John 3:30

He Must Increase, I Must Decrease

Righteous

Tulane @ tOSU Ministry Report – Sept 22, 2018

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Instead of a long report in paragraph form, I’ve decided to post “quick hit” updates from our Saturday, September 22 day of ministry/evangelism at THE Ohio State University football game vs Tulane.

Dana Lewin

There is Joy in Serving Jesus

  • I was joined by 5 wonderful men of God: Caleb Davenport, Kurtis Gould, Adam Burd, Chase Vendley and Fred Triplett.
  • I don’t have a count of tracts passed out, but my box of tracts was significantly lighter when we finished!
  • We preached for at least 3 hours. For about an hour we preached on two street corners.
  • The after evangelism fellowship meal at Raising Canes was sweet fellowship, and, in my estimation, an important part of the endeavor.

Everyone Responds

  • Often we are asked if anyone responds to our “methods.” The answer is “Yes, everyone responds.” People either respond by believing in Jesus or rejecting Jesus.
  • While I was preaching, a man walked by me and gave me a fatherly disapproving look as I preached. He shouted, “Right message, wrong method.” I thought to myself but did not say, “I don’t appreciate the method he used to tell me that.” Let the reader understand.
  • The pornographers who had been passing out their garbage at our “corner of righteousness” did not show up this week. Were they finally driven away by the consistent witness of the Law of God and the Gospel of God?
  • Many Christians encouraged us with high fives, thumbs up or just little waves as they walked by. Thanks be to God for His people and their joy in hearing God’s Word preached.

Consistency Matters

  • I believe that being at the same location for years, and for every game has had an effect.
  • Other evangelists know us.
  • The pornographers may have been driven away by our presence.
  • The police are familiar with us, and they know we are there to do justice and to love kindness.
  • Team members have no trouble finding the rest of the team, because we are always in the same place. Folks who show up late do not lose the rest of the team, because we stay at the corner of righteousness.

Praise God for His good work this weekend. He is worthy to be praised, and we should thank Him for another chance to preach and teach His Word to sinners.

2017 Penn State @ Ohio State Outreach Report

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6 men were able to labor October 28 for the Lord and lost in Columbus Ohio. Caleb Davenport, Kurtis Gould, Travis Jackson and I preached while Chase Vendley and Kenton Gould handed out tracts. It was a sub-40 degree day which started out rainy. But we prayed earnestly that God would keep the rain away and He graciously answered the prayer. We drove to Ohio State at 11am with windshield wipers on, and by the time I parked my van the rain had stopped and didn’t restart. I want to publicly thank the Lord for his kindness to us that day. It was the first cold day, but that is something we are used to in Ohio. The way I see it, if fans will go to the game, I will too. Although I immediately ordered a box of 40 hand warmers when I got home for future games!

On the way there, I asked Kurtis, “Why would you to want to go evangelize in freezing rain?” He responded, “The same reason as when the weather is nice, the get the gospel out.”  <<–Praise the Lord for that faithfulness!

Here are some pictures and commentary about the day, with a special providential surprise at the end. If you click the pictures it will open larger versions of them in a new tab which you can close to return to the article. We started, as always, with the singing of gospel hymns and prayer.

Above you can see a photo of Caleb preaching with Kurtis standing by him. We like to have someone near the preacher, not only in case of an type of physical incident, but also to help if needed. For example, if a person is clearly trying to obstruct the preaching, that person can distract a person who is just causing the preacher problems. Or if the preacher decides to stop preaching to talk to someone who is responding to the gospel, that person can begin preaching. We only have a few hours to preach so we try to fill it up.

Above you can see a picture of the crowd. Basically from 2-3 hours prior to kickoff until 15 minutes before kickoff there is a constant stream of people like this. Every 5-7 minutes the crowd moves along as the police operate the stoplights.

In the below picture you can actually see Chase handing out tracts. There is a teeny tiny arrow pointing to Chase. Click to picture to see it. You can also see just to the right of the middle of the photo there is a street vendor selling knit caps. His set up for the caps is in the shape of a cross. He was mocking the gospel and shouting “Be saved…from the cold!” But in his mocking many people heard “Be saved!” and we rejoice that God may use that to cause His elect to think about their need of salvation. And we also know that this man was in earshot of several hours of preaching, and Travis made sure he received a tract. May Jesus receive the reward!

In this photo, Caleb is preaching and you can see the man on the right reading a tract he was give by Chase or Kenton. It has become rare in my experience to see people actually stop to read the tracts (although I still hope some read them just not in my sight). So I told Travis, “Why don’t you go try to talk to him?” Below you can see Travis engaging the man with the gospel. At one point the man was actually weeping. Travis has a kind heart and a peaceful spirit. Pray that this man might receive Christ or if he already has that he would maybe come back and join us in reaching others!

