To this man will I look

Although we've gone witnessing in Deep Ellum since last time I posted, I haven't posted about those times, but we did go last Saturday night.

Luke, Spenser, Daniel and Myself were the "fishermen" tonight. I went with Daniel and Spenser went with Luke. This was the weekend of the Deep Ellum arts festival so all the streets were closed off and there were display tents everywhere, but by the time we arrived (at around 11:00PM) all the tents were shut down for the night.

After we parked, we immediately ran into several people from Deliverance Bible Church. They were just leaving, and had also been down there for the purpose of witnessing. We were greatly encouraged by talking to them. I felt kind of like it was a tag team, and we were taking the next shift. :)

Before I go on, just a note about Deliverance Bible Church. It's a church that's located in Hurst, here in the metroplex, near Fort Worth. I first heard about the church a couple of years ago when Luke and I met a couple of guys from the church while they were witnessing in Deep Ellum. That night we had joined up with them and spent the night witnessing with them. They were using tracts from living waters, and also had some of their own tracts, which I was very impresed with. Since that first time running into them, I think we've probably run into people in Deep Ellum from their church once every couple of months. I've also visited the church several times and gone to their Sunday service. I don't know that I've ever met people more geniuine and zealous in their faith then the people I've met from Deliverance. The pastor, Cleetus Adrian, is very unique. I was describing him to a friend the other day, and the way I described him was that "he's kind of like Napoleon Dynamite, but with righteousness". If that instills in you a bit of curiosity :) , I highly recommend that you check out their churches podcast. --> http://www.deliverancebiblechurch.com .

Although the night started out really slow, eventually the conversations came, and came on strong. Jimmy was standing outside a club on street waiting for his friends, so I offered him a tract. It was the Worlds Most popular things scratch off tract. He took the tract and told me that he probably wouldn't be able to do it because he was kind of drunk. I was like "ok" and then told him it was a christian tract and asked if he had a christian background. He had a baptist background. He said he was a good person so I led him through the good person test. After the test, when prompted whether he thought God should send him to heaven or hell, he said heaven, and when asked why, he stated that it had been a long time since he had done those things and he had done a lot of good and reformed his ways since then. After reasoning with him, he agreed that a judge wouldn't let a criminal go for those reasons, and agreed that God shouldn't either. At that point he said that he had to go so I quickly summed it all up with the fact that Jesus had died for him, and sacrificed everything, much like somebody walking into a court room after selling everything they owned to pay an undeserving criminal's fine for him. I thanked him for talking to me, and as he left, his facial expressions showed that he was thinking deeply about what we had just talked about.

I started up a conversaton with the guy running the hot dog stand. The Hot dog stand is right at the two main intersections in Deep Ellum, right in front of one of the more popular clubs, so there's always quite a bit of activity in that area. Tonight was actually a slow night for him (probably because of competition from other vendors due to the Arts festival) so I struck up a conversation. His name was Sydney, and he claimed to be a Christian. When he wasn't working there in Deep Ellum, he drove a school bus. and he had 4 grown kids. I asked him if he was satisfied with how his life turned out, and with how his kids turned out. He said a lot of things could have been better, but he couldn't complain. One of his kids was permanently confined to a wheel chair after having his spine shattered in a tree cutting accident, and he certainly wished that was different. I asked him when he became a christian, and he said that he had been a christian all his life, as that was how he was raised. I inquired how his life was different or had been changed due to his faith. He didn't really have a whole lot to say in answer to this question, so I explained how when I was born again and truly repented of my sins during my college years, everything about me changed. I had an entirely new focus and direction, things I used to love I hated, things I used to hate I now loved. After that he appeared slightly more defensive, as he swung the conversation to how there are so many diffferent ways to share one's faith, and he wasn't one to push his beliefs on other people. I did a great deal of reasoning with him and explained that if one of the most loving things that we can do is warn people of the consequences of their sin and the consequences of sinning against a holy and just God and warn them what the word of God says, so they can see the awesomeness of the glorious gospel, and that we shouldn't shrink back if people are offended by the truth.. I mentioned 2 Corinthians 5:11 that "knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." Right around this point, Luke and Spenser showed up at the hot dog stand. Luke started to order a hotdog and a drink, which I thought was odd, because we don't usually get food when we're up there, but then I realized that he was buying it for a guy that he was talking to. Luke gave the guy he was with a the food, then gave some money to a guy who Spenser was talking to and then that guy gave
Luke a transit ticket for the Dallas bus system. The ticket was still good until 3:00am that night. I realized that Luke was buying the ticket to give to the guy he had bought the hotdog for, apparently because the guy didn't have a way of getting home and had asked him for some money to be able to get home. However when Luke attempted to give the guy the ticket (instead of just giving him money), the guy freaked out on him and said that the ticket wouldn't do him any good. The ticket indicated in bold print that it was good until 3:00 AM and the guy Luke had bought it from even tired to reason with the guy Luke was giving to, but the guy was freaking out, acting like we were trying to swindle him or something. At that point it became pretty obvious that something else was motiviating him, and his lashing out in desperation at Luke's act of kindness was likely because he was being motivated by a serious drug craving. He wouldn't take the ticket, and was making such a fuss that the hot dog guy, who was observing this whole thing take place told him to leave. He left, without taking the transit ticket, and we sat there saddened at the whole affair. The guy who Luke had bought the ticket from was really impacted by how Luke responded graciously to such ingratitude expressed toward his act of kidness. We continued to talk to him for quite a while. The Holy spirit had obviously been making an impact on this guy, as he told us about his aunt who was a Christian, who had suffered a lot on his behalf and for others in his family because of her faith. He mentioned during his life his aunt had prayed for him constantly, especially during a period when he was in and out of Jail, and he had seen the tangible results to her prayers. One of the examples he gave was when he was about to make a decision that would have likely resulted in him ending up in Jail, she had prayed that God would do whatever necessary (e.g. break his legs) so that he would be unable to do what he was planning on doing, and he described how he had immediately become very sick and weak, and had been unable to carry out what he had been planning on doing. He was very humble and had alot of genuine questions. He asked us whether we thought if someone who was a Christian and commited suicide could still go to heaven. I told him I didn't know the answer to that question, and that I couldn't come to a verdict and had to remain silent on that question, as only God knew. Then he dropped the bombshell that revealed why he was asking that question. Apparently the aunt who had prayed for him for so long was the only Christian in his family and he described how they had put her through such hell, that she had become so discouraged and despairing that she had ended up taking her own life.

