Verbose Religiosity

Report from Jason:

Deep Ellum wasn't nearly as busy as normal. Just three of us tonight, Mark, Dorothy, and myself. Dorothy is from Germany and was here in Dallas as a foreign exchange student a couple of years ago, and she's been back to visit this summer. She went out with us a couple of weeks ago, and wanted to come again before she returned to Germany.

Last week on the drive back from Deep Ellum we had a discussion about what being led by the spirit means. One of the main points of discussion was, how much a person should be led by the spirit when witnessing or sharing the Gospel? Before we set out on the streets we always stop to pray and ask God to give us boldness and courage and trust that he'll be with us to lead us to the specific people that he wants us to talk to. You see, I don't very often experience a situation where I see a person on the street and I feel aware of a distinct impression that God wants me to go talk to that person. My assumption is that everyone needs to hear and understand the truth, and so I operate off that assumption, and trust that God will honor the faithful sharing of his word. I assume this because one of the fundamental doctrines of orthodox Christianity is that the Spirit of God isn't going to contradict the scriptures, and with that in mind I read Matthew 16:15 and it tells me, "Go into all the World and Preach the Gospel to every creature." This is a very straightforward statement. You could say, "Well, but Jesus was talking to his 11 disciples at the time," BUT, if we claim the name of Christ, then WE ARE ALSO his disciples. The word "Christian" is just a name that people eventually started using to refer to anyone who was a disciple of Christ. (See Acts 11:26) Mark Cahill puts it best: "If they're breathing, they need Jesus."

That still leaves the question when witnessing to someone. How much is the spirit of God involved in the matter, and futhermore, how much will we or should we tangibly perceive the spirit of God's involvement or prompting? When we had our prayertime before we set out last night, I kept some of those questions in mind and asked God to demonstrate his faithfulness by using his spirit to guide us and prompt us, and impress us to say something off the wall if necessary, so that we could see evidence of his faithfulness.

Usually we split up into groups of two, but since there were only three of us, one of whom was a girl, we all stuck together. Mark got in several conversations right away, so Dorothy and I mostly passed out tracts (e.g. 1, 2) while we waited for him. I passed out a tract to (Brandon?) and immediately he told us that he was a pastors kid and he knew he shouldn't be out in Deep Ellum that night. I told him that we were also out in Deep Ellum and the important thing was our reason and motive for being there. He was so affected by our small act of giving him a tract that he thanked us several times with this stricken look on his face, as if God had been prompting his conscience all night and all we had to do was give him a tract at the just the right time to complete the process of the holy spirit breaking him down. Pray for Brandon

While Dorothy and I were standing passing out tracts, a fairly large guy dressed in black with slicked back hair walked right up to us and asked us what we were passing out. He was the bouncer for the club that we were near and was concerned that we might be passing out literature about another club and stealing their customers cheerfully told him that it was a gospel tract and placed one firmly in his hand. As soon as he found out that we weren't out to steal his customers he walked away satisfied, unfortunately before I could initiate a conversation, but still with the tract in his hand.

That's when the people we talked to started to get weird. We encountered some people who were quite "religious", and QUITE talkative. The first one was Alan. Alan was a black fellow who was by himself leaning up against a tree on the street, so I popped up in front of him and asked him if he wanted to see a magic trick and held up the curved illusion tract. His enthusiasm about seeing the trick left something to be desired, but I preceded anyway and he was mildly entertained by the optical illusion. Alan considered himself to be a good person, so I started questioning him with the good person test. Right about the point where I asked him if he would be innocent or guilty before God if were he to stand before him on judgment day, Alan immediately began to steer the conversation away from that topic and onto Dorothy and I. He began spouting this nonsensical theory about Adam and Eve and the interrelationship between Man and Woman and how woman could perceive and see things that man couldn't, and because of that Dorothy was "Wisdom" and I was "Knowledge" and a lot of other really far out wacky things. I'm finding it difficult to recall the gist of what he was trying to say now, since Dorothy and I were and still are at a loss as to what exactly he was going on about. It was very difficult to get a word in edgewise, since he kept asking us questions and didn't give us a chance to question his incredibly convoluted premise. I kept trying to swing the conversation back to his responsibility before God, and at one point he told me that I just didn't give up and that I was a fighter, so apparently he was hearing some of what we were saying, but we were unable to really get a dialogue with him after that point. He didn't claim to specifically be a Christian, but he mentioned God's forgiveness several times and claimed to be forgiven by God, but we could sense his unwillingness to discuss that with us, since that was "between him and God". Apparently our tenacity in sticking with the guy through all his incomprehensible religious philosophizing won his respect because he FINALLY wanted to hear the rest of the explanation of the Gospel and the analogy I had started about a good judge in a human court being bound by the law to do justice, but, unfortunately some of his friends arrived right at that moment and ruined any further chance to continue explaining what it was all about. I believe Alan was under the influence of alcohol, and so were his friends that arrived, and the whole conversation made me think of this verse from proverbs. "Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has fighting? Who has babbling? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? Those who tarry long at the wine, those who seek mixed wine. Proverbs 23:29-30. Pray for Alan, he did keep the tract(s) that we gave him.

