Bezeugen BLOG

What is Hell like?

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Carl

We frequently here, “no” when asking people if they are concerned that by their own admission their eternal destiny would be Hell. Why? One reason could be that they don’t know what Hell is like. Many people think Hell will be some kind of party where all of their friends are. While discussing this at lunch last week we thought it would be good to have a tract to address this. Wally sent me the image and a number of verses. We put it together and got them printed. While we don’t expect to simply hand these to everyone we meet, they should be a good follow up for those that are unconcerned about their eternal destiny.

The front reads:

The Bible describes Hell as a place of Weeping and gnashing of teeth, Outer Darkness, Eternal Fire, Place of Everlasting Punishment, Eternal torment with no rest day or night, Bottomless Pit, Lake that burns with fire and brimstone, Worm does not die and fire is not quenched, Black darkness, Place where wickedness dwells, Place of torment, A place where people cry for mercy, destruction. (Matthew 13:42, 8:12, 25:41, 46, Revelation 14:10, 20:1, 21:8, 15, Mark 9:46, Jude 1:13, Psalm 55:15, Luke 16:23, 24, Matthew 7:13)

The back of the tract reads:

Some people say they are not concerned about going to Hell. Perhaps you have even said that? Or perhaps you’ve said, “I don’t mind going to Hell, because all of my friends will be there!” Have you considered what Hell is like? (If not see the front of this card). So what do you have to do to go to Hell? Absolutely nothing. The Bible says it is what each of us deserves? Why? Because we have all broken God’s Law – the Ten Commandments. When you die, you will be judged by the Ten Commandments (Hebrews 9:27, Romans 2:12). Ever told a lie? Stolen anything? Hated someone? Jesus calls hatred murder. Looked with lust? Jesus calls lust adultery. By this standard, The Ten Commandments, will you be innocent or guilty? Heaven or Hell? God does not want you to go to Hell (2 Peter 3:9). Two thousand years ago God sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, to earth. Jesus, being fully God and fully man lived a perfect life and fulfilled God’s Law. He willingly became the only acceptable sacrifice for your sin. Jesus rose from the dead defeating sin and death. If you will repent of your sin and trust in Jesus alone, you will have eternal life (Mark 1:15, John 3:36). Jesus alone can save you from Hell. Turn from yor sin. Turn to Christ and serve Him! www.AfterLifeCatalog.com 80-BEZEUGEN 802-393-8436

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Prayer sign

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Carl

We took the Whiteboard to the Dallas West End DART at lunch today. We put the message “How can we pray for you?”

Whiteboard - prayer sign

While we stood waiting for people to come, we handed out some tracts. It was amazing. In an hours time we had people approach us for prayer for:

family members caught in homosexuality
broken relationships
jobs
to live a Christ centered life
to know Christ!

I shared the Gospel with two young men and then asked “which of your sins is worth going to Hell for all eternity?” One of the men said, “I can’t think of any!” He was going to go home and then get right with God! Praise the Lord!

Below are a couple of more pictures of Wally talking to some of the people we met.

Today we took the whiteboard

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Garage sale Whiteboard

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Carl

On Saturday my church had a community garage sale. I brought my Whiteboard, a folding table, tracts, Bibles and other resources. I set up in a main traffic area. On the white board i put the question “Are you a good person?” in English and Spanish. I also attached my “lie detector” to the White Board so that after people gave their answer I could “test” them to see if they were right.

Whiteboard at garage sale

I handed out at least 100 each of English and Spanish version of the Are You a Good person tract. This turned out to be a good choice because rather than “profiling” people I could simply ask “English or Spanish?” They had to answer with one or the other then I handed them a tract.

I had a long conversation with a Muslim man. He even let me show him verses in the Bible where Jesus claimed to be God. I marked those verses and sent the Bible home with him. He had a couple of questions that he wanted to discuss further once he looked up a couple of verses. Please pray that he will call me as he said that he would.

