Hi Everyone

Present today: Marie, Di, Mike, Yvonne, Royce, Peck, June. Frances, Helen, David & Simeon met us down at the shops.

I opened with one of John Butler’s sermon starters: Sowing And Reaping With The Word:

He who continually goes forth weeping,
Bearing seed for sowing,
Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
Bringing his sheaves with him. (Ps 126:6)

 Our text emphasizes the seed in the sowing business. No seed no reaping. Many do not truly reap because they do not sow the seed.

FIRST—THE PREREQUISITE FOR REAPING

“He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed.” There are three prerequisites for the sower to have a good harvest. Lack of a good harvest may be found in this text.

• The work. “Goeth forth.” Work is what is meant by “Goeth forth.” You do not get anything apart from effort. God blesses us but He still requires effort to receive the blessing. God is not keen on making a welfare society by his blessing. If our government required a “Goeth forth” for its hand outs it would decrease the handouts dramatically. People are instructed that they have a ‘right’ to blessing. God does not think that way. John Kenneth Galbraith, an economic adviser to one of our presidents, said “Those who dislike working should not be forced to work nor should they be penalized by depriving them of the benefits of society.” The Bible in contrast says, “If any would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

• The Word. “Seed.” This is the Word of God. Many go but never proclaim the Word. Going without the word being front and center is like planting a field without seed. Farmers today do not sow by hand but have multi-row planters, but they still stop periodically to fill up the planter with seed. Without the see all efforts are in vain.

• The weeping. “Weepeth.” This speaks of the pain in the effort of sowing the seed It is not an easy job, but much adversity will come upon those who sow the seed—Satan will see to that.

 John G. Butler, Butler’s Sermon Starters, vol. 8, Butler’s Sermon Starters (DeWitt, IA: LBC Publications, 2015), 120.

The work: We spoke of how in this world if you don’t put an effort in, you shouldn’t expect to be rewarded for it. The same goes for evangelism. If we don’t bother doing anything, we shouldn’t just sit around expecting a massive harvest. 

The Word: God’s Word must go forth. We can get lost in conversation with someone about all sorts of things, but the Gospel is the only thing that can save and transform.

The weeping: Evangelism takes sweat. Sometimes it takes tears. This is because we are fighting against principalities and powers. Satan is constantly putting obstacles in our path to deter, discourage, and demolish all plans we have to share the good news. We need to stick close to God in prayer, and encourage each other in our evangelistic endeavours.

 We prayed for hungry hearts to declare the truth to those we meet. We also prayed for the spiritual battle ahead, that God may go before us and pave the way.

It was a bit drizzly down at the shops, although the promised heavy stuff hadn’t arrived. Yvonne asked to tag along with me, which was fine. 

Immediately a guy walked past us.

Richard – I engaged him straight away with the afterlife question. To be honest, I didn’t expect him to stop, as I surprised him a bit. But he was eager to talk, saying there was some type of place we go to after death. He agreed there was a God. I asked him if he would be pleased how he was living in His universe. He just said “hmmm.” He told me he used to go to church and believed in God, . He said I would call him a “backslider”. I find with most who put themselves in this camp never even slid forward in the first place. So I started from scratch and took him through the law. He said he lied and stole things. He was shocked to learn that God would send someone to hell for just one lie. He thought I was being harsh. I asked him what was the only reason people go to heaven. He said if they had a relationship with Jesus. The guy knew the jargon, but was missing some vital information. So I had to back-track to show him that it was God’s universe, not ours, and He sets the rules and criteria, not us. Finally the penny dropped. I asked him how he could avoid his hell punishment, and he said ask for forgiveness. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work with a judge on earth, and it certainly doesn’t with God. He knew there was no way of escaping hell. I shared the only way to avoid his hell punishment, and that was if someone took it all for him. He said he sort of knew that but didn’t know how to put it in words, and the way I said made more sense. He knew that Jesus had died for his sins, but wasn’t really interested in doing anything about it. I asked him when he was going to die. He said only God knows that. I asked what would happen if he died tonight without trusting in Christ alone for the forgiveness of his sins, where would he go? He said to hell. I asked him what sin was it that he was willing to go to hell for. He said he just wasn’t ready. I warned him that he was playing with fire, that is, hell-fire. I said I couldn’t do anything more but to tell him the truth. I could tell that he knew he should, but was justifying it with a typical Kiwi “she’ll be right” attitude. That naiveness probably sends thousands to hell. I gave him a different tract, and shook his hand. All Yvonne and I could do was to pray that God would wake him up.

