Hi Everyone

Well, today we had the first of the big outreaches for the year for the fellowship – our Easter one, down at the Hutt Riverbank Fruit & Vege Market. This is where we set up our little table and spread the Gospel with whoever passes by. We also wander, mix and mingle to start conversations.

We had 500 hot cross bun, and 500 chocolate packs to give away, each with a Gospel tract and church details card. These were put together by the fellowship the previous day.

It was unseasonably warm this year. Normally Easter signals the start of the horrible Autumn weather. But God was gracious to us and delivered up a summer-like day that brought the masses out.

Praise God, over the course of the morning we had about 25 or so from the fellowship coming and going to help out. I hung around the tent for most of the time trying to engage passers-by in Gospel conversations.

The first group of people I talked to turned out to be an awesome conversation – Lena, Shayna and their son Dwayne. Like all, they believed they were pretty good people. Everyone thinks that to a certain extent they are good, but not perfect. It was a privilege to show them how good they need to be ion order to make it to heaven,. They were all very humble. When I showed them the pictures of them taking their own hell punishment vs Jesus taking it for them, it all clicked for them. They understood that going to heaven is not based on anything they do, but only on Christ’s sacrifice. A few checking questions later they were professing faith in Christ alone, and were very grateful for me ‘interrupting’ their shopping. It was a great start to the outreach, and I was humbled to be used for God’s glory!

Yoko – this lady was also very receptive, honest, and humble. She came to the understanding of what she needed to do. Although she never confessed any faith in Christ, I believe she may have been close. She did say she would attend our church Easter service.

I talked to a young Maori man who thought God would forgive anything. I asked him who sets the rules, the creator or the created. He said created. I said there were consequences of breaking rules, even in this life, regardless of whether we agreed or not. When I used the analogy of an earthly judge forgiving a criminal, he agreed that would be corrupt. So why would it be any different with God? He just kept saying ‘Nah, He is forgiving’. Short of giving him a slap, there wasn’t anything more I could say that would snap him out of his nonchalance. I wished him well on judgement day.

A young Filipino man named Prinson told me he was steeped in all Eastern religions, until one day he saw the folly of praying to hundreds of idols to avoid bad karma. The trouble was, he had fallen into the ditch of Orthodoxy. So he had traded one set of rituals for another. Although he agreed that Jesus died for his sins, he also believed that good works must accompany his faith – baptism, communion, social justice etc. Without these God would not accept him. I asked him via Ephesians 2:8-9 whether he really trusted Jesus or not. He said I was taking the verse out of context. I explained that the whole context of the book of Epeshians was faith in Christ apart from works. He kept throwing his own out-of-context verses back at me to prove his point, but actually ended up disproving his own argument. It really helps when you read the Bible in context, as it removes most of the theological ditches you can fall into. He said we would need to agree to disagree, but that still leaves the ill-informed heading to hell. I told him this and he brushed it off. He walked away and I pleaded him to read his Bible as a book rather than a cherry tree.

I chatted with a guy named Vivian. He thought all the talk of God punishing us is over-exaggeration. God is a God of love, not vengeance, so He will forgive. I told him that there are many verses that disprove this (i.e. Romans, Hebrews, Deuteronomy). He said “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. If that’s your God, then you can keep him. My God is not like that”. I said that he has just broken the 2nd of the 10 Commandments – creating a god in his own image and worshipping it. I said the only reason he didn’t want to believe in the true God of the Bible is that he would have to be accountable to Him, so it was easier to pretend that the real one isn’t so bad. He was taken aback by that, so I asked him what was more important – what we believe, or if what we believe is true? He said the latter, so I implored him to search for the real truth in God’s Word, and stop being swayed by his suppressing of the truth in order to justify his sinning. He said I had given him something to think about, and went on his way.

This was followed up by a similar conversation with a man named Nat. He just kept saying “No, no, you have God all wrong. The Bible says he forgives, He isn’t that bad, how can we know that? Again I had to explain that God is never forgiving at the expense of His justice, and compared it to an earthly judge. That was too much for Nat – his self-righteousness exploded, and he walked away from me waving his finger yelling that I’m doing Christianity a dis-service by saying these things. I just said I was following what the Bible taught. 

I needed a coffee top-up, and while waiting at the coffee caravan I tried to talk with an Indian lady with her toddler, but she just kept smiling, and tried hard not to engage. I asked her if she would go to heaven when she died, and she said “Oh, yes, absolutely!” She had one eye on her husband, so I backed off physically. She said she tried her best to be a good person, but no one is perfect. I said she needed to be perfect, for God is perfect and imperfect people won’t be allowed into heaven. She said that was a bit harsh. It was going along nicely until her husband got his coffee order, and she took that as an excuse to end the conversation. She did thank me and take a tract though. 

Fitri and Dillon, a Muslim couple, also went down the ‘God forgives’ road. I asked them if an earthly judge lets someone off for murder even though the jury agreed that all the evidence proved they were guilty, would that be a good judge? Dillon said no of course not. So I asked her why would God be any different? They said God is merciful. I said if God is a perfect judge, how can He let people off crimes? This is always a sticking point for the Islam faith, and it is usually countered by “God can do anything He wants”. But He can’t go against His own nature, and if He lets people off committing sins without a payment for them, He is no longer perfect, and no longer God. I asked them how can God be perfectly just and perfectly merciful at the same while remaining perfect? They thought about it, but couldn’t come up with anything. It was then that I was able to share the great news of Christ offering to take their hell punishment for them, and in trusting Christ alone for the forgiveness of sins means God can be merciful to them because the punishment has been paid. They were silent for a long time, then said thank you for this information. I said just knowing this won’t help them – they needed to believe it, and trust Christ alone. They took tracts off me and said they would think about it. I pray they do!

My last conversation was with a young couple. They both thought they would earn heaven out of their own goodness.  I asked them what goodness they were relying on. The young lady said she tries to be nice to everyone and do charitable work. The guy said he was a firefighter, and then he told me he was Catholic. I asked him why he deserved to go to heaven, and he used his firefighting credentials as proof. So I went to the law to straighten out his thinking. His heckles went up, and his self-righteousness flared at me when he knew he was in trouble. He said who was I to judge him I said I wasn’t, I was just telling him what the Bible said. We went back and forth a bit, and he was getting angrier. His partner sensed this, and grabbed his arm. At this stage I thought it was better to diffuse the situation and let them go – but not without asking him to read the Bible, specifically the Gospel of John. He mumbled something I didn’t hear and walked off in a huff.

So it was an awesome day out – bookended by two conversations that led to confessions of faith at one end, to one where I thought I would might earn myself a black eye at the other. 

Still, God received all the glory today. 1,000 Gospel packs were given away, along with Gospels of John, and dozens of one-on-one conversations. We may not know or even like the outcome of most of them, but God’s Word will never return void, and we pray that those interacted with will not sleep until they stop wrestling with their self-righteousness and submit to God through repentance!

Next outreach is on Saturday 17 May back at the Naenae shops.

Blessings

Craig.