven. Heb 9:26 fixes this that there is a "finality in death", after death there is no more hope.
(2) Hindis-Buddists - They believe in reincarnation and it is doubtful you will get this far into the tract with them, but here they will express their disagreement with you, and you will see them offer reincarnation as an alternative.
(3) Jehovah's Witness - They will break off the conversation here also, but they will deny that there is a hell, saying "hell is here on earth."

This step is basically to introduce the person to the concept of repentance. Salvation is not just something that is there and will work for everybody no matter what they believe, think, act, or do. Salvation is personal (an interpersonal relationship) and without you personally repenting of your sins, you will not be saved. Salvation is positioned to be given by God on the basis of the individual changing something within that person. This change is seen as a single thing, divided into two parts: (1) repentance from sin (and every alternative to biblical salvation that you can think of), and (2) turning to Jesus Christ in saving faith. You cannot believe in Jesus if you believe in the Virgin Mary, Buddha or good works to be saved. So you turn FROM sin and your own will and understanding of these things, and turn TO Jesus and the Bible's presentation of salvation.

Example: If you are wanting to go to one city, and you realize that you are on the right road going in the opposite direction, you need to repent. What you thought was right is just the opposite. Whether you go fast, slow, or have a flat tire, nothing matters, because you are not headed towards your truly desired destination.

Faith is what God requires of us to be saved. He without faith in God's declarations (doctrines) has no change of going to heaven. Here we divide up what is required in faith into certain essential truths.

Truth #1: Salvation is by faith, and not by works

Basically this truth can be explained thusly, if you as a mother had a child who is dying of some disease, and in the hospital, your son meets another child waiting for a kidney transplant, and your son asks you to arrange it so that he gives his kidney now to the other boy, knowing it will accelerate his own death. So you go to the other boy's mother, and tell her what is the desire of your son, and she offers you a dollar for your son's kidney. It is an insult. What you give freely is not worth a dollar, and it will cost your son his life, and to not receive it freely but rather to give something that doesn't matter or isn't worth the infinite value of your son's life, this is insulting.

So likewise God arranged for our salvation through the death of his own son, a great price for any parent. For us to think some meaningless sacrifice or service or ceremony will give us something with which we "buy" or exchange this good work for salvation is an insult to God.

When we begin to plant the ideas of Jesus as our Savior (the Christ), then there is objections. Many religions such as Hindus will accept Jesus in their pantheon of gods. Jesus is just another one of many equals, all gods which the person prays to in order to get saved. This concept is not possible if the person is to truly be saved. For a person to really be saved, he must accept Jesus as his ONLY and UNIQUE Savior. Nobody else is even considered to be helpful, supportive, etc in your salvation. Jesus is who saves.

This will be a break point for the Roman Catholic because they pray to and believe that Mary is co-redemptress with Christ. This is the teaching of the Roman Catholic church, and these verses hit directly into the face of this heresy.

Another breakpoint here is for the Jehovah's Witness. Acts 4.12 says that the name of the Savior is Jesus, and that God has not revealed any other name under heaven given among men by which we may be saved. Simply put, that means that the name "Jehovah" or "Almighty" that the JWs offer as the name of the true Savior and only true God, is just wrong. Jesus is the name of God, and the name of the Savior.

This is the heart of the Gospel. Believing in Jesus is the thing that saves us. But what exactly do we believe concerning Jesus that saves us? It is believing that Jesus dying on the Cross of Calvary, died as a sacrifice or substitute for you personally. Nobody can hide sins from God, so God punishes all sins, and therefore everybody will die and go to hell. But there is one thing or place where God does not see. And that place is when Jesus was hanging on the cross of Calvary, the innocent, sinless God being made sin for sinful mankind.

Jesus said, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"<\i> (Mark 15:34<\b>) At this moment in time, God the Father turned his head from watching the events on the Cross of Calvary. God did not "see" that moment in time. The problem with our situation is that we are criminals before the holy court of God, and since the evidence is there, God will find it, and we will pay the penalty personally. But because we believe (have faith and confidence in) Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, dying in our place, Jesus places the evidence of our sins on the cross, and God does not see it. This is not because God is not capable of seeing it even there, or because of some weakness in God, but because God has made provision in this way for our salvation.

Col 2:14 <\b> Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;<\i>

The evidence of our sins are on the cross, and God does not see it, nor does he hold us guilty, because we "have Jesus".

