A Powerful Analogy

This week I was joined by a fellow labourer who has been witnessing on and off in the Whakatane area for around 40 years.

It was very encouraging to meet with another fellow Christian who cares for the unsaved enough to talk with them about the things of eternity. It's as rare as hen's teeth.

Outside the library I talked with a German girl who said she was a Christian. Regarding eternity she likes to focus her thoughts on Heaven and doesn't like to think about Hell. This mind set is so easy to adopt. I don't think anyone likes to think about Hell. We need to remember the Jesus spoke about Hell. He warned people of it and that's what we should do as well. If we love people and care about them, we will speak the whole truth in love, that there are consequences for our sinful actions, that God commands all men everywhere to turn from sin, because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, that anyone who doesn't obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God's angry judgement. Accepting Christ isn't solely an issue of happiness but of righteousness. Sure people without Christ can be happy, but without the righteousness of Christ they will perish on the day of Judgement. 

David shared with a guy who at first looked rather intimidating, but he was responsive and was taking in the words of eternal life that David was sharing with him. David shared a powerful analogy with him that seemed to impact him deeply.

David sharing outside the Library

"Imagine a criminal who's committed heinous crimes. He's in a courtroom and his punishment is about to be administered. The criminal has a $50, 000 fine. He has to either pay the fine or will go to jail for a long time. The criminal has not got the money so he is being led to the cells. As he's being taken away, all of a sudden someone he doesn't know bursts into the courtroom with $50,000 and pays the fine. The criminal is released because the fine had been paid. Justice has been satisfied."

Around 2000 years ago, Jesus 'paid our fine' in His life's blood so that on Judgement day God can legally forgive us because Jesus took our punishment.

Our last conversations were with two young guys. They had a Christian background and said they were involved in their church youth group. It was very encouraging to meet them and hear them talk about the things of God. We pray that God will bless them and keep them from temptations.

May  God work in the hearts of the people we talked with this weekend.

Teaching Youths

Darren and I hit the streets yesterday with the goal of sharing the gospel with people, and we had a successful time.

We talked with two teenage workers who were on their break from New World. They politely listened to us and didn't really have any questions for us, frankly because they had confessed they hadn't given God much thought. It was great to meet them and to encourage them to give it some thought. When sharing with people who are on their break I'm often conscious that they may not want to spend it talking to a complete stranger about the things of God, so I don't waffle on, I get to the point. I give them the law so they can see their sin and therefore their need of God's forgiveness. I then give them the gospel. Then I make sure I've given them a tract so they can refer to what we've talked about later.

We later shared with a group of teenage boys. I taught one of guys back in 2009 when I was a student

Darren teaching youth the things of God

teacher in his class. It was amazing to see him now as a young teenager, now on the same eye level with me when he's standing and now with a 'not so high' voice anymore. It was also amazing to have the opportunity to share God's glorious gospel with him outside of school. We asked them if they had any questions and they did. 

"How can we know God exists?"

"Do you come back as an animal?"

"What's hell like?"

Seeing Darren teach these kids about the things of God was priceless, I had to capture it on film. Where else would these kids learn about these things?

We also shared with another group of young adults along the Strand outside the movie theatre. They seemed very scientific, mentioning thing like the 'Big Bang Theory' (not the TV show), and how the universe is expanding.  One of them said Christianity was forced upon her as a child so she decided to turn away from it altogether. We went through the law and they were convicted of sin, and confessed that if heaven and hell existed they'd end up in hell. We then talked about Jesus, the only one who can save them from sin and hell. They began to argue where God came from. Who created God? This question is very simple to answer. No one did. God is eternal, He always existed. For more information on this visit http://carm.org/who-made-god-richard-dawkins.

Please pray in particularly for one of the guys we talked to. His name is Ben. Pray that God draws Ben to Himself.

Quality vs Quantity

Listening to people is so important

Living in a small town like Whakatane means you can't really reach the multitudes with the gospel, because there aren't multitudes around. This can give us the deceptive impression that we're not as effective as those that are reaching the thousands around the world, but that's not true.

Recently I've been learning to focus more on quality rather than quantity. Evangelism shouldn't be about how many people you've given tracts to, had conversations with, how many times you've open-air preached. God's been teaching me that it's not about numbers, but souls.

So Darren and I seem to give less tracts away each week but have more in-depth conversations with people, getting to know them better, building report, checking their understanding of what we are presenting, listening to people's responses and answering any questions they have.

May God continue to guide us and teach us as we endeavour to seek and save the lost.

