Bezeugen Minsitries, Sports Fan Outreach International and One Million Tracts are proud to announce the 2nd Annual Major League Baseball Outreach. Read the details in the event page and then register your team to join this outreach that could reach over 1.5 MILLION People with the Gospel.
On Sunday, we partnered with the School of Discipleship at Gospel for
Our Group
Asia to do an outreach at the Dallas Stars game in Dallas. About 30 of us took the DART Green Line from Carrollton to the American Airlines Center. We handed out thousands of tracts. Four of us, including two of the GFA students preached the Gospel in the open air.
As we have talked to people recently we like to ask “why do you celebrate Christmas?” The answers range from tradition and fun with family and friends over to the true meaning of Christmas: the birth of Jesus Christ.
But, why?
I mean, why did Jesus have to be born?
When you look into the scripture as a whole, you see that Jesus’ birth fits into a story that is far greater than just His birth. To see it you have to look at why was Jesus born.
Jesus was born to pay for the sins of the world. Look at what John the Baptist said:
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)
So the next question is how did he do that? He took away the sin of the world by living a perfect life, dying on the cross and raising from the dead. By this we see the connection between Christmas and Easter!
Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)
What Scriptures is this referring to? This is talking about the Old Testament prophecy of Jesus. Prophecy of who he would be, where he would be born, etc. For more on this, please see the previous BLOG article on witnessing about Jesus Christ.
But there is more. Both before and after this. You can trace Jesus all the way back to the Garden. Adam and Eve were in perfect fellowship with each other and with God. They had one rule: do not eat of a particular tree. Yet they did not obey. After this sin entered the world and all men since have been born with a sin nature. It is because of this sin nature that God sent His son to save us from our sin.
The LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:14-15)
You can use this when witnessing to people, especially people, like Jewish people, who know the Old Testament very well. The offspring that is referred to here is Jesus.
So now you can see that Christmas is linked from Genesis 3 through the Old Testament, to the birth of Jesus, to His death and resurrection. But it does not end there.
And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9-11)
Jesus has ascended to Heaven. Because the past promised have been fulfilled, we know that the future promises will be as well. Jesus is coming back in Judgment.
11 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in[d] blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
17 Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, “Come, gather for the great supper of God, 18 to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.” 19 And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. 20 And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. 21 And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh. (Revelation 19:11-21)
This is why Christmas is so important. One day, Jesus is coming back. When he does he comes in judgment. Now, some might say, yeah that is a long time off. However, that judgment also comes for use when we take our last breathe.
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,(Hebrews 9:27)
We don’t know when Jesus is coming back. We don’t know when we are going to die. So you need to be ready. If you have not repented of your sin and believed in the Gospel to save you (Mark 1:15), then I encourage you to read the Gospel message and be ready for the coming of the King!
This Saturday is Christmas Eve. We will spend part of the day sharing the Gospel, serving our Lord and ministering to the homeless in Denton, TX. This outreach is being done in conjunction with the Prayer Stop.
Join us Christmas Eve Day as we do what Jesus did and serve those who could never pay us back. Come be a blessing to others and watch how fast God will bless you. “He who gives to the poor will not lack, But he who hides his eyes will have many curses.” – Proverbs 28:27
As some background, on Christmas Day 2007, Brad and Kelly Aldrich along with my wife and I and our kids served meals to the homeless in Dallas and shared the Gospel with them. This past September, Brad Aldrich died. As a tribute to him, Kelly asked if Mande and I would join her in some outreach to the homeless again this Christmas. We agreed!
In November, I was speaking with Darrel Rundus who was telling me about the homeless outreaches that they are doing at the Pray Stop on the fourth Saturday of each month. He then went on to tell me that the December event would be canceled because so many of his volunteers would be traveling for Christmas. I said, “I think this is an answer to both of our prayers” and then explained that we were planning to do “something” for a homeless outreach that day. So we put two and two together and agreed to help him out.
The outreach is from 11AM to 2:30PM. You may like to arrive a little early to help set up. The address of the Prayer Stop is 715 S. Elm Street, Denton, TX 76201. You can RSVP via the Facebook event. A map is below. Please join us for the event. If you are unable to attend, then please keep the event in your prayers. Children are welcome. They can help. Child care is provided.
One of the best things for sharing the Gospel is to have some key Bible verses memorized. Scripture memorization helps you to have God’s word written on your heart. Would you join us in committing to memory the following ten verses? The links in the verse references will take you to Biblegateway. If you prefer to memorize a different version (than ESV) then you can click that link and select the version.
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.
You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Memorizing these ten verses will stretch you. It will grow you. You will grow closer to Christ. You will also be equipping yourself to share the Gospel. You see, these are the ten verses on the Bible bookmark resource. These bookmarks will be shipping every month in the Bezeugen Tract Club starting in March. So why not start memorizing these verses today so that when the bookmark arrives you are ready to use it! If you are not already enrolled in the Bezeugen Tract Club, you can enroll online.
