We have some friends who are now doing a lot of missionary work in Hungary.  Jack just contacted me to see if he could partner with Living Waters to publish gospel tracts in that native language.  Living Waters is very good at working with folks in other countries, as they have done the same with others we know in the Czech Republic. 

Anyway, in my discussions with Jack, he said that he was recently saved through the teaching of Way of the Master.  When he was investigating tracts to use in Hungarian, he listened to the teaching on false converts.  Then he realize that he was one of them……..anyway, his testimony is better than me blabbering on.  The following is his testimony on this.

  I grew up around the church as a kid, played the games, drew the pictures and cut out the angel wings and wore the crowns. I earned all the marbles and toys for repeating verses, perfect attendance. I played church as good as any kid could. I told the Sunday school teacher that yes I loved Jesus, and yes I want to go to heaven and I repeated that little prayer and glory, I was headed for heaven. I grew up in a couple youth groups, and I received the God and Country Award in Boy Scouts. I obeyed my parents and put others first; crossed at corners, rode my bike on the right side of the street - if anyone was a model for good enough to get into heaven it was me. Okay, so I told some “white” lies, and stole little stuff, but I believed I was still good enough to get into heaven.

  I never knew why I needed a Savior or what I was being saved from. I knew I wasn’t perfect but I was still better than those punks down in the courts. I was certainly better than those hoodlums in the next neighborhood who stole hubcaps, used God’s name as a cuss word and drank beer. If anyone was going to make it to heaven, it was me. I certainly didn’t need to hear the gospel message because I was already saved and baptized just like all the other kids.

  I Joined the Marine Corps after high school and a couple semesters of college with another fool on the buddy plan. I went through training and a few duty stations before being sent to Vietnam to ‘win the hearts and minds of the people’.  During my tour on Okinawa and two duty stations in California I was guilty of gross immoral living that separated me further from God.  I left the Marines and seemed to change back to my nice guy image. Okay, a few of the bad habits remained from the days of being a warrior. So I read porno magazines and watched the videos but it wasn’t like I was cheating on my wife. No one told me that Jesus said that if I even looked at another person to lust after them I was an adulterer at heart.

  I never opened a Bible but my new wife and I joined a church. We were involved in many church activities. We stop going to church because we didn’t see any need. Besides, none of the people in my new job went to church and they were good guys.

  Life was better outside church because I got rid of all the condemnation and judgment in my life by getting rid of all my Christian friends. Within a few years my wife and I divorced. I never realized that when you are separated from God that you are blinded to how wrong you are living. I looked at a 10 Commandments bookmark and felt guilty about being a liar, a thief, an adulterer, and I coveted. At least I wasn’t a murderer I thought. Had I read the Bible I would have known that God said if I hated anyone I was guilty of murder. Jesus said if I was angry at someone without cause I was the same as a murderer. I was guilty but still justified my lifestyle because at least I was better than those drug addicts and prostitutes. I was much better than Adolf Hitler.

  I remarried to a lady who attended a Baptist congregation. Soon we stopped going to church seeing no need. Besides life was going good and we didn’t need God.  Still, I had feelings that something was missing in my life. I still believed I was “good” enough to get into heaven. No one told me how much God hated my lifestyle and how it was separating me from God. I believed God smiled on my lifestyle of smoking, drinking excessively, lusting after other women. I believed it was okay to hate or seeking revenge against anyone who wronged me. I was a selfish family leader that only cared about myself. I didn’t realize that God didn’t hear my prayers or accept my good deeds because He didn’t condone my lifestyle. I was separated from God by my sin filled life.

  My wife died at the age of 49 from pancreatic cancer after a 17 month battle. After a couple weeks I joined a church and promised God every week to rededicate my life to Him. I was reading the Bible every day now. I found out that God considered me stealing from Him if I didn’t give 10% of my wages back to Him. Even still, I was like everyone else that called themselves Christians. I went to church and I was secure in my understanding I was going to heaven because I was good enough. I was still selfish but now I sought God and I joined the church and read chapters of my Bible every day. I prayed daily, joined small groups and Bible studies. I went to Russia on 4 incredible mission trips.

  I remarried and after a few years. My new wife is a Christian believer that helps shaped my beliefs. We joined a new church and within a couple years I was elected mission board chairman. While researching material for a good evangelism course I heard Ray Comfort’s Hells Best Kept Secret CD It was about people who false converts in the church. Those who hear the gospels of Christ Jesus and receive it with joy but live their life as before, never encountering Jesus. I heard that an encounter with Jesus Christ is like being hit by a 60 ton log truck going 70 mph down the highway. The impact makes an impression on you the rest of your life. I hadn’t been impacted like that.