In the photo below this man came up while Kurtis was preaching and asked Kurtis for his favorite Scripture. As men, we can only judge outward appearance, and not hearts, but this man appeared oppositional to Kurtis in his tone and posture. When Kurtis didn’t immediately tell him his favorite passage, the man said something like “There are a lot of false prophets out here. If you’re going to do this, you need to know the Word.”

I’m protective of my team, maybe to a fault, and Kurtis is only 17 years old, so I stepped over and tried to reason with the guy. I told him that Kurtis not having a favorite scripture off the top of his head was no indicator that Kurtis is a false teacher or doesn’t know the Word of God. The man was unkind and made some more comments which could only be construed as rude, while telling us he was just trying to inspire Kurtis. It was odd, but I was bothered that the preaching was interrupted for such a strange encounter.

After a minute, Kurtis told the guy he likes Philippians. We explained to the man that although he said he was trying to help us it just didn’t come across as supportive. These are the kinds of things you encounter regularly. Questions weigh on your mind with each encounter like “Should we have just had another person start preaching and let Kurt engage the fellow?” “Should I have kept out of it and let Kurtis handle it?” “Was I kind in my responses to him or too accusatory?”

As I said earlier, I do not want the preaching to stop and even a seemingly honest question from someone can interrupt the preaching to the point where many walking by will not hear the gospel. At the same time, the soul in front of us matters also, we we try to be strategic and wise and we hope that God will grant us wisdom and discernment! Pray for us, will you?

One thing that was notable to me that day was that I did not see a particular ticket scalper who I usually see. I have been going to the same corner for years now, and I have gotten to know various vendors and scalpers. One of them I even recognized when I was at a different event where he was selling tickets and he recognized me too and hugged me. Well, I did not see him this Saturday and it actually disappointed me.

But that evening, I went to a local place called Wingstop to get my wife and I some wings. As I got out of my car, I saw that same scalper! He said hello and hugged me and I asked him where he was that day and he said he was at a different location. We chatted for a moment and I found out his name and that we have at least one mutual friend from his church. Then as I was getting ready to pick up my order, he stepped up and paid for my chicken wings. I thanked him and he said, “You bless a lot of people, so I’m blessing you right now. Keep it up.” Praise the Lord for his providential timing and the gift of chicken wings for my bride and me!

One thing you can consider is that when you watch the games, you can look at the faces of the fans and know that many of them received the gospel. As I watched fans storm onto the field after OSU’s comeback victory, all I could think was “that’s my mission field.” Pray for a harvest, dear Christian!

Finally, I uploaded this video to give people an idea of what it is like preaching. There are distractions galore: sirens, people periodically shouting, and a constantly moving crowd at sporting events.

We ought pray for preachers of righteousness that the Holy Spirit would give them wisdom and unction to preach as He would have them preach.

 

Responding Like a Pharisee

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Last month I received a card in the mail from Legacy Church here on the east side of Columbus, OH.

I posted a couple tweets with screen shots as you can see below.

 

 

 

I received one particular reply which I wanted to respond to in a blog post.

 

 

 

 

I want to give Lisa Manning the benefit of the doubt. Even though I don’t think she’s asking an honest question (I believe she’s making a point in the form of two questions if you include her hashtag), I want to respond graciously, explaining a few of my own thoughts.

First of all, let’s take a look at this statement

What if one person gets saved or changed their life because they change their thinking?

Change Their Thinking

It seems Lisa has deftly understood that I do not agree with the concept of the mailing I received. I do not think that man’s problem is that our thinking is negative, thus pulling us from our goals and potential.

So, in response to the second part of Lisa’s question, “what if someone changed their life because they changed their thinking?” my answer is that I don’t really care, unless of course that thinking was changed from whatever a person thinks to thinking God’s thoughts, which we know according to His Word.

1 Cor 1:11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual

If somehow a person changed their life because they changed their thinking, apart from salvation in Christ and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, although those changes could be positive changes, it is a not the purpose of the church to help people better their lives with better thinking. It is our purpose to preach God’s Word to people and let them fall under the conviction of the Holy Spirit where the only real helpful change occurs (cf Phil 3).

What if one Person Gets Saved?

Next, let’s consider the first part of Lisa’s question. What if a person changed their thinking and got saved? This sounds great on the surface.

In fact, don’t we always say, “such and such sacrifice would be worth it if it helps just one person?”

