John 3:30

He Must Increase, I Must Decrease

savior

Open Air Preaching from Home

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I am sure you’ve heard of “working from home.” But have you heard of open air preaching from home? I want to share what I think was a singularly unique experience to me. Maybe you’ll think so, too!

My 3 year old son Wesley had just gone outside into the backyard. My teenagers were on the couch with my 9 month old and my wife was gone. All was quiet on our little street and then I heard the doorbell, or a knock. I looked over and saw a man in a suit with a young boy. I figured they were Jehovah’s Witness, and headed over to the door.

The young boy showed me a pamphlet and was trying to talk to me. You could tell it was taking some courage for him to do whatever he was doing. Had he been a boy scout or a basketball player raising money for a trip, I’d have bought popcorn or candles or whatever he was peddling to encourage him.

After I took the pamphlet I looked quickly at it to find the JW markings. The man was saying something about Scriptures and the boy was talking about love…and I told them to hold on, while I went and grabbed a tract.

I always try to give JWs a tract because I have been told they are not allowed to take them. It’s a test, in a sense. If they take it, fine. If they refuse, it opens the door to asking them why I should take their stuff and they don’t take mine, etc.

So I went out on the porch and started asking the boy what he thought. He kept saying they were walking around to ask people what “they thought.” I asked him if he believed Jesus died on a cross for sinners, and he mumbled yes and then the older man corrected me and said Jesus died on a stick. I repeated that He died on a cross and then asked if they believed Jesus is God. The boy just stared and the man said “No.”

I don’t intend to prove this here, but if you do not believe Jesus Christ is God, (and not just “a” god, but the God) you do not believe the saving gospel.

So I started talking to the boy and telling him that whatever the man he is with has been telling him is false and will lead him to Hell. I started explaining that Jesus had to be God to die in the place of sinners; that if Jesus was only a man that He would not have been able to satisfy God’s wrath for sinners!

The reason I did this is twofold.

  1. I have found that JWs usually travel in pairs, (like Sith), and, like Sith, there is usually a learner and a ‘master.’ I believe all men who hear the saving gospel of grace and of Christ’s glorious resurrection can be saved, but I’ve found experienced JWs particularly hard to interact with. But a 9 or 10 year old child who was obviously nervous about whatever faith he had? I was sure I could get him thinking and maybe be used of God for his salvation.
  2. As I mentioned, the context was that I had a 3 year old alone outside, a couple of teenagers watching a baby and no wife at home. I didn’t believe I had time for a friendly conversation where I slowly tried to lead them to the gospel. Nor, honestly, do I want to listen to their beliefs. I know many wonderful Christians who will sit and listen to pagans share their thoughts and many times blaspheme Christ. I do not believe it is my duty to allow them the privilege.

The man immediately recognized what was happening and saw he would get nowhere with me and said, come on, let’s go. And he led the lad away. So I quoted Matthew 18:6 to him. They, of course, kept walking, so I kept talking, louder and louder. Within seconds I was open air preaching from my porch to this man and this child as they met with one of their cohorts across the street. I continued to preach the necessity of the new birth, believe in the deity of the Christ and the truth of the resurrection for the justification for sinners. You could see the bewilderment as I do not think they expected this, nor probably ever encountered it.

I started to hope I had neighbors who would hear the preaching too! I saw a family walking toward the house who looked like they may be the young lad’s family and I started preaching in their direction. Finally, they all headed as far away as they could until I could no longer see them.

I am sure some (Christian) people would not feel comfortable with this story. But when was this young man going to hear the gospel if not from the preacher whose door he was brought to providentially? Do I know how many more days any of those folks had before they met their maker? Do you not believe that it is through the foolishness of what we preach that men are saved from the wrath of almighty God?

I am not saying that is the only way to interact with JWs (or anyone). But I am grateful to God for the opportunity to preach His Word today, even if it was only for 3 minutes. 6 people heard the gospel, my own children heard me preach the gospel and saw the importance of it.

Maybe the sweetest part was coming inside and praying with my children for the salvation of sinners and then singing hymns together as worship of Jesus Christ! May God be praised and may He have mercy on the men and woman and children who visited my neighborhood today.

2017 Arnold Report – 1

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The Arnold Classic is an annual athletic event held in Columbus, OH which attracts a large number of people from all over the world. For several years in a row we have gone to the central location for the event and preached Christ crucified, handed out tracts and engaged people in conversations.

Here is a multi-part post where I will share with you some of the stories from this weekend’s evangelistic outreach. I am hoping to make this series educational for others.

Allow me to introduce you to our team of evangelists. From left to right in the front row Pam, Kenton, Alexandra, then me. In the back row are Dave, Luke, Nick and Kurtis. You will notice that our team has 4 teenagers and one almost teenager! Praise the Lord for giving these young people a desire to see souls hear about Christ.

The day started long before March 4. We spent days and weeks praying, announcing the event at church and studying the Bible so that we would be ready. The night before and morning of the event I was charging my speaker, packaging tracts, finding DVD movies and watching the weather report!

We met at our church at about 11am on March 4. Due to there being 8 of us, we borrowed a generous brother’s van which seats 8. Right before leaving the church for downtown Columbus, our pastor prayed that the Holy Spirit would go before us and change hearts, something we cannot do.

On one sad note, two dear brothers who were scheduled to go with us could not make it due to illness. One of them was sick and the other couldn’t come because of how that affected him. This is very common! Pray for your outreaches and those of folks you know.

Click to read part 2..

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.

Movie Review of Risen

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I enjoyed [Risen], generally speaking, and there were a few parts where the story on the screen and my thoughts of my own relationship with Christ brought me to tears of joy over my salvation and sadness over my sin.

Read the rest of my review here.

Here are a few other reviews I found helpful and informative:

Variety: Justin Chang, Chief Film Critic

Todd Friel wrote:

“The sum total of the movie’s message was, believe in Jesus because He is like, way nicer than anyone.”

Todd Friel’s review on Christian Post

I heartily agreed with Ann Hornaday (who I do not know to be Christian) who wrote

Viewers already well-versed in the greatest story ever told might find their interest piqued by the filmmakers’ unconventional take. It’s unlikely, however, that “Risen” will preach to anyone outside the choir.

in this article.

Interview On Pillar of Truth

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The good folks at the Pillar of Truth interviewed me about my work evangelizing and leading evangelism events.

In 2015 I was interviewed on the Pillar of Truth podcast:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

As you can imagine, I wasn’t any less wordy with them than usual, so they had to cut the interview in parts. 🙂

I do appreciate if you listen and give me feedback.

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!