Day 27 – a goal

September 27, 2010Carlone on one, tract a day

This morning when I got up I put 10 tracts in my pocket. Normally on Monday’s I meet up with Craig and some others and go witnessing at the mall. My intent was to have a goal to hand out ten tracts at the mall. When I realized that the weather was perfect for going outside to the West End DART station, I checked with Craig and we decided to go there instead. Setting a goal of ten tracts at the DART station is a bit low.

When we got to the DART station, I got out my Lie Detector. I struck up a number of one on one conversations using it and easily handed out more than the ten tract goal. The amazing thing about the Lie Detector is that people will actually come up to me or call to me to ask “what is that” or “what are you doing” or “can I try that?”

After speaking with a number of people, one of the guys who had seen me using the Lie Detector was talking with another of his friends. The friend was asking what I had and if he could have one of the tracts. I engaged him in conversation. As I asked him about the Ten Commandments, he would answer each question in a general way of “I did a number of things in my youth that I would not be proud of.” Interestingly, he never actually admitted to breaking any of the commandments. Yet, it was obvious that he had. He continued to talk about how good he was, especially since “his youth”. When I asked if he would be innocent or guilty, he said innocent. Turns out the man was a Muslim who was very set in his faith. He was proud in his religion and his own self righteousness. I talked to him about the need to be born again from John 3. He refuted every bit of it and continued to justify himself and say that he did not know how God would judge him even though I had just explained it to him.

I firmly believe the Biblical approach is Law to the proud and grace to the humble. Since this man refused to humble himself, I went to Luke 13:3 where Jesus says “unless you repent you will perish.” I then handed him a True or False tract (which refutes Islam and Mormonism) and walked away. He saw the front of the card that has a picture of the Quran, Bible and Book of Mormon and says “True or False – These three books are basically the same”.

Incidentally, these True False tracts will be in the November mailing of the Bezeugen Tract Club. If you are not already enrolled, why not enroll today so that you can get some?

He called to me as I walked away saying “I know the answer” and I called back “the answer is false, sir”. As he approached, I share the law and Gospel with him in a fairly loud voice so everyone around could also hear the preaching of God’s Word. This started to escalate with him raising his voice and advancing towards me. I stepped back and he stepped forward. This happened several times. He then quoted to me a surah from the quran claiming that God neither begets or is begotten. I reminded him that I don’t believe the Quran and if he wanted to continue to dialog that I would speak with him from the scripture we both agree on: the Gospels and the books of Moses. I told him that based on Deuteronomy 18, Jesus could not be just a prophet like his religion suggests. At that he took exception to the books of Moses being pure in their current form. I excused myself from the conversation. He politely said good bye. As he walked off, he made some comment about the tract and then engage Craig in a conversation.

Just as I finished speaking with him, I looked up and there was a woman standing behind a tree holding the tree. I apologized to her for raising my voice. But she said, “I enjoyed hearing about Jesus.” I asked if she knew Jesus and she said “I just have a little faith and I am not sure if it is enough.” I had a nice chat with her explaining that the object of ones faith (Jesus) is more important than how much faith one has. She took comfort in that. I quickly shared the Law and Gospel with her. I asked if she had a Bible and she said no. As it turns out I had brought a Bible with me from the car. It is amazing how God ordains these conversations that every time I bring a Bible from the car I meet someone to give it too.

I asked her if she had a church home. She said no, but she was looking. I asked where she lived and she told me. I happened to know a good church near her house. So I wrote the name of the church and pastor in the cover of the Bible.

I thank God for how he orchestrated the whole thing. The conversation with the Muslim lead to engaging with the woman who was truly humble before God and wanted to read His word!

Afterward we went to Sonny Bryans for lunch. Craig has a running thing going with the cashier to give her all of our different tracts. So this time she got a Football Trivia tract!