  Then I heard Ray Comfort’s other CD message, True and False Conversions, and realized I wasn’t really a disciple of Jesus Christ. I knew of Jesus but He never knew me. We are all going to die someday and stand before God to receive our judgment. I discovered that on that Day of Judgment Jesus was going to send me to hell.

  I had created a God in my own mind to suit my lifestyle and beliefs, to justify my anger, my cursing, my dislike of certain groups of people, my watching trash TV and movies. Everyone puts their faith and trust in something – their jobs, wealth, family, home toys. I learned that Jesus is the only object of faith that is worthy of our faith. In many ways, my own “goodness” was the object of my faith. I realized I will never be able to do enough good to ever earn my way into heaven. I learned God was not smiling down on my lifestyle and that every word, every hidden secret thing and every deed whether good or bad were going to be exposed before all creation on that day. I was shocked, ashamed and deeply sorry for my life of wrong living to satisfy my own selfish lusts, desires and selfish needs.

  I was facing the wrath of God on Judgment Day. God will use the 10 Commandments as His standard to judge me and I was guilty, guilty, guilty on all charges. God is going to crush me into powder and throw my soul into a pit of blackness. I would be in constant torment based on the amount of disobedience and wrong living I had done all my life. No peace, no joy, no relief from the pain and anguish. Only misery and suffering awaited me. I was in serious eternal trouble and I needed someone to save me from this certain destruction. I needed a Savior.

We were talking last night in class about the fact of Jesus being fully God and fully man.  It got me thinking about how this can be and an earlier discussion on “kenosis”, or the self emptying of Christ(Philippians 2:7).  If you think about it, how is it that God Himself in the flesh,  can live as a man on this earth.  Crazy stuff, but necessary to be a perfect sacrifice for our sins.  But how does this happen?  Kenosis is best described as, ”a voluntary act, consisted in the surrender of the independent exercise of the divine attributes”.   All of these words are important and necessary, and this description has been debated for a long time and all the smart guys have agreed that it is correct. 

•  You have a divine person in the fullest sense of the word and He remains fully divine throughout eternity past, the incarnation, and eternity future. This fits best with the phrase that He is the “same yesterday, today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)
•  You have a man who was perfect. He was a man of like nature that was tested and tempted in like manner as we(Hebrews 4:15). He was fully relying upon the Holy Spirit for His strength. 
• You have the perfect union of both divine and human. He was just as much God as if He had never been man and He was just as much man as if He had never been God.

 As we are studying the history of the church and the ongoing disagreements about this, as it has been an issue with the church for a long time.  The early church especially had an issue with this and the Arian heresy became a big thing in the 4 and 5 century.  Constantine even conveined the Council of Nicaea to address this issue in 325.  Even after condemning the Arian heresy, it would not go away and even became stronger as Constantine was sympathetic of it.  But the following Council of  Contantinople in 381 finally put an end to it.  This idea of Jesus not really being God incarnate, or that He only had the “spirit of God” which was with Him in between His birth and crucifixion, was popular then, as it is still around today.  Those who deny the incarnation of Jesus and the fact of Him being fully God and fully man are probably not saved in the first place.  God Himself is the only one who can be a perfect sacrifice for our sins. 

Anyway, just something to chew on.

Sorry about not posting anything, but we have had a family emergency that has consumed us lately.  My stepson Kyle, was electrocuted at work a few weeks ago.   The shock was enough to stop his heart, and they had to do CPR on him.  He also sustained 3rd degree burns over 25% of his body and still may lose his arm.  Needless to say, it has been a trying time.

Thanks for all your prayers.

     I am currently preparing for a presentation on the Mormon faith and an appropriate apologetic Christian response to it.  One of the fascinating features of the Mormon faith is the idea that god(who was once human like us), is now living in heaven on the planet Kolob, which is millions of light years away from us.  He is a busy guy making spiritual babies with his many wives, and these spiritual babies are then ready to inhabit people born on earth.

     According to the Mormon faith, everyone will make it to heaven, except for a very few.  But the idea they have of heaven is in 3 parts, and almost everyone will certainly not be in the best and highest heaven, but some will.  Those who are good enough can attain the status of god and be like him with his many wives making spiritual babies for eternity.  They will then have their own planets and solar systems to inhabit and be busy populating with spiritual babies.

     As you can see, the fact that we can be gods is the Mormon goal.  The diagram does not show that Jesus and satan are the first-borns of Elohim(heavenly father).  More to come later.

