Surprise!

Friday night we set up the tent at a local art festival. We were dead tired after a long week but were glad for the opportunity to speak to people. As Dayna and Steve arrived they began to tell us what a difficult week they'd had. Diana walked in at 6 and began to hand out tracts. Person after person came and the conversations were great ones all around. A few minutes into the festival I looked up to see Dayna walking toward me with a woman in tow.

"Jenn, Angie would like to take the good person test!"

"Ok, great Angie. Would you consider yourself to be a good person?" I wanted to be direct.

"Well, yes I would." She answered.

Angie admitted to lying and stealing when she was young. I explained to her that taking God's name in vain is blasphemy. She looked shocked. When I asked her if God would find her guilty she said, "No, I think He'll let me into Heaven."

"Based on what Angie?" I asked her.

"Well, forgiveness?" She tentatively answered.

"Based on what Angie?" I pressed her.

"Well, I prayed the prayer and asked Jesus into my heart." She smiled.

"Do you know where the scripture is to support that Angie? Because I'm sure that you know that there is no 'sinner's prayer'. And I've also heard preachers tell people to 'ask Jesus into their hearts but where do they get that, because it's not there either."

Angie didn't say anything, she just looked horrified. "Well, I accepted Him!"

"Angie I want you to think about something for a moment." I pointed to the sky, it was absolutely stunning looking as a huge storm approached. "Do you really think that the Creator of the universe needs your 'acceptance'? You see, the demons know Who Jesus is, they accept that. They will not be in Heaven. You see God wants all men everywhere to repent-turn from their sin- and follow Jesus. There must be a time when you transfer that trust that you have in yourself to Jesus. He said' I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. Do you remember the story of Nicodemus? He was a very respected Jewish Pharisee who came to Jesus and basically said, 'Ok, we know you are from God'. Jesus said to him, 'You must be born again. Now I'm sure Nicodemus thought, 'huh?'. See, being Jewish he thought he was 'in'. But Jesus said to him, You must be born again, that which is of the flesh is flesh and that which is of the spirit is of the spirit. That's sort of where you stand right now. You recognize Who Jesus is but..."

"I'm not born again! I've never been born again!" she said with horror in her voice.

I waited to see what she would do next. She was quiet. "Well, Angie my hope and prayer is that you will be." I waited for her to speak.

"I want to be saved."

"Well, you can go someplace private and pray or you can pray right here." I offered.

"I'll pray right now." Angie prayed right in the middle of the crowd. She was not ashamed.

I asked her if she would mind me taking a picture with me.  After I took it she looked at it and said, "Look at that pretty smile after I am saved!"

Galatians 6:9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 

Stuart hears the Truth

This month at the Friday @ Fifth event we were able to witness, hand out some tracts and books - but within the first hour, we were rained out. That first hour was great!

I spoke to Stuart who said he was a professing Christian and we spoke a bit. I asked him if he was able to share the Gospel in his daily walk, and I got the usual, "Well....." He was not sure what to say to people and then was not sure about his own walk. The weather as changing for the worse and he was a bit worried for his wife and daughters. Dayna was talking to his daughters, looked up and asked if they needed to go. Once Stuart heard Dayna sharing the Gospel with his daughters, he said they needed to stay and listen.

I then talked to Stuart some more, gave him a Wonderful Plan for your Life Book as well a One Thing You cannot do in Heaven book. He was pleased and said he would think about our talk, and his walk with the Lord and would read the books.

His wife was standing next to him but Stuart then walked over to listen to Dayna. Stuart's wife was quiet, and I asked if they were on holiday here. She said he was in the military and would be going to England in a week and the family would follow a month later. I gave her some UK Million Pound notes with the Gospel and asked her to share them with the Brits she ran into. I also asked her to read the books and she said yes and was now smiling.

All in all a great evening.

The Candy Store

I like to check in with Tim Challies every so often, just to see what he's reading.  I found an interesting little  article and a short film that I think you would all find intriguing.  It deals with sexual exploitation of children, which is on the rise here in America.

2 Chronicles 7:14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Oh, how we need the healing hand of God on our nation!

And then I will say to them I never knew you! Depart from Me, those working lawlessness!

