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Step
3 -- The Close
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The Close
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1. Are you a sinner?
-
2. Do you want forgiveness
of sins?
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3. Do you believe Jesus
died on the cross for you and rose again?
-
4. Are you willing to
surrender yourself to Christ?
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5. Are you ready to invite
Jesus into your heart and into your life?
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This is the part that many of
us fear most -- the call for a decision. Here's how to do it.
These final five questions
are a recap of all the key verses you just guided the other person
through.
1. Are you a sinner?
This question points back to Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned." Earlier
he saw that the "all" includes him.
2. Do you want forgiveness
of sins? Romans 6:23 says that forgiveness is a gift provided by
Jesus Christ. To have that free gift we must accept it for ourselves.
3. Do you believe Jesus
died on the cross for you and rose again? In John 3, Christ
explained that He would die for our sins and that we must put our trust
in Him to be born again.
4. Are you willing to
surrender yourself to Christ? John 14:6 says that the only way to be
right with God is through Jesus Christ. |
5. Are you
ready to invite Jesus into your heart and into your life? Romans 10:9-10
states that we are saved when we personally accept the truth about Jesus and
put our trust in Him.
When you ask this
final question, be silent -- and pray silently for the person. The Holy
Spirit will be working on him. Thirty seconds of silence will fell like 20
minutes to him. This is the moment when somebody is making a decision about
whether he wants to follow Christ or Satan. So whenever I ask that final
question, I pray in my mind as hard as I can while I silently wait for his
answer.
|
"Be silent and pray, and let the Holy
Spirit do His work." |
I once watched
someone break out in beads of sweat, I didn't say a thing. I just maintained
eye contact with him and prayed. Finally he said, "Yes," And I said, "Yes
what?" He said, "I'm ready." I said, "Ready for what?" I wanted him to make
a clear, personal decision. It had to be his choice, an expression of his
heart's desire.
A Suggested
Prayer
When the person
you are talking with says that he is ready to invite Jesus into his life,
you may wish to guide him through a prayer like this one:
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Father, thank you for the free gift of eternal
life. I know I am a sinner and need Your forgiveness. I am sorry for
my past sins, and I ask You to forgive me.
Jesus, I believe You died on the cross for my sins
and arose from the dead. I now open the door of my heart and invite
You to come into my life. I realize there is nothing I can do to earn
my salvation, and I place my complete trust in You alone for eternal
life. I choose to follow You as my Lord. Please make me the person You
want to be and direct my paths. |
|
Review
How Can I
Share My Faith
Without an
Argument?
The Approach
-
1. Do you have any kind
of spiritual belief?
-
2. To you, who is Jesus?
-
3. Do you think there is
a heaven and a hell?
-
4. If you died right now,
where would you go?
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5. If what you believe
were not true, would you want to know it.?
The Bible
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1. Romans 3:23
-
2. Romans 6:23
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3. John 3:3
-
4. John 14:6
-
5. Romans 10: 9-11
-
6. Revelation 3:20
The Close
-
1. Are you a sinner?
-
2. Do you want
forgiveness of sins?
-
3. Do you believe Jesus
died on the cross for you and rose again?
-
4. Are you willing to
surrender yourself to Christ?
-
5. Are you ready to
invite Jesus into your heart and into your life?
|
Dealing With Objections
When you talk
with people about trusting Christ, you will hear objections, reasons they
don't want to believe. In dealing with their objections, the key word you
need to remember is why.
Let me give you
an example. I know a man who owns several McDonalds. I heard that he wanted
to talk with someone to learn more about God, so I arranged to meet him at
one of his restaurants. We sat down in one of those little chairs. We got
all done going through the questions and the Scripture and he said, "That's
it. Bill?" And I said, "That's it." His first objection was, "What is God
going to do with my business?" Because I didn't know whether God was going
to bless him or bust him I asked, "Why? What about your business?"
|
"In dealing with objections, the key word to
remember is why." |
Either God dealt
with that objection or it wasn't important because he switched to a
completely different objection. He said, "What about my mother?" I wondered
why a successful businessman was worrying about his mother so I said, "Why,
what about your mom?" He said, "She will disown me!" I turned to Matthew
10:37, which says, "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is
not worthy of Me." I had him read it out loud, then I asked, "What does it
say to you?" He said, "I better worry about Mom later and give my life to
Jesus now."
Here are some
other types of objections:
1. "I'm not
ready." What are you going to say? You don't have the foggiest idea
why the person is not ready, so you can simply ask, "Why?"
2. "I have
to think about it." Again, ask why. It's disarming, isn't it?