Well, let’s take Lisa’s tweet in context. She is recognizing that I am opposed to the use of the crude vulgarity on a church mailing. And instead of defending it as a righteous and good practice, she proposes that maybe it will attract someone who ends up saved. Either that or she recognizes that someone may come to church because they want to have more positive thinking, but find Christ while there.

This sounds OK, until we substitute some other verbiage to see if it makes logical sense. Let’s say we have a stripper pole at a church meeting, find some beautiful ladies willing to share what God’s blessed ’em with and invite men from the area to come and enjoy “God’s creation.” Sounds despicable, doesn’t it?

But what if one person gets saved?

“What if one person DOES get saved?” I’d ask.  Who cares? What bearing does it have on the morality of the act? None. Zero. The point is this, someone hearing the gospel and getting saved is a wonderful act of God’s mercy – but whether or not that occurs has no logical bearing on whether your method of getting the gospel to them was legitimate.

I would go so far as to say that if you are willing to sin, follow methods NOT prescribed by God for dispensing His Word, or use language NOT becoming of a Christian (Eph 4:29) in order to get the gospel to someone, then you probably are not saved, and you are just practicing a religion you call Christianity, with a god you call Jesus who forgives people of their sins…to assuage your own sin guilt.

Am I a Pharisee?

So does all that make me a pharisee? The implication here is staggering to me because of what pharisees were in Scripture (outside God’s kingdom). Lisa’s tweet goes from an honest question -> to a hashtag which effectively labels me as outside the kingdom of Heaven.

This is a big deal to me because Lisa seems to come from the easy believism camp of Christianity – which is nearly indiscernible from Universalism. My point is this, she seems to be almost a universalist, but she draws a comparison from me to the very people Jesus called a “brood of vipers!” (Mt 23:33)

Of course, maybe Lisa didn’t mean it so literally analogous to biblical pharisees as I took it. Maybe she was just asking me if I was being legalistic or if I was unrighteously judging (John 7:24).  I will leave that to you, the reader to decide. But remember, if you judge me to be unrighteously judging for passing any judgement at all, you are caught in your own trap.

I appreciate the good folks who wrote this post which sums up the problem with playing the pharisee card. I strongly suggest you read it.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, we need to be a holy people in a wicked and perverse generation. We need to do things the way God has instructed in His Word and trust Him with the results. And we need to keep in mind when we judge others that we ourselves are not committing the same errors we are correcting them for.

Western “that team up north” vs THE OSU Outreach Report

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First off all, hat tip to Jason Marianna for reminding me that “THE” is all caps when referring to THE OSU.

Saturday, September 26, 2015: Joshua Richards and I preached the gospel from about noon to 3pm at the usual spot, Lane and Olentangy River Rd, prior to the Buckeyes’ victory over the Broncos of Western you know.

I only brought a couple hundred tracts with me, and we were able to distribute them all! Pray, dear Christian, that God would bring someone to repentance and faith as the result!

Reading the Bible in public

After Joshua preached for the first time, I delivered this sermon (embedded below). The scripture read included Psalm 14, Romans 1:18-32, Romans 3:10-27; Psalm 1, Psalm 149, and parts of John 10. I have said this before: for many Christians, this is more reading that you are willing to do in a day…or even a week. I’ll confess – some days, that is a problem for me too! Together, let’s repent of our apathy toward God’s Word, shall we?

After Joshua preached a second time, I read the entire book of 1 Peter in the open air and followed it up with 19 minutes of preaching, using 1 Peter as my launching point. At one point, there was a large group of people waiting for the light to change including many children. I was so joyed to have the chance to tell them of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I also read Psalm 23 aloud during that preaching stint. Overall, we filled about 2-2.5 hours of preaching. How we wish for more laborers to join us!

You can see the pedestrian traffic in this picture.
You can see the pedestrian traffic in this picture.

Our culture is so hateful toward God’s law that there was a truck that kept driving by advertising strip clubs with loud music and large images on the side of the truck. Two young ladies women were walking around passing out free passes to a gentlemen’s strip club, as well. Much prayer is needed for our culture and for those of us engaging the culture with the gospel!

While Joshua was preaching, I followed an idea he gave me and I was able to offer prayer to a young man who had been recently injured. That was a really neat way to engage people and get their ear.

Praise Almighty God for His good work that day. His gospel must have been heard by thousands, and He will do as He pleases!

The Face of Evil

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Today is Tuesday, July 21. In recent times, 2 videos have been made public claiming to show that Planned Parenthood intentionally harvests human organs from the babies they murder and sell them. Christians are incensed and are hoping that this will be the turning point in the effort to convince our government to stop subsidizing Planned Parenthood.

