Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Alive @ 5 Evangelism and Wisdom

There was a lady the other day that came up to me while we were doing evangelism. I gave her a tract and she wanted me to sing her petition for a certain bill. She asked me your pro-life, and then told me that I should sign it. I asked her about it and she asked me if I knew that 1 out of 4 children were in poverty in America. I replied by asking her if she knew how many were in poverty in Nigeria. She responded that she did not know. I told her that by American standards 4/4 were in poverty. Then I realized where she was going with it. She was not Pro-life, she was pro-choice. She was trying to stop poverty by trying to make a bill for women to have abortions. It disgusted me so much that I told her that I knew exactly how to stop the problem of poverty of children. I told her that she should make it illegal to have sex outside of marriage. She was flabbergast and asked me so you have never had sex outside of marriage. I told her nope. She said I can’t believe this, I have never met anyone that has not and she asked me why. I told her because I was a follower of Christ and the Bible tells us not to. She told me that she knew lots of Christians and they had sex outside of marriage. She told me she couldn’t talk to me and started to walk away and then she came back. I was very saddened about what she told me but I knew that this woman needed Christ desperately. I went on to ask her if she thought she was a good person and asked where she was going to go when she died. She said she was going to heaven and that she was a good person. I went through the Ten Commandments with her. When I asked her if she had lied she told me NO never and I told her I think you are lying to me right now and she admitted that she was right away. Then I asked her if she had ever stolen anything. She said yeah when I was a kid. I asked her if she had ever taken the Lords name in vain and right there and then she took the Lords name in vain four or five times in one sentence. I think she thought it would shock me, but it didn’t and I went on and asked if she had disobeyed her parents and she said yes. Then I told her that everyone sins and that because of that all of us deserve to go to hell. She said ok so all of us are going to hell then so why do I have to worry. I told her that we didn’t all have to go to hell. She tried to argue with me and tell me that was what I just said. I asked her to hold on and let me finish. She tried to walk away again and said that she couldn’t talk to me but she came right back and said ok continue. So I told her about Jesus Christ and how he died on the cross. I talked about God’s love for us and how He sent His son and asked her how she would feel if she had to give up her son and she told me she had already had 3 abortions and she would give up her child again without a problem. I told her about what Christ had done for her in dying on the cross and that if she believed in Jesus Christ that she would be saved. She told me she believed in Jesus Christ. I gave her Romans 10:9-10 and told her if she confesses with her mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in her heart that God raise Him from the dead then she shall be saved. She told me to stop judging her. That she had already believed when she was a little girl. I said, Really? I couldn’t tell. You just took the Lord’s name in vain and you broke almost all of the commandments that I named while I was standing here. She told me “oh so Christians are supposed to have a certain light in their eyes so that you can see they are Christians.” I never said anything about it. At that time my buddy Scott had finished up his conversation and was walking over and she said once again that she couldn’t talk to me and started to walk away but came back again. Scott came over and took over the conversation. The lady told us that she believed that Jesus was just a man and that he didn’t die on the cross that it was a fairy tale. She said that the Bible was not totally accurate and had a lot of errors in it and that she could not believe it and we again told her about Christ and what He had done for her. She told us I can’t even talk to you one last time and walked away for good. It was a sad conversation but she heard the gospel and I hope that she will come to Christ. If she did imagine what a change that would be and her friends would notice it.

This story of my evangelistic events brought some things to mind and if you will bear with me I will explain later on in the paper.

I have been reading in Proverbs lately and ever since I went to Africa and saw one of the men there that has so much wisdom I have wanted to have wisdom and knowledge for what to do in different situations. So I decided to start by reading Proverbs. So here are some of my thoughts. Proverbs 1:7. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge and fools despise wisdom and instruction." Fearing the LORD is the beginning of Knowledge. What does that mean? What does it really mean to fear the LORD. In Proverbs 8:13 it tells us. "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride, arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth, I hate." It lists several things there but also if we look at Proverbs 6:16-19 we see what the LORD hates. Six of them He hates and the last one is an abomination. 1) Haughty eyes 2) A lying tongue 3) hands that shed innocent blood 4) A heart that devises wicked plans 5) A feet that rapidly run to evil 6) A false witness that utters lies. And 7) One who spreads strife among brothers.

As Christians if we fear the LORD we are to hate evil. In our society I see that we don't embrace it but we don't hate it. Ex: I was told the other day while out doing evangelism that almost every "Christian" that this lady had met had sex before they were married (Story above). Now we could argue that those people probably were not Christians but also there are some that I know that are Christians and they had fallen into sin. If Christians really hated evil if they hated the things the LORD hates then we would see people that feared the LORD. If we fear the LORD then we have the beginning of Knowledge. There was a man that once said that if he had 100 young men that the only thing they feared was sin they could take over the world with the gospel. Do we really fear the LORD? Do we hate evil? It saddens my heart to hear that people claim to be Christians and are sinning as if they have a license to sin. It’s ok to sin because God will forgive me. But in reality if we fear the LORD we should hate evil. I see that our nation does not fear the LORD, the Mighty God, the Giver of Life and Breath. To say that it’s ok God will forgive me, so I can sin all I want is to say I don’t fear the LORD and I don’t hate evil. Read Proverbs 3:32-35. We see how God treats those who do not fear Him or hate evil. Desire to be upright, Fear the Lord and hate evil.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Home is Where the Heart Is.