Paul Washer and a very prophetic short message for those who proclaim the truth of the gospel here in the United States.  On inaguration day, the message of persecution hate crime legislation, is already up on the white house website..  check it out HERE….   excerpt 

We had to go back to our hometown a couple of weeks ago due to the fact that my mother, mother in law and brother in law was in the hospital.  My mother was on life support and brother in law was also very ill.  When we got into town, we checked on mom right away, and she was hanging in there.  Then we went to see Bill.  We were told that he was completely out of it and his liver was almost completely destroyed.  When we walked into Bill’s room, he was SITTING UP!  He was still very miserable, but could hear us and respond.  We chatted for a while, and then went to see my mother in law, just down the hall.  While visiting with mother in law, I felt a great urge to go back to Bill’s room and share the gospel with him one more time.  So I did.  He was asking good questions, and understood it.  I told Bill to repent and trust in Jesus to save him.  Even though he thought he had done too many bad things, I told him about the thief of the cross and God’s power to save.  Before leaving, I told Bill to pray to God to save him.  Then I left telling him that I would stop in the next day.

Well, we got a call at 5am that Bill had died.  Wow.  I believe that God gave him one more chance to hear the gospel and respond when we got there.  Pray that those seeds that were sown fell on fertile ground. 

By the way.  Mom and mother in law are out of the hospital and doing fairly well.

Seed sowers….   The following is an email we got from Tom Bateman…one of our group of local seed sowers.  Looks like recent witnessing at the mall may have led to a harvest.
Steve and Chris - I was talking to a friend last night at our fellowship group meeting.  I mentioned that we had been witnessing at the Chapel Hills mall.  He indicated that the teenage son of a friend had accepted the Lord after being witnessed to at the mall!  He also indicated that the whole family had been very much encouraged by this event - evidently he was into some verly negative things.  He said it

could have been us who did the witnessing?
You never know!?
 
Also, we had quite a time in Denver today witnessing to the folks attending the Dem Convention.  Tons of people and most were very receptive to the gospel.  Of course we had some rejections, but mostly we shared the gospel with many folks.  Handed out hundreds (probably thousands) of tracts.  One of the most resistant of our witnessing encounters was with a false convert on the train. 
 

Some pictures
First picture if of some guys loved the red and blue gospel tracts.  We shared the gospel with them.  They were so excited by the message, they asked for some of the tracts to give to folks.      Second picture is of a broadcast company in Canada who interviewed me on what I was doing. Third picture is Connie preaching on the bus.

Charles Spurgeon’s great, great, great grandson.
The guy on the right, who looks like Charles Spurgeon, is actually our buddy Bart. The guy to the left of the guy who looks like Spurgeon is Rob Holm, who is the great, great, great grandson of Charles Spurgeon. Rob travels to fairs around the country to witness to people. Incidentally, Rob got saved after listening to Ray preach Hell’s Best Kept Secret…which was inspired partially by, you guessed it, Charles Spurgeon.

We have had quite a blessed time of witnessing again this last week.  There were probably 1000 people at the Manitou Springs Ice Cream Social and Pie Bake Off.  We handed out a bunch of tracts and I preached to a small crowd.  One guy walked away saying he was in “big trouble”. Connie took him aside and explained the gospel again to him and explained our response to the sacrifice of our Savior on the cross.   We got plenty of heat from the hippies-athiests again.  They know who I am now and do not appreciate the gospel being preached.  Pray that the powers of darkness do not hinder the gospel reaching the lost of Manitou Springs.
Then we went to the Rodeo Parade the next night and it seemed that half the town was there.  We walked up and down the street handing out tracts to everyone lined up on the street for the parade.  The “pink and blues” went like hot cakes..  
We must have handed out over a thousand tracts in those 2 days.
And then we had an Evangelism Crash Course on Saturday.  Robert Gray was back from hip replacement surgery to co-teach the class.  GO ROBERT!  We went out to Acacia Park after the class to practice what we talked about in class.  Everyone got to hand our tracts and some witnessed 1-2-1.  The park was full of people, as a local ministry was feeding the homeless there.  And there was a big war protest group there too.  God allowed me to preach to the crowd and share the gospel with them.  There were some requesting bibles and to follow up on what was said.  After we wrapped up a great afternoon of witnessing, our group thanked God for the chance to give Him glory in sharing the good news to the lost.  Connie and I and Jason stuck around for a while to talk to a few folks, but things turned ugly and we got out of there.   Some sort of fight broke out in the middle of the park, and some folks got hurt.   A wild afternoon at the park!
A general note.  Some of you, as I am, are very discouraged about all the political stuff going on right now.  It seems everyone wants “change”, but unless the hearts of the lost are changed, our country will be destroyed sooner or later from within.  Time seems very short for this country and the world.  As we look in expectation and hope for the return of our Savior, our concern should be for the spiritually lost folks and to share the gospel.    A great article from John MacArthur details this….     http://www.sfpulpit.com/2008/06/09/the-gospel-and-politics-part-1/            Many think this is a political problem that will not be solved without a political strategy. During the past twenty-five years, well-meaning Christians have founded a number of evangelical activist organizations and sunk millions of dollars into them in an effort to use the apparatus of politics—lobbying, legislation, demonstration, and boycott—to counteract the moral decline of American culture. They pour their energy and other resources into efforts to drum up a “Christian” political movement that will fight back against the prevailing anti-Christian culture.
But is that a proper perspective? I believe not. America’s moral decline is a spiritual problem, not a political one, and its solution is the gospel, not partisan politics.
Amen brother.