I saw a tweet which I considered most poignant after the first video was released. The person (I forget who) said when they look at the eyes of the lady in the first PP video, they expected to see something demonic, or different. But he said what was scary was that all he saw were human eyes. How apropos.

I remember reading a story about the DaVinci painting, The Last Supper. Legend has is the Leonardo painted the Christ first, and in doing so, he passed over hundreds of models until he had found a young man who had the gentle, innocent and soft features which he figured represented the sinless Son of God.

As the story goes, DaVinci, 6 years later, visited the local prison to find a satisfactory model for his representation of Judas Iscariot, the man who would betray Jesus.

For weeks, DaVinci searched for a man with a hard callous face, with a countenance marked by scars of avarice, deceit, hypocrisy, and crime; a face that would delineate a character who would betray his best friend. 1

Finally, Leonardo found a man convicted of murder. While finishing his masterpiece, the young man began to sob uncontrollably. He said to DaVinci, “Do you remember me?”

“No, I have never seen you before in my life,” Leonardo replied.

“I am the man who modeled Jesus for you so many years ago!” said the young man whose life had been destroyed by his sin.

Of course, this story is generally considered mythical, but the human lesson is clear in a twofold way. First, anyone can fall into sin and become something they did not seem to be. Secondly, I would add that we can’t judge by appearances as DaVinci thought he could.

Despite that fact, we still try. We still lock the doors when certain “types” of people are walking by our car at a stoplight. We avoid that aisle in the grocery store, or that side of the street because of some of our preconceived notions of what evil resembles. I will note that sometimes you may be acting wisely – it just depends on what criteria you base your judgement upon.

But in the technology age, with facial recognition software and the ability to generate human images using computer programming I find it not surprising that Google has an image generator, however poorly publicize it is. It is this software which is used to help police to draw images based on witness testimony.

What is neat is you can create your own new face with it. You can enter criteria such as blue eyes, blond hair, etc., but you can also enter attributes like “beautiful,” “funny,” “outgoing,” or “party pooper.”

Google has analyzed over 5 trillion images and indexed the attributes associated with the file, including the comments made concerning that file. So you post a picture of your kid on Facebook and 179 people comment “Cute!” and you have a chance that your kids’ features will be part of the “Cute” algorithm. So using what must be a severely cool algorithm, Google is able to take features from its database of images and morph them into a “face” which personifies those features. With the amount of data analyzed, and taking into account the local proxy server you are using to connect to the internet, it is reported to be accurate over 99.99% of the time in producing an image which the person requesting “completely agrees” matches the attributes requested.

So I gave it a shot. I figured let’s see what our society has labeled the face of evil. Keep in mind that hundreds of thousands of PP supporters would have attributed to abortion providers like the ones in the videos mentioned earlier qualities like “successful,” “beautiful,” or “caring” so I didn’t really expect to see their likeness. Plus, I went with “male,” which I found interesting that there is still that option, but I digress.

I am a precise kinda guy, so I entered a whole number of attributes. I figured I’d just use a list from the Bible:

1 Cor 6:9 …fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers…

Couple of quick word searches and a click and here is what was generated after only about 4 seconds. Notice the eyes and the mouth. Obviously, if you see someone like this, avoid him at all costs. Click the link then you can close the newly opened tab.

Click here to see the face of EVIL.

Do you get it? Again, the interpretation is twofold.

1) Our ideas of what is evil are not only irrelevant, they are foolish. Clouded by our own sinfulness, we have no ability to really identify evil. Only God’s Word really gives us a basis for that judgement.

2) I’m evil.

Yes, that’s my mug shot. That’s the face of evil. That’s the face of a murderous, raping, thieving, God-hating, disrepecter of parents, filled with covetousness and reviling. If you can’t imagine your own face with those descriptors, maybe you don’t really believe in the depravity of man? I’m not asking you if you actually committed all those acts in the flesh, but if you know your evil heart is capable because you believe Jeremiah 17:9

Because no one is good. Not one. No one is righteous, not one. (Romans 3:10-12)

But there is hope. Continuing the earlier verse of sins which keep us out of the kingdom of God is the following:

1 Cor 6:11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Look, instead of avoiding the face of evil, why don’t you give the gospel to that person? Tell the faces of evil in your life of the repentance and faith that is found in Christ alone and trusting His sacrifice and glorious resurrection for the forgiveness of sins.

I am glad someone did that for me.

1 – Text from http://www.truthorfiction.com/lastsupper/

P.S. #SorryNotSorry: The entire story about Google Image Generator was concocted to grab your attention.