Then there was Raymond. Raymond saw us handing out tracts and decided it was his duty to ensure that we had the "anointing" to be out witnessing on the street. He reminded me of some of the televangelists that you see all the time on T.V, yet he had a sense of sincerity about him that the majority of televangelists lack. Raymond monopolized the time to tell us everything he had learned about how necessary "the anointing" was and how your your witnessing would fail without it. I suspect he initially thought that we were just some kids out doing our duty for our church and not necessarily really all that committed. As the conversation wore on and we kept agreeing with him (at least with the things he was saying that were clearly scriptural), I think he realized that we esteemed God's Word above anything that he was telling us. Then he calmed down a little bit and the one-way conversation became more of a dialouge.

In addition to the anointing, Raymond was very much into prophecy and so he had something of a "prophecy" for each of us. This was how his "prophecy" for me went.

RAYMOND: You've had thoughts about becoming a pastor recently, you know that you're going to be a pastor don't you.
ME: Actually that's not something I've put a great deal of thought into, and I wouldn't say that I've ever really actively considered it.
RAYMOND: Err...But the thought has crossed your mind, right?
ME: I suppose it could have
RAYMOND: I can see that you're going to be a pastor.
ME: Oh..OK...Well if that really is God's desire then he'll certainly open the doors to make it happen.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that God doesn't have a plan for me to a pastor. All of my delighting in him just hasn't produced that desire yet. (Psalm 37:4) Perhaps I'm just jaded by all the of-the-wall "prophesies" coming from Tel-evangelists. Or perhaps what I understand from scripture presents the idea that in order to be a true prophet who speaks on behalf of God, the things you prophesy MUST come to pass. Otherwise it's plain you're not speaking on behalf of God, and under OT Law there was a severe pentalty for falsely speaking a word in God's name. (See Duet. 18:20-22 below)

Deu 18:20 But the prophet who shall presume to speak a word in My name which I have not commanded him to speak or who shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
Deu 18:21 And if you say in your heart, How shall we know the word which Jehovah has not spoken?
Deu 18:22 When a prophet speaks in the name of Jehovah, if the thing does not follow nor come to pass, that is the thing which Jehovah has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him.

But back to the report. By this point it was getting to be quite late, so in order to close out our conversation with Raymond, Mark asked him if he wanted to have some of our tracts, since OUR main purpose for being there was to be witnessing. Generally with the long-winded relgious types, we've found it often helps determine whether their heart is where their mouth is by offering them tracts and/or asking if they would like to join us in sharing the gospel. After all, if they've got all this time to talk to us, then surely have the time to share the gospel with someone. :) Their response to that offer gives us a good idea of how concerned they are for the lost and how willing they are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus to seek that which is lost. Raymond did take the tracts from us, which was a good sign, and before we left we all prayed together. Please pray for him, he is a Katrina Evacuee and is on his way back to Lousiana to return to his home and his sister (who is already there.)

On our way back to the Car, a guy approached us and just began to pour out his heart. Apparently he could tell we Christians, he must have seen the tracts in our hands. His name was Terry and the way he spoke indicated that he was under so much conviction about his sin. He had been drinking at the time, as indicated in his eyes. He asked us to pray for him and then walked with us all the way back to our car. The best comparison to describe him would be to liken him to the Tax Collecter in Jesus' Parable of the Tax Collecter and the Pharisee. (See below)

Luk 18:10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-collector.
Luk 18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed within himself in this way: God, I thank You that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector.
Luk 18:12 I fast twice on the Sabbath, I give tithes of all that I possess.
Luk 18:13 And standing afar off, the tax-collector would not even lift up his eyes to Heaven, but struck on his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner!

Until next week.....