Please post a comment below with your commitment to memorize these ten verses and the date when you intend to memorize them by!
Join us December 18 thru May 12, 2012 for the E100 Challenge. The E100 Challenge is a commitment to read 100 passages from the Bible (50 from the Old Testament and 50 from the New Testament). The challenge will last for 20 weeks. So that is five readings per week and also allows time to catch up if you miss a day or two. You can obtain the E100 Planner as a PDF download here (e100_planner)
We also have a limited number of bookmarks and daily planners that we ordered from Scripture Union. We will mail those out (US and Canada) – first come, first served. To request one send your address to btc@bezeugen.org
You can also track your progress online with the E100 Challenge reading plan on YouVersion. With this you can read the Bible on your computer, phone, tablet, etc…
In Matthew 4:4, Jesus said, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Make daily Bible reading a habit. Please join us as we read through scripture together!
We have created two Facebook events to join for this event. You can join those groups to show your commitment to participating in the E100 Challenege.
On Saturday, four of us attended the Dallas Children’s Parade to hand out Gospel tracts and witness with people one on one. This was my fifth consecutive year to attend this parade – which is one of the (if not the) largest events in Dallas. Each year some 400,000+ people attend. This year the attendance might have been a little less since the forecast was for rain. The worker at the DART told me they were expecting 350,000.
Randy, Carl, Wally and Joseph
Fortunately, the rain held off until after the parade. We handed out over 3,500 Gospel tracts in the two hours leading up to the parade. Lord willing, we will do it again next year!
It is interesting to look back. Here are the reports from 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.
In July we got a new tract club member in Georgia. Over the next couple of months he and
Football Trivia Tract
I spoke on the phone a few times and over time have become friends. He has a strong desire to share the Gospel and has requested additional tracts a couple of times. We were able to meet that need and sent tracts to him. Last month he called me and said that he and a few others were going to go out to the Georgia vs Georgia Tech football game. He asked if I could send some college football trivia tracts. Since we still had a number of these tracts on hand, we mailed about 500 of them to him.
A couple of weeks ago, a gentleman called out 80-BEZEUGEN phone number and told me that he was a new believer, had received one of our tracts and was interested in receiving some materials to help him grow in the faith. We talked a bit and I found out that he is already connected to a Bible teaching local church and that he has his own Bible. I told him that I’d send him some resources and we ended the phone conversation.
I prayed about what to send him and asked for input from a couple of others. We agreed that the best resource for him was to read the Bible. I wrote him a letter suggesting that he read the Bible regularly. I found a couple of Bible reading plans online and included those in the materials I sent along with a couple of CD’s.
Since others may be interested in the Bible reading programs, when discipling other believers, I am providing links to them here.
The new believer called back several times and we had some more good discussion. In addition to the resources he also asked for some information on the Holy Spirit. CARM had an interesting article on the Holy Spirit, so I printed it out and mailed it to him as well. This was really interesting because about two weeks earlier another friend and I were talking about how Gospel tracts rarely mention the Holy Spirit and we had a long discussion about how the Holy Spirit is involved in evangelism. As I was discussing this with yet another friend today, we came back to the fact that the Holy Spirit is involved in the conviction of sin:
And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; (John 16:8-9)
As he continued asking me questions about growing in Christ I suggested to him that if he really wanted to grow in Christ, then he could go and share the Gospel with others. I told him about our tract club and said that when he was ready he could join. He asked me to sign him up! I did that. The welcome pack of tracts went out to him on Saturday.
On Monday, someone asked me if I would include stories of people being saved when we mail out the letters for the Bezeugen Tract Club. I thought that would be a good idea so set out to document some of these stories. Little did I know I was right in the midst of one of the stories as it was.
On Wednesday, this new believer called me again. He asked me to send him some tracts. I told him that they had already been sent. He was excited about that. As we were talking I got to thinking that maybe I could connect him with someone locally. I got to thinking (or God told me) about the first brother in Christ whom I had sent the college football tracts to and asked him how far he lived from that brothers town. He told me that he lived only 15 or so miles away. So I told him about this brother and asked if he would like me to give him his phone number. He said yes.
Later on Wednesday evening I called the first brother, told him this background about the new believer and asked if he would be interested in calling him. He agreed to call.
Well, it turns out that the first brother actually had given the tract to the new believer at that George vs Georgia Tech football game. The tract played a role in the mans salvation. He received the Lord as savior the next day (three days before he first called me).
I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. (Luke 15:7)
We are just seed planters telling people about Jesus as we go. God saves people. And sometimes like this time we get to know about the salvation so that we can rejoice along with the angels in heaven.
Please join me in praying for these two guys out in Georgia. They are planning to do some witnessing together, probably as soon as this Saturday!
One of my friends designed a Christmas tract that you can print out yourself at home. Why not print 10, 20 or even 50 pages and go hand them out to people you meet? You can download the PDF of the ChristmasTract. You are welcome to make as many copies as you like!
