Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Light in the darkness

Even though it was a beautiful sunny day we walked down the street as light in a dark world. I met Mike Hyatt in town for un día glorioso of sharing the gospel on Monday. I first shared the gospel with a man and a women who eating outside a restaurant. The man was Methodist and the woman was Catholic. Neither one could answer many questions correct. The Methodist said you have to believe in God and you will get into to heaven, the Catholic never knew how to get to heaven and it seemed she never thought of it before. She did say she was disgusted in the Catholic church though. I took them through the law and gospel. Not much conviction and later they seen us and kind of mocked us, thinking we were crazy. This is pretty standard and has happened to most messengers of God.

The Bible says this in 2 Chronicles 36:16: But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy.

We next ran into a self-proclaimed orthodox Jew. He liked to talk. A lot. We started talking about the Torah. I tried to get into Exodus 20, the Law, but he couldn't stay on one subject. Mike was talking with him so I excused myself and let them talk. They ended up talking for an hour. Mike did share the gospel with him and offered to study the Bible with him but we will see if he the man follows through.

I witnessed to a prideful, kind of crazy man next. I asked him if he went to church and he said his church is everywhere. I asked if he read the bible and he said he could memorize it and challenged me to ask him any verse. I asked him a few and he missed them all.

There was a ton of people out on the street with the warm weather so I never had to go far to find the next person. I found a Hindu from India here on business. We got to talking about his religion and what will happen when he dies. He had rough English but we managed. He said that no one has seen his gods so he doesn't know what will happen when he dies. I asked him that if no one has seen your gods then how do you have many pictures and carved images of them. He said that was a good point. I then asked him if it made logical sense for me to cut down a tree and use half the tree to start a fire and cook dinner and use the other half of the tree to carve an image and call it god. I said if I carved the tree then I am the creator and the creation could have no power over me. He said it did make sense and that everyone can believe what they want and everything is true. I said if I jumped off that building and said I didn't believe in gravity would I fall? It is an illogical conclusion to say everyone is right. It is a complete contradiction. I tried to take him through the law but since his religion didn't have many of the same rules he thought it was alright to break them. We talked some more and I left him with a tract he reluctantly took.

I moved up the street and found a kid from Browning, MT who was wallowing in his sin and misery looking for a way out. I took him through the law and he admitted breaking them but still thought he wasn't that bad. I think he was comparing himself to the wicked people around him. I went deeper and he saw his sin and asked why I was here talking to him if he had to go to Hell and there was no way out. I then told him the greatest news of all. I told him I was talking with him because there is still hope for him, there is good news, there is a way out. I told him I have what he has been searching for. I then told him what our great God did for us by sending His only Son to take his punishment on himself. Jesus paid his fine so he could escape Hell and enter Heaven. When I mentioned Jesus he scoffed. I stopped and asked him why he was mocking Jesus and he actually said, "I thought you were going to tell me better news than that." I said there is no better news and I explained it deeper. I shared my testimony and he asked for my phone number so we could talk more. I introduced him to Hyatt and we encouraged to go to a Bible study Hyatt had on Tuesdays. I don't know if he will come but the gospel seed was planted. Qué un día glorioso por el evangelio.

1 comment:

AL said...

Awesome! It sounds quite a bit like the people we find on Mill Ave out here in AZ.
God bless and keep it up!
Soli Deo Gloria