Dear Prayer Partners,
Using my flying analogy in the last PP email, I just had another example of how often we don't understand why we are learning something, we just don't see the need for it at the time.
Today I received a birthday card from my sister in law and most of it was a hymn we sang in church in my childhood. It certainly wasn't a favorite of mine then, it seemed like we would sing it toward the end of the service like it was the only thing standing between me and the door and i was hoping they certainly wouldn't sing all the verses. Today, at another time, in a different place, in different circumstances, that same song made me cry as I read it, it meant so much. I will just give you the third verse:
All the way my Savior leads me,
Oh the fullness of his love.
Perfect rest to me is promised
In my Father's house above
When my spirits clothed immortal
Wings its flight to realms of day,
This my song through endless ages
Jesus led me all the way;
This my song through endless ages;
Jesus led me all the way.
It's a song of God's sovereignty and the peace we receive from knowing his character, the way he is. It's the message I would like to teach more than any other and that is, God is completely sovereign. Nothing touches us that does not first pass through his hand. He is with us, always. He is on the other side of our situations, he causes his will to be done. What comfort, what peace, what joy!
Today prayers were answered. Elijah prayed to receive Christ. It was all of God, nothing of me, in fact, I tried to put him off.
I have been trying to connect with him for some time and it just wasn't working out. I began wondering if he was as interested as he said. Today as I finished my walk on the track, there he was. He said, "Let's sit in the shade and talk. It's a hot day here".
We sat down and the first question he asked was, "How is it that you and your wife have been married for 52 years?" I said, "Well, we are both Christians. We realize our lives are not about us, they belong to the Lord". He said, "Is your wife a Christian?" I said, "Yes". He said, "Would you have married her if she wasn't?" I said, "No, I don't think I would. God doesn't want his children to become equally yoked with unbelievers, that means in equal agreements not only in marriage but in business". He had more questions. I said, "Let me get my Bible. Otherwise I'm just giving you my opinion about things. I want you to get it from God himself". As I left he called me back, he said, "Bob, do you think I could ever be a good Christian brother"?
I got my Bible and we met in the courtyard. I wanted him to read it but he said he didn't have his glasses. (Now I'm not sure he can read. He does have a pretty good business.) This is how I presented the gospel to him. It's the same way I do it every time now. I have worked on this for some time and want to pass it on to you as I can now in a real live situation.
I asked Elijah where he thought Jesus came from. Did he come to God as a baby? Elijah didn't know. Then I read.
I begin in John 1 "In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God". Then I explained that Jesus was right with God all through creation.
Next we go to Genesis because I want them to see God's pleasure as he created everything. At the end of each day it says, "And he saw it was very good". God was having a great time creating the earth and everything on it. Then I pointed out some creativity in Elijah's life. He told me he loves rebuilding cars, antique cars, muscle cars etc. I said, "You get a thrill out of that, don't you?" He agreed he did. I said, "That is part of what Got put in you that's like him. God likes creativity, and he likes fun and pleasure. In fact, that's why he created man, it was for his own pleasure. God created the earth for man's pleasure. God is not against pleasure. The Christian life is about pleasure, creativity, and relationships". Then we continued in Genesis where God and Adam were in the garden enjoying each other's company and God saw that all the animals had a mate, man had no mate. This is the first time God says, "This is not good". So God created woman for man. "And it was good".
So here are God, Adam, and Eve in the Garden. Now God is completely holy and man was holy too and that is why they could have the kind of relationship they had. Because of God's holiness and man's spinelessness.
(The reason I go over this is because most people think that sin is the last awful thing they did. They don't realize that we are not sinners because we do awful things, we do awful things because we are sinners.)
Then we talked about Lucifer, the most beautiful of all angels. How Lucifer became jealous of God and caused one third of the angels to become jealous of God, and how God had to create hell as a place for Lucifer and his followers. He never intended it for man. But now Lucifer comes to Eve in the form of a serpent and gets Eve to doubt or to reinterpret what God said.
God had said, "You can eat of any tree of the garden you want to except of the tree of knowledge of good and evil." God wanted man to know only good. He did not want man to know evil. "Satan, the deceiver came and twisted what God said, when he said, "Did God not tell you you can't eat of any tree?". Then Eve corrected him. Then Satan caused Eve to doubt and then reinterpret what God intended. Satan said, "He knows if you eat of that tree you will become like him." Eve, convinced that God did not have her best interest at heart ate of the tree. Then Adam. Now they had a heart of sin. Sin was upon them.
Since God is holy he can only have fellowship with the holy. Man now was unholy. This was probably the saddest day for God that anyone could imagine. All of God's work of creation was for the crown of his creation whom he intended to have fellowship with for ever, now must die. It seems like a win for Satan and it is. But God then announces the one whom he tells Satan, you have bruised his heal, but he will crush your head. Already God had a plan and he was announcing Jesus.