Because oftentimes the first objection is just a reflex defense.
3. "I've
always believed in God." I would say something like, "If you've
answered yes to all five questions, then you won't have any problem
accepting Christ. Let's pray for you to receive Him." People tell me all the
time that they have always believed in God. But I tell them, "That isn't
going to help you any. The demons believe in God and shudder" (James 2:19).
4. "My
friends will think I'm crazy." You could say, "That's probably true,
but the issue now is: Are you ready to invite Jesus into your
life?"
5. "Other
religions tell me that I need to work my way into heaven." There are
only two types of religions in the world. One says that Jesus might be a
prophet, a teacher, or a good guy, but that He is not God. It also believes
that you can work your way to heaven -- by a terrorist act, eating the right
food, performing religious rites, or living a good life.
Christianity,
however, makes two opposite claims: (1) Jesus is God, and 2) God had to come
to man; man couldn't go to God.
So we have
opposing views that can't both be right. The important questions are: Which
one is true? and How do we know? Start by examining the claims of Christ. He
is either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. Christ either lied about being
God, or He was demented, or He is all He claimed to be. There is no evidence
that Jesus lied. He certainly didn't have any of the symptoms of a lunatic.
So it leaves only one conclusion: He is who He claimed to be.
|
"Christ either lied about being God, or He was
demented, or He is all He claimed to be." |
6.
"Will God want me to quit drinking and start going to church?" When
I was converted on March 4, 1981, I turned to a godly pastor and asked, "I
don't have to be a Bible thumper, do I?" "No," he answered. I said, "Good. I
don't have to read the Bible to be saved, do I?" "No," he replied. I asked,
"Can I go home and have a drink?" He said, "Yeah, but don't get drunk." He
knew that if my conversion was real, I didn't need to get into the minutiae.
(By the way, today I read my Bible daily and I haven't had a drink in 10
years.)
When people ask
you a direct question, don't waffle. If they ask you, "Will I have to give
up my live-in relationship?" you better say yes. Why? Because the conviction
is already on them -- or else they wouldn't ask the question. If they don't
bring it up, don't start bringing up all the sins you know are in their
life. Look at all the sins in you life now, let alone before you knew
Christ.
7. "How
could God send anyone to hell?" Do you realize that God doesn't
simply look around and say, "I'll send that one and that one to hell"? God
sent His Son into the world to save the whole world, not some of it.
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom. 10:13) (Note:
It is the individuals choice not God's - this is free will)
8. "I'm not
ready." I have just one question for a person who says that: "If you
were to die right now, having not accepted Christ, where would you go?" If
he realizes that he would go to hell, he won't resist much longer.
9. "There's
error in the Bible." When I hear that, I simply hand the person my
Bible and say, "I've been reading this for a while. Could you show me one?"
Usually the person will say, "Well, I haven't read it." So, depending where
you are in the process of sharing, you simply point back to what the Bible
says. That will be the last time you will hear that objection.
10. "Aren't
there many translations of the Bible?" The answer is absolutely yes.
There are many translations, but they all say the same thing. When somebody
asks that question, it's usually a defense mechanism. Simply say yes, and
then turn them back to the Bible verses you had been looking at.
11. "How do
you know the Bible is true?" For one thing, archeological data
proves it. There are over 14,000 New Testament manuscript copies in
existence today. And when scholars compare them, they can't find more than a
paragraph's worth of difference -- and most of those are misspellings or
alternate spellings. None of them affect basic doctrinal issues. All the
evidence points to the conclusion that we have an accurate text. The first
manuscript fragment of the gospel of John is dated only about 40 years from
the time it was written.
Even though we
know the Bible is 100% true, we need to realize that we can't force people
to accept it as true. If they don't want to accept it, the won't , no matter
how much evidence we give them. Every time we offer evidence, they will ask
for more -- because they don't want to believe.
When I run into
intellectual skeptics, I remember that they're tough, angry, and confused,
and that they've been given a lot of misinformation. I remind myself what I
used to be like before I was saved.
When a leading
lawyer at Harvard University decided to hold a mock trial to see if there
was enough evidence to prove the resurrection of Jesus Christ, do you know
what he concluded? He said that beyond a shadow of a doubt, the
preponderance of evidence exists to show that Jesus Christ was raised from
the dead. But he said, "I choose not to believe it."
You can't make
anybody believe anything. You could try to convince me that Abraham Lincoln
lived, but if I didn't want to believe it I wouldn't.
The question I
ask people who say they won't believe the Bible is this: "What would it take
to prove to you that it is God's Word?" Most of the time they don't even
know. It is a practiced defense they are giving you.
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