Luke and Spenser continued talking to the guy, but I was distracted by someone who came up to our circle and humbly told me "Thank you guys so much for being out here witnessing and sharing your faith". He looked SO familiar, and after a few seconds I realized that he was a Christian we had talked to about a year ago, whom we had helped out with some money and had given him a ride. I remembered his name, which was Robert. He had a huge bruise under his eye so I asked him where that came from. Apparently he got paid for some work he did the other week and some homeless guys saw him get paid and ended up mugging him and took his money. He asked us to pray for him, which we did, and I willingly gave him all the cash I had in my wallet in order to help him out. He asked me where would be going to church the next day, so I told him, and he asked if I would be willing to come pick him up so that he could visit my church. (It didn't work out the next day, but I got his e-mail address an he got my phone number and e-mail address as well so we might be able to swing it next week. ) A year ago when we talked to him i remember how encouraged I was at his confidence in God, and I felt the same sense of encouragement this time.

Since the four of us were all together now, we decided it would be good to head out because it was getting late. We were walking past a club, and I offered a tract to a guy who was sitting on a bench outside the door. He had obviously been drinking and said mockingly, " why don't you tell me why I need this from you or should take this from you.". I told him I would be glad to, and asked him what his name was. He replied, "that's irrelvant, you don't need to know may name". I told him that my name was Jason, and that I like to know the name of the person I'm talking to but if he didn't want to tell me his name, that was fine. At this point, another guy who was standing there seemed interested in the conversation, and he was like" yeah, why don't you tell us why you think we need this." He was willingly to tell me his name, which was Bryan, so I addressed my next statements to both of them. I mentioned that I had just given them a Christian tract and asked the nameless guy if he thought he was a good person. He said he was, so I started questing him using, of course, the standard of the Ten Commandments. Nameless guy was a little too hiked up on alcohol and beliggerent to have a good conversation so I addressed most of what I was saying to Bryan while nameless guy listened in.

I had a very long conversation with Bryan. Luke and Spenser and Daniel were also in and out of our conversation in the midst of talking to other people who were milling about. Bryan had a Christian upbringing, and knew a lot about the Bible, but kept saying things like "Jesus came to be an example and show us a better way to live" and didn't seem to think sin was a very big deal, and also he had some very strange viewpoints philosophically(that contradict bible believing Christianity) . Although he respected the Bible and used it to talk about Jesus, at the same time he questioned the validity of the Bible. It seemed that he was picking and choosing what he liked and what he didn't like. He was very open to discussion of just about anything though, so we talked at length. One of his major hangups was he couldn't reconcile the justice of people spending an eternity in hell. I reasoned with him that in a system of Justice, the severity of the punishment given is a gauge of how heinous the crime comitted was, and that God is so infinitley holy and good and just, and sin so heinous that hell is the only just punnishment for sin. By this time it was getting really late and we really needed to go, so I told him that I didn't know what was going on in his heart, but that if he knew he wasn't right with God (after I had led him through the ten commandments) , he should do something about it, and that If his eyes and my eyes met on the day of Judgement, I would be free from his blood, for I hadn't ceased to warn him to repent. (See Ezekiel 33:7-9) I concluded by sharing this verse with him and exhorted him that these words from Isaiah 66:2 described the kind of person God would not despise --> "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word." We thanked him for talking to us, and he did the same, and then after he gave us all a hug, we left.