A phrase that we see at many people’s house. Let’s think about that for a second or two. We see that and we say wow yeah my heart is in such and such a place on this earth so that is where home is. Yes my physical home is in Montana but let’s look at this phrase from a different aspect. As a Christian our home is in heaven. 2 Corinthians 5:8. IS that where our heart is? Is our heart in heaven? Are we thinking about heaven and what a wonderful place it will be? When I was in Bible College there were a few guys that I was very impressed with. They would always talk about heaven and what a glorious day it would be. They were looking forward to heaven they wanted to go to heaven they were ready to go home in an instant and they were excited about going home. There heart was in heaven and still is. It was something that was so cool to see and I said to myself that is what I want to be like. I want my heart to be in heaven. I want to be thinking about how great it will be when we finally go home and see our Lord face to face. It will be a beautiful day. We should be anxious and patient at the same time. I can’t wait to go but I am waiting on the Lord to come and take me there. In the mean time we should be laboring to bring as many people with us to heaven. If our mind is set on things above and our heart is also there then our thoughts should be on our Lord who is coming soon. He is coming sooner then we know. Another thought occurred to me as I was thinking about this there were several people that had died in the last two weeks from the retirement home I worked at and some that were fairly young. I asked myself again if I was doing all I could to tell others about Jesus Christ before He comes or before they died. We have become satisfied with sitting in our chairs and saying “actions speak louder than words”. “They will be able to tell I am a Christian by my actions” but the sad thing is that every day I meet people that say they are Christians but you could not tell that they are Christians by their actions. They have filthy language, they act just like the world, they have compromised their walk with Christ or they have not truly believed in Him. Most have been told say this prayer and you will be saved. There is no repentance in them they are still in the old man. They have not shed the old man to put on the new man. They believe Christ was a man but they do not believe in Him. They do not know what He did for them. They don’t care. They use God as someone who can get them out of hard situations and forget about Him the rest of the time. Going back to the phrase” actions speak louder than words”. In some instances that is true but that should not be the whole of it. That is where most people stop. “Actions speak louder than words so I will just show people Christ through my actions.” The problem is that in the Great commission by our Lord, He tell us to “preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15) Actions are not enough to bring people to Christ. It is actions and words that bring people to Christ. We must also preach the gospel to them. Sometimes words are louder then actions. We are scared to tell others about Christ. We are scared what they might think about us. Why does it matter what they think about us? We are Christians. Sometimes we are even afraid we might lose a better opportunity to talk to them later on. The Lord is in control of everything. He will use what we say for His good because it is not us that bring them to Christ but it is God that brings them. So Go, preach the gospel our home is not here on earth it is in heaven and heart should be there also. Our Lord is coming back soon. Are we preparing for His coming, Are we preaching the gospel? Many have not heard. Go and preach the gospel, looking towards our Home in heaven. Someday soon all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ will be there. Sooner than you think.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Update from Helena, MT June 5

Hello everyone, It has been a while since I have written. We are safely back home and recuperated and ready to go. The Lord has been working in our lives and our passion to go back to Nigeria has not died. But we are not just sitting here doing nothing. This last Monday I was able to go out and do street evangelism with my friends Scott and Jeremy. It was rainy but I think that you have the best conversations when it is raining or snowing. It was just like that then too. We walked around and passed out tracts and then we went up past the movie theater to a park where Scott was able to talk to two people who did not know the gospel. While he was doing that I went back down to the movie theater and caught a big group of people coming in. Scott finished up and we went on to hill park. There was a group of kids I hadn’t met yet. Scott knew some of them. He talked to a group of them and I went over to another group that was playing hacky sack and asked if I could join. As we played I asked them about the gospel. One kid, an Atheist, told me that it was impossible that the Bible was true and that there was no God and that we were all god and a part of god,(Therefore not a true Atheist) and kept talking so that I couldn’t get a word in edgewise and then he said he was tired of listening to this and left with all but one of his friends. I had to smile because I didn’t even get to say anything really, he was talking almost the whole time. I turned to the other kid and started talking to him about the gospel. He was very receptive. In the end he gave me his e-mail address and I hope to be able to meet with him again. I went p the hill and met a Christian girl and her non-Christian boyfriend. The girl thought it was cool that I was out telling people about Jesus the guy just rolled his eyes and said they had to go. Farther up the hill I questioned two young ladies about the gospel. They were students from Carroll College and they thought they would just turn into particles floating in space when they died. They wanted to know the gospel and then they decided that they didn’t want to know it but said they would read the tracts. On the way back to the car we didn’t meet anyone. Pray for these people that we met that the Lord would do a work in their lives that they might come to know Him. The rest of this week I have been working a part time job. Please pray that I would find a more full time job or another part time job in the evening or night. The Lord is so good.