Seed sowers….
Some updates on what we have been doing.
I went to Manitou Springs last week for the Clay Festival.  Wow.  It was the most intense time of witnessing ever.  Tons of athiests, false converts and mormons.  The self righteousness of the folks out there was incredible.  Most of the folks I talked to were sure of going to heaven based on the good things they have done.  The most self righteous of all were the “mate factor coffee” people who were assured of heaven because they have “sold everything they have and follow Jesus day and night”.  While I encouraged them about the good deeds they were doing, we had an ongoing debate on whether that was going to get them into heaven, and God’s demands of righteous perfection.  This all took place on the bridge inbetween Soda Springs Park and the coffee shop.  This open air presention went on for an hour and I had tons of hecklers.  It was INTENSE.  The gospel was presented over and over again…I was very careful to keep the discussion on the cross and Him crucified.   But the resistance to the gospel was incredible and there was much gnashing of teeth. 
There where some Mormons there who showed me the bible verse that says “the righteous will live on the earth forever”.  Apparently, this was an important  bible verse for them, as they believe heaven will be the earth, and they will live here forever.  I pointed them to the word in the verse that said “righteous”, and explained what that meant.  Wherever heaven was going to be for them, they weren’t going unless they had the righteousness of Christ. There was no response to that.
I did get to speak to a lot of other folks, however, that were very concerned and wanted to know how to be saved.  Wow.
There was also a pastor there from Oklahoma.  He told me to just get people to “pray a prayer”.  I explained that it was more biblical to point towards repentance and faith.  That most of the hostility I get from sharing the gospel are from folks who have “prayed a prayer”, and are angry false converts.  But he insisted that praying a prayer was enough, and we parted our ways with a handshake.
 
On a recent trip to Santa Fe, we preached in the central plaza on the main square.  There had a good crowd.  Mostly in the crowd were young and all dressed in black with many different hair colors, and were the most interested.  We spent time afterward sharing 1-2-1 with many other folks who were listening to the preaching.
 
On our way back to Colorado Springs, we spent some time in Alamosa (yippee).  Alamosa had a big 4th of July parade, and Connie handed out 400-500 “million dollar bill” tracts(I had to work).  After the parade, she looked around and did not see a single tract that was thrown on the ground.
 
Upcoming stuff…………please join us.
Tonight, we will be in Manitou Springs for the Ice Cream Social and Pie Bake off.   The crowd should not be too rough, but you never know in Manitou. 
I will be preaching at the DMV here in Colorado Springs in the mornings…  let me know if you are interested in being there.  We will let you know the times and days.
There is a parade tomorrow night(Tuesday) downtown.  We are planning on being there to witness to the folks.
We have another Evangelism Crash Course Saturday starting at 9am.  We will be taking the group out to witness after the class (3pm)..you are all invited to join us.  Not sure of the venue yet…contact us for these details.
 
Misc….
We are looking to videotape upcoming witness outings.  The church is going to help out, but if anyone else has equipment(including microphones), come and get this stuff recorded.  Also a portable pa system is our current immediate need.  We will use it for amplification to preach in the Open Air.  We are looking at something like the Europort EPA40….but suggestions or places we could get one of these CHEAP..would be appreciated.
Looking for props….   A mannequin( to drape in a sheet).  A casket( we would open it up and put  a mirror in it to show the viewer that everyone dies…then what?)
Looking for a scratch and dent price for the props.
 
Just a note…we went to the Calvary Worship Center yesterday and witnessed all the baptisms…what a blessing.  Seemed like there was 20-30 of them.  Wow.
 
To GOD BE THE GLORY!!!
May we glorify our Lord and Savior by speaking the truth of the gospel to everyone we can this summer.  Faith comes by hearing and hearing from the Word of God.  For we are not ashamed of the gospel, for IT IS THE POWER OF GOD FOR SALVATION FOR THOSE THAT BELIEVE!!!   For how can they believe in Him who they have not heard?  And how will they hear without someone telling them?  If you love your neighbor, you will tell them the truth…no one is guaranteed another day of life.