This weekend we were at a local flea market sharing the Gospel and handing tracts to everyone walking by.

Here’s just a few of the responses:

“I don’t need that, I am a minister” – I’ve been hearing that a lot lately, maybe it the internet ministry ‘licenses’ companies doing a good business.
When I asked if he would take the tract and give it to someone who is not a believer, I got – “No, I don’t need to.”

Another guy I gave a tract to, stopped to talk. I told him the tract asks if you will go to heaven when you die? He huffed, and said “are you Born Again?” I said yes and he said – so am I. Then he lit into me with “you are telling everyone the negative and that is the wrong way to talk to people.” I asked how is it negative when I asked if you were going to heaven. He said you are going about it the wrong way and making people mad as he walked away. I asked him to come back and talk and he just muttered something and walked off.

So far an interesting day……

A few others had similar responses and typically it was from this who said they were ‘believers’ but I could not figure out what they believed in.

On a positive note, Dayna was able to talk to a few young girls who said they believed in the Lord and were Born Again. They were happy to see people presenting the Gospel. They asked for some tracts and Dayna gave them a stack of Youth Million Dollars to hand out. Praise God for their love of the Lord.

Another lady came by and wanted to know if we had ‘fake money’ for little kids? I showed her what we had and the money was really Gospel tracts – she just kept talking and walking around the table so Dayna started to talk to her. She is an insurance agent and wanted a display in her office of an antique truck loaded with money. Dayna showed her where she could purchase tracts if she wanted a lot of them. She was again told they are Gospel tracts, not just ‘fake money’. Then she really got interested and said that was a great idea – load the truck up with tracts. We gave her 800 tracts – Pray the people who get the ‘fake money’ realize the REAL TRUTH when they read the Gospel message.

so shall My Word be, which goes out of My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall certainly do what I sent it to do. (Isaiah 55:11)

The Patriot

Saturday morning the first visit I paid was to a man dying of a nasty infection. It wasn't until I saw his feet that I realized that he wasn't in his eighties but closer to 30 years of age. I confirmed this with his nurse. I have to admit, that was a bit unnerving.

I saw several more people that morning and then realized it was already past time to head for home. But instead of heading for the exit, I was drawn back down the hall. I came to a dark room and saw someone in the far bed. He didn't move as I approached but just stared at me. I greeted the man but he didn't speak, he just nodded. His face never changed expression and he never took his eyes off of me.

As I made small talk with James, I noticed that he was vey underweight for a tall man. I saw the case of canned liquid on his table and knew that he was on a feeding tube.

James didn't say much, he just listened and watched. He seemed almost unreachable. He was honest in his responses to me. When I asked him which destination would be his, Heaven or Hell, he said, "I'll take Hell".

"James, you know I don't know you but I sure don't want you to go to Hell!". I took time to describe Hell for him.  I went on to tell him what Jesus did for him so that he would not have to go there.  He listened without reacting.

"Does this make sense James?" I questioned.

"Yes." he stated.

"What stops you, James?"

He stared at me and made a simple statement. "Vietnam Nam."

I waited for him to elaborate.

"I was shot down. Been in the hospital for 15 years." he said it sadly.

I prayed that God would give me the words that would minister to him. "Thank you for going to Vietnam Nam. Because you went I am free today. Because you made this great sacrifice, our country is free today. Thank you, James. You went and did that and you didn't even know me!" For the first time I saw light in his eyes.

"James how would it make you feel if someone walked in here and burned a flag?". His gaze intensified and I could tell it upset him. "Would that make you mad? Would it offend you?". He nodded his head to the affirmative. I paused a moment before asking him, "do you think Jesus feels that way when we shrug at all He's done to set us free?"

He changed his gaze and looked out the window. "James if you had been happy and healthy and I stopped you on the street today to talk to you about this, would you have talked to me?"

Without hesitation he said, "No."

"Thanks for talking to me today, James."

"I'm moving to Atlanta tomorrow." (whoa)

"You know, James I was on my way out today when something told me to come down here into your room. I believe that was God. Now none of us are promised tomorrow James, but for some reason He sent me here today. I am going to be praying for you and I do hope you'll give this matter some more thought."

Please pray for James and the thousands of other Vets who need to hear about Jesus.