Someone at the garage sale was selling a children’s Bible and a coloring book. One of our church members brought them to me to give them away. I talked with a single mom who had a couple of young children with her. The mom did not have much money. And desired to teach her kids about Jesus. So I gave those two resources to her.

Many kids and teens enjoyed checking out the “lie detector” and wondering why it always point to “no – not a good person?” It gave me the chance to share the Gospel with all of them!

The whiteboard seems to work fairly well at a garage sale like this. Would have been good to have at least one other person with me to bring people to the Whiteboard and slo would have been good to have it in a slightly different location, but the wind did not allow for that.

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CEF Banquet

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Carl

On Wednesday, May 5th, Bezeugen Ministries had the opportunity to be present at the ministry fair associated with the Dallas Child Evangelism Fellowship dinner. Ellen and Nita staffed the table. Several new contacts were made for people who may be interested in evangelism training.

Nita at Bezeugen table at CEF Dinner

We were inspired to learn about some of the many programs CEF has going, especially the after-school Good News Clubs — which take place IN THE SCHOOL BUILDING — once a week and reach many children with the Gospel. Along the way, we were able to introduce a few attendees and staff to the ministry of Bezeugen. Many took the free tracts and promised to use them. Several signed up with an interest in either a seminar or the Tract Club. And so we encouraged one another. Also they were very gracious to invite us to dine with them and it was delicious! May God bless CEF Dallas with growing opportunities to minister to children and teens.

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National Day of Prayer Hobi

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Carl

National Day of Prayer - Hobi International

We celebrated National Day of Prayer at HOBI International on Thursday. We had over seventy participants, including one of our vendors and someone that found the event on the NDP website. We opened by reading Psalm 91:1-6. We then had a time of prayer for some specific prayer requests that were left in the “prayer box” over the last month, as well as prayer for our country. We were blessed with an impromptu choir that volunteered to sing a hymn (in Spanish) and a testimony from Jeremy an employee at HOBI. Pastor Steve closed us with some words about what a blessing it is to live in a country that allows us to hold such an event in public and a prayer thanking all those that have sacrificed to protect those freedoms. The next prayer event at HOBI will be Thursday, June 2.

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National Day of Prayer Carrollton

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Carl

Thursday, May 5th was the National Day of Prayer. It also marked one year of our First Thursday Day of Prayer in Carrollton, TX. The theme for this years National Day of Prayer was “A Mighty Fortress” based on Psalm 91:2. We started with that text and then used the ACTS form of prayer. Approximately a dozen people joined the event including the current mayor and a council member who are both running for mayor and another candidate running for city council.

A – Adoration – We read from Job 38 and then joined together in praying and praising our great God!

Fellowship after praying!

C – Confession – We read Psalm 51 and then joined together crying out to God to forgive us both individually and corporately as a country for our sin.

T – Thanksgiving – We read Psalm 107 and then prayed to God to thank Him for everything.

S – Supplication – We read Hebrews 4:14-16 to remind everyone that we can come boldly before God with our requests because of what Jesus has done by shedding His blood on the cross. We then read selected verses from Psalm 33. This was followed by prayer requests to God to guide our nation and our upcoming elections in Carrollton.

We concluded by singing together “A Mighty Fortress” by Martin Luther. Why not spend a few minutes meditating on those words now?

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be

losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own

choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:

The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;

The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:

Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

Our next prayer event will be Thursday, June 2.

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Whiteboard

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Carl

Took the whiteboard out to the Dart station again at lunch today. The question was “will any train take you where you want to go?” We got 22 no and 1 yes in about an hour. Unfortunately the one yes did not stick around to talk. The question lead naturally to “could there be just one way to heaven?” We got into a number of good on on one conversations and handed out a couple hundred tracts.