Giving Gospel Tracts to Colleagues

This week I decided to head over to The Hub. The plan was to hand out some gospel tracts, have some spiritual conversations with people, then pop into Harvey Norman for my gadget 'fix'.

The Hub is one of Whakatane's local shopping areas complete with a range of well known stores like Briscoes, Farmers, Bunnings, and my favourite Harvey Norman. All the stores are adjacent to each other which creates a strip where many locals come to shop. Near the middle of The Hub is a cafe which usually attracts a quite a few people.

Seeing as it was Easter Monday I thought there'd be a lot of people out and about that I could talk with but there weren't too many. As I approached the Cafe I saw him.

For those of you who don't know me, God's put on my heart to share the gospel with people, ever since I became a Christian. It's kind of like a long-term goal He's given me. It's exciting, terrifying and burdensome at times. But that's what He's put on my heart and with His help, that's what I do. I've been evangelising on and off for the last seven years. One of the biggest fears I used to have (and in all honesty still do to some degree) is seeing people that I know from my work place. Seeing colleagues. I sometimes hear voices inside by head trying to discourage me.

"What if I see someone from work out here? They'll think I'm a religious nut!"

But God is helping me to care more about others than myself. Jesus is the Saviour, the one who sacrificed his life for us. He was bruised for our sins, He is the one that, if sinners turn from their sins and trust in Him, will save them from the wrath that is to come against sin. Without the righteousness of Christ, people will perish on the day of Judgement. That's why we all need Jesus. 

I continually remind myself that evangelism is not about me being comfortable but more about the other person and where they will spend eternity. Our compassion for the lost and their fate must swallow our fears of rejection. As Christians we have a moral responsibility to share the gospel with those around us, in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God. Imagine having the cure to cancer and keeping it to yourself. Yet we have something better than a cure, we have the message of everlasting life! Will you keep it to yourself?

So I saw him, my boss. He appeared to be having afternoon tea with his son at the cafe, enjoying the Easter break. I waved and casually approached their table and greeted them. Some small talk ensued and then he cut to the chase. "What are you doing here?" He asked. I said something like, "I'm out handing out gospel tracts, getting God's message of forgiveness out there to people." I gave him and his son a gospel tract each and they went through the test and then they read the back together. They weren't too keen to chat about God stuff there and then but at least they have the gospel message to take with them. We chatted some more and then I moved on. May God reach him one day.

Are Jehovah's Witnesses Christian?

As a child I grew up thinking that Jehovah's Witnesses (JW's) were just another branch of Christianity, they talked about God and Jesus and invited people to what I thought was church.

This Easter I was approached by two clean cut, finely dressed, middle-aged gentlemen and given a flyer advertising the celebration of Jesus' death, and various service times of other events they held. This lead me to research a bit about what they believe for myself. Below is just a tiny taste of what I discovered. I hope this helps you understand JW's more.

So are JW's Christian? Put plainly, no they're not. Why? Well because a lot of their core beliefs and teachings differ from that found in the Bible and orthodox Christianity. For example, they do not believe in the Trinity, and the deity of Jesus. Concerning Jesus they actually believe He was Michael the archangel. What? Yeah I know. You might be thinking how is it that they have different core beliefs from Christians? Don't they read the Bible too? Yes they do but that's not all they read. They feed on the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society literature, founded by Charles Taze Russell in the 1800s. He was a guy who didn't like the idea of the doctrine of eternal hell so he scrapped it and started the Watchtower Society. Bible buffet is it? According to JW's the Watchtower alone can interpret scripture correctly. In other words no interpretation of the Bible is correct outside of what the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society interpret. You see if you read the Bible alone, you will not come to Watchtower theology. You need to be immersed in Watchtower theology as well. That's why when you study with the Jehovah's Witnesses, you agree to attend five weekly meetings where you are taught from Watchtower literature.

 Also the Bible they read isn't the same as a Christian Bible. They've constructed their own Bible called the New World Translation. In this they have changed certain verses that speak of the deity of Jesus, so it fits conveniently with their Watchtower way of thinking. Stay away from this one.

It seems that the Jesus that JW's speak of is not the Jesus of the Bible, but the Jesus of the Watchtower teachings. Only through Jesus (of the Bible) alone can a person be truly forgiven of their sin and it's horrific consequences. JW are you trusting in the true Jesus? I hope so.

So if a JW (or anyone else for that matter) starts talking to you about Jesus and it doesn't sound like the Jesus of the Bible, it's probably not.

"Click here to watch - Which Jesus do you follow?"

Check out http://carm.org/jehovahs-witnesses for a more in depth look.