(Please understand, I am telling you all this because this is what i have distilled my gospel presentation down to after giving it many times in prison. I found I needed to cover these things because people really don't understand the holiness of God, don't know why God has wrath, don't understand sin. If one doesn't understand sin, how can he really repent, and if he only sees God as an impersonal force, how can he desire God or want a relationship with him?)
Then, because Elijah seems to be a pretty good guy, he likes to do good things, gives to the poor etc. I have learned to use the story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10. If you remember I did this with Pepi and he really responded to it. So with Elijah I told him he reminds me of Cornelius, and we read how Cornelius, a good man, an important man who worshiped God was alone one day when God sent an angel to tell Cornelius there was a man God wanted him to see. He should send his men to Peter and told him where they would find Peter.
At the same time God gave Peter a vision of food coming down from heaven on a sheet; food that a Jew wasn't supposed to eat and up to this time the Jews weren't supposed to eat pork. Well there is pork on this sheet and Peter said,"No Lord, I can't eat this meat it is unclean". And God said, "Don't call anything unclean that I have called clean".
In addition to that, God told Peter he was to go to the house o fa man called Cornelius, an upright man, and bring him a message. (Now up to this point I had told Elijah he reminded me of Cornelius, because he was a good man, but there was something he was missing. God was going to send Peter with a message of what he was missing). So as we read farther, Peter goes with the men and they come to Cornelius house. Cornelius gathers his whole household together to hear what Peter has to say.
(By now Elijah is getting drowsy as often people do at this point. I have covered a lot of material. I always offer to stop here and usually do. If I stop, I ask them if they would like to meet again tomorrow to hear what the message is. In Bob Moran's family they all wanted to meet again the next day. In Elijah's case, he just got a real disappointed look on his face, like a child if you take a favorite toy away from him. He said,"Aw come on, don't make me wait")
So I handed Elijah the Bible now for him to read the next ten verses which is the gospel, the same gospel that all the disciples repeated over and over as they preached. They always said the same thing. I told Elijah, "This is the gospel." He smiled. He was almost overcome with fatigue. I hesitated - silence - he broke the silence. (Also our time was running out, the move was almost over.) Elijah broke the silence. He said "Can we pray?". I said "Yes, what do you want to pray for? Do you want to become a follower of Jesus?" He said, "I do". I said a short prayer, and he prayed a salvation prayer repeating after me. He was sincere, he was prepared by God before I came. He was like a really red tomato just ready to fall off the vine. The Lord had so completely done the work.
Elijah still needs much more help. He is concerned that I am leaving. He wanted my contact information because he said, "One of these days you'll be gone, I won't to be able to contact you". I said, "Elijah, when you get out, my son Tom will contact you". He said, "That's good, but God's not going to take you, I want to come to see you. How long does it take to drive to Minnesota?" I said it was about 18 hours. He said, "I want to come and spend a couple days with you with my wife. I want to go to church with you. I want to see how you live. " I said, "That's good, Elijah, you're welcome any time. "
When I told Elijah how Peter was surprised that not only should he eat unclean meat but that he should go to a Gentiles house I explained to Elijah that at that time a Jew was not to enter into the house of a Gentile. "You and I are Gentiles, Elijah. Before that time, we couldn't be Christians. It was only for Jews. Peter couldn't have come to our house. It's worse than racism, It's like if I couldn't come to your house because you're black and I'm white." When I said that Elijah got out a piece of paper and took a note of where that was in the Bible.
In most situations before I finished I would go to John 3 where Jesus says you must be born again. We were out of time and Elijah was so eager we never got there, but they need to understand that even Satan believes, I feel the need to go beyond belief and quote Jesus on being born again.
Well, I just wanted to put in here how I now do the gospel presentation. I hope it is helpful. I think so often the gospel presentation gets short changed and starts too late in the story. Let me just outline it here one more time.
The Holiness of God
The creative pleasure of God,
God is a God of relationship
Man, the crown of creation
The Fall --- the devastation of it---- the sadness of God---the separation of God and Man
God's offer of a remedy.
It was a thrilling day for me, even though I had so little to do with it. It's been two months since I have been able to introduce someone to the Lord, and the Lord knew I was needing that too. I am always amazed though that there are people all over that God is speaking to. We are probably walking by them every day and not noticing, too busy, too preoccupied.
Thank you, Lord for being willing to use empty vessels such as we are to allow us to carry your story, to serve the Lamb at your table. Be with Elijah, work mightily in his heart. Lead him to knowledge and understanding that he may walk uprightly with you each and every day of his life.
All because of Jesus, Amen
Bob
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