This point is to catch the Jehovah's Witnesses basically. Catholics will easily accept Jesus as God, but the JWs accept Jesus as a "god" or as the "Son of God", which for them is a by-word for something inferior to God, not equal in every way to God. The Mormons see Jesus and Satan as being brothers, equal in every way, one good and one bad. This is based on Joseph Smith's erroneous ideas about family being over God. Every Mormon man will become God the Father of his own universe, and his physical earthly children will be the angels in this new universe, with one being the Christ-Savior of that universe, and another being the devil. This concept breaks down very quickly because if I am a good Mormon man, son of a good Mormon father, then will I be God the Father in the next universe? or will I be an angel or Christ, or the devil? Once a son of a Mormon man, does that make me locked into being an angel in the new universe and I never get my own? etc. The point with the Mormons is to make them see that God is unique, and by definition, He is alone in all time and space. God is not one of a reproducing race of gods, but God is God, no other gods exist beside him. This is the lie Satan offered Adam and Eve. Likewise God by definition doesn't change (i.e. he wasn't a man that becomes a God, but He has always been and will always be what He now is.) So we try to prove the uniqueness of God to the Mormon.

Note about Mormons. We have a Mormon church about a mile and half from our church, and right in the middle of our target door to door evangelism area. My experience is that Mormons in general will never reveal that they are Mormons, nor talk to you are the door. If you talk to somebody who says they go to the Mormon church, they are a fringe person, and not somebody who really understands and follows Mormonism. It is a usually a wife or child of a Mormon. Note. All Mormon women go to heaven because they husbands give them permission. If the husband gets mad at his wife, he can prohibit her from going to heaven. Why would any woman want to be a Mormon?

For the JWs, they will accept Jesus as a god, inferior to Jehovah or God Almighty. So the point is to prove to them that Jesus is Jehovah of the Old Testament.

Below is a support area with the break points for Mormons on the left, and JWs on the right.

We start off this section with a reference back to the previous section, that salvation is not by works, so we should not see, consider, or believe that confession of Christ is a good work which we do in order to be saved. Think of it this way, you go to the store, and you have money. The store has something you want, so you exchange your money for the thing that you want. We go to God, and we have no money, no merit, nothing that we can offer God in exchange for salvation. Salvation is a relationship, not a think you can purchase for merit, good works, or other things. Salvation is a person, Jesus, and either you have the Son (are saved), or you do not have the Son (are unconverted, unsaved). I have a wife and 2 kids. I have the right to say that because I carry on a personal relationship with each one which gives me the right to say, "I have a wife". Equally with Jesus, we have the right to claim salvation or that we have the Son because we carry on that relationship.

This confession of Christ is like when two young people are dating. The boy comes up to the girl and says let's get married. The girl is all happy and says, "I am going to get my girlfriends, and mother, and we are going to shop for a dress." The boy says, "no, let's just get married in my bedroom, and you live with your parents, and me with mine, and we will never tell anybody about it." Obviously the boy is trying to trick the girl into having sex with him, without any real committment on his part. Why do we have weddings in the first place? We get all our family, relationship, work friends, school friends, neighbors, etc, everybody we know to come and be witnesses of the seriousness of the committments of the two people getting married. This is because everybody needs to be involved in seeing the seriousness of these two people to get married.

This is what God wants from us, an extreme degree of seriousness and formality. We must personally ask Jesus into our hearts, and if we are serious with God, then we will not be ashamed of this relationship, of our Savior. Public confession is simply confessing that Christ is your hope of heaven. If you are ashamed of Christ for some reason, if you deny Him, or "little esteem" Him, then you are not really saved. You will pay the consequences that hae to be paid to claim Christ.

How do we confess Christ?
Most obvious is when the opportunity comes up in a conversation, you claim Christ as your Savior. Likewise God has set up water baptism as an official way of proclaiming Jesus Christ as your Savior, and joining in the fellowship of a local church. Also when you attend, participate, and support a biblical local church, you are identifying with Christ.

Even though not all of these things are necessary for being saved, like the thief on the cross was saved without water baptism, and without association of a local church, but he confessed Christ publicly. The idea is the belief in Jesus Christ is so strong that the person does not hestiate to identify with Christ. This identification is principally to be one of the redeemed (these people form the church).