Belle – after a couple of laps around the shops, we came across this gentleman. I thought something was off with him. I thought he might be a homosexual. I made a decision in my head that I would not mention it in my dialogue with him. He said he thought there was an afterlife, but didn’t know what that looked like. He believed in God, or a higher force. Through a creation/creator analogy he admitted that yes, there must be a God. So l told him if God runs the universe, He sets the rules about how we live in His universe – how was he keeping up? He got quite thoughtful and said that he was trying to be the best human being he could – treating everyone with respect and honour, like you would want to be respected. I said that was the golden rule, and was a good one to follow, but will that meet the standards of the creator? He didn’t know. I asked him about lying, stealing, and blaspheming the creator (which he admitted to doing) – how would God see that? He said no one was perfect, and God would look at the attitude of the person. I said to try that in a court of law – “Yes, your honour, I did rob that bank and shoot the guard, but I have a great heart and attitude. Would the judge let you off?”. He looked away for a long time, and it was at this point I noticed he was wearing a hat that had “HER/SHE” pronouns on it, confirming this was a transexual person. I gestured to Yvonne and she nodded that she noticed it too. I’m deciding to stick with referring to him as a HE/HIM in this report (I never referred to him face to face with any pronouns).  He finally answered and said the judge might take that into consideration. I asked if it would take away the punishment you deserve? He said no, it wouldn’t. So should God punish us for breaking His rules? He said he supposed He should, yes. Would this punishment look like heaven or hell? Oh, definitely hell, he said. So how could you escape your hell punishment? Again, another long look away and ponderous thought. He said he didn’t know. I was then able to explain to him the only way to heaven – via God Himself, through His Son taking upon Himself the punishment we all deserve, and via faith in Him alone will we be spared the wrath owing to us. He said that made sense. I asked him when he thought he was going to die. He said nobody knows that. And what would happen if you died tonight without accepting the gift of him taking your hell punishment? He said he would go to hell. So when would be the best time to accept His gift? As soon as possible, he said. He said he had to go, as he was running some errands, but I had given him a lot to think about. I reinforced that he should do a lot more than think about it. It was then he said his name was Belle. We shook hands, and I gave him a Good Person tract to help explain what we talked about.

Yvonne disappeared somewhere, so I continued on my own, handing out tracts and trying to get some conversations going.

As I was walking back through the open area, I noticed Peck, Mary, and a couple of others chatting with 2 guys. It was quite animated. Peck beckoned me over.

LDS missionaries – as I approached these two young Samoan guys, I could overhear them mocking the ladies for believing that Jesus was God. That mad me a bit angry, and it took all my effort not to yell at them. One looked at me and asked me if I believed that too. I said I believed it because Jesus said He was (John 10:30). He took me through a lame rebuttal of this – that when the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus at His baptism, and a voice said that this was My Son whom I am well pleased – how could He say that if He was the same person? He obviously had a skewed picture of the Trinity, which is typical of Mormons. I told him about God being 3 persons but one God, but this is completely alien to the false doctrine they have been taught. I asked him how he was doing with keeping God’s laws, how many of them had he broken? He said a few. How many lies had he told? Lots. Had he stolen anything? Yes. What should God do to you for disobeying his rules? The other guy wanted to continue the argument about Jesus being God, but I ignored him. Knowing they had an agenda with their questions, I wanted to push through with the Gospel conversation before they lost interest. I said that no good works will be enough to make up the fact that you deserve the full wrath of God for sinning against Him. So when you die, you will have to give an account of everything law you’ve broken. He tried to stop me, saying “Look, you believe what you believe, and we believe what we believe. We don’t need to put each other down because of our beliefs”. I said that both of us can’t be right, and that he was the one mocking us for our beliefs. I went back to the Gospel, saying that the only way we can avoid our hell punishment is accepting the gift of Jesus taking our punishment for us. If we do, God will avert His wrath against us. If we don’t, then we will face His wrath, eternally in hell. I backed it up with Rev 21:8. I said we won’t stop pushing “our agenda”, because it is God’s only way for salvation, as revealed in scripture. At that stage they moved away, still hard-hearted. I can only pray that something I said will haunt them into changing their minds. I had a quick de-brief with the ladies to make sure they were OK. It was a good lesson in keeping to the script of just sharing the Gospel and not get into a theological ping-pong match. 

So it was an awesome day out, and we pray that the many seeds that were scattered will fall onto fertile soil, and God will grant the increase, to receive every bit of glory!

We won’t be doing our normal outreach next month due to Gospel Outreach week from 7 to 13 September. Dont forget to enrol! Scan the q-code in the picture below, or visit https://tellmeconference.org.nz/training/

Blessings

Craig.