Trunks of treats....

Halloween always gives us an opportunity to witness to all kinds of people. Seems lately the most difficult to witness to are those who say they are Christians. I am not judging because I don’t know if they are or are not followers of Jesus Christ, only He knows. However their attitudes seem to be not one of joy and appreciation and humbleness but one of “don’t challenge me on my belief”.

So at our Good Person tent setup a local church "Trunks of Treats" event, a mom and her 3 kids came over to see if they were indeed “A Good Person”. The boy, about 7 years old said he wanted to take the test. I explained it is using the Ten Commandments as the guide.

Me “Do you think you are a good person?”

Boy “Yes” and Mom “oh-oh”

Me “In your whole life, as short as it’s been so far, have you ever told a lie?”

Boy “yes” and Mom “But you told Jesus you were sorry”
BTW, I did my best to completely ignore any of mom’s comments.

Me “But you did lie, right?”
Mom tried to interject but the Boy said “yes”.

Me “Is this your mom?” and he shook his head yes. “Have you always obeyed your mom and done everything she asked you to do?” Again Mom answered for him and I repeated it to the boy and he said “no”.

I explained now that he has broken of two of the Ten Commandments and as I paused a second Mom interjects “but you told Jesus you were sorry – remember? And you asked Jesus into your heart”.
I ignored her and asked if he were to stand in front of God right now would he be guilty or innocent, then I realized he may not understand that so I re-phrased to “if you stood in front of God now that you have said you have broken 2 of the Commandments, would you tell God that you have lied and not obeyed your parents?” He looked down for a moment and before he could reply Mom said “but you have said you were sorry and remember when you got saved?”

Finally the boy said he would have to tell God he broke the commandments and as I started to tell him he would not be going to heaven, I could see Mom having real problems. So I quickly asked the boy if he knew what Jesus did for him so he could go to heaven.

He said he had no idea. Mom quickly jumped in again and said “don’t you remember when you got saved?”
I explained how Jesus made the payment for his sin and that he could not make the payment on his own. He needed to repent meaning to admit he sinned and turn away from sinning. He must then put his faith and trust in Jesus.

Mom said something again and this too was ignored by me. Not that I know the boy’s heart but there is definitely a difference between what this boy knows and believes and what his mother says he believes.

Please pray for this boy to understand that he must come to Jesus, not by proxy through his mother. It is a relationship between him and God, not his mother’s desire that will lead him to salvation. The big problem here is that Mom’s insistence that her son is saved will lead to a false convert, even at 7 years old.