I met Carly at the dart in Dallas. Gave her a tract. She read it. Came back and talked to her and asked what she thought. She said she would be guilty. I asked where she would go. Hell! I asked if that concerned her and she said yes. Walked her through the courtroom example and gave her a million as example of bail. Shared his to get savrdm. Then I have her a copy of Mark Cahill’s One Second After booklet. She did not have any more questions and thanked me for my time. I took this picture about ten minutes later. She stood there reading the booklet while waiting for her train. Pray for her salvation.

Wally had modified his tripod into a very sturdy holder for the whiteboard that worked great.

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Would you trade your eyes

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Carl

Our second time out with the whiteboard took us to the Dallas West End DART station. The question was “would you trade both your eyes for TEN MILLION dollars?” We got 27 no and 1 yes. We then tried to ask a follow up “one eye for one million?” We got 3 yes and 8 no. This lead to great spiritual conversations talking to people about the fact that the eyes are merely the window to the soul and therefore how much more valuable the soul is.

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Sketching the Gospel

Posted on April 23, 2011 by Carl

I first heard about Open Air Campaigners in March 2010 when I

Rick Moore at Shops at Legacy

attended the Living Waters Ambassadors Academy. Since then I’ve talked to several people about it and have had an interest in learning more about it. About three weeks ago, while looking at a friends pictures on Facebook, I saw a picture in one of his albums of a guy doing evangelism with a sketch board. I posted a comment “is this Open Air Campaigners?” The answer came back, “yes” and my friend connected me with Rick Moore. I sent an email to Rick and he called me a couple days later. We talked about meeting up.

Last night, my wife and I were able to meet up with Rick, his wife, a couple who were visiting from Oklahoma to learn from him and a couple of other people who had come out. Rick had picked a spot near the pond at the Shops at Legacy in Plano. As he got set up, we talked a bit about how he did this with the Sketch Board. He explained that he would have a dialog explaining what he was doing. And then afterward for people that were there and interested in more information he would talk one on one with them and give them a tract to take with them. He told us that after a little while he would paint up a sketch called “solve this riddle” and that people would likely come by to solve the riddle after the painting part was already done.

Sounded simple enough. So Rick got started with the Titanic illustration. At one point there were probably 20-30 people listening. Unfortunately as Rick shared the Gospel, many of the people left. We were able to talk to a couple of people and hand out four or five of the tracts.

The crowds near the pond were thinning out and we considered moving up the street. I walked up the street to see if the area that Rick had in mind would work. We decided to move and began packing up to move. As we were packing up, a couple of people came and asked what we were doing. Rick turned the black light back on and got going again with the sketch. As he did, the crowd began to assemble again. When Rick finished all of the riddle, he was talking with a couple of people that had been listening in.

Around then a couple of kids walked up to the board looking at the riddle. I walked up to them and started to explain the panes of the riddle and walk them through it. The played along and solved each pane of the riddle while I was giving them a little help and some hints. The last pane said “death / life” which of course leads them to say that “Harvey had life after death”. I was then able to explain the Law and the Gospel to them.

For the next 45 minute to an hour there was a constant flow of people coming up, asking what we were doing, solving the riddles and then sharing the Gospel with them. Each of us that was there to help were engaged in various conversations. At one point, another believer and his wife walked up and engaged with one of the people I was talking too.

The whole experience was very uplifting. The sketch board was an amazing way to draw people in to spiritual conversations and share the Gospel with them.

I am planning to get with Rick soon to get some training and learn more about how to use this to share the Gospel. If you live around North Dallas and would be interested in getting some training please let me know and I will coordinate it with Rick. If you live outside of North Dallas, additional information on Open Air Campaigners training is available on their web site as well as their YouTube channel.

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Whiteboard debut

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Carl

For some time now, I’ve been wanting to try out using a

Final Tally

whiteboard while doing Evangelism. Today we got our first chance. I first heard of the idea from Tim who has put together a Whiteboard Facebook group. The idea is that you put the whiteboard up on an easel with some question on it to take a survey and use that question to draw people into a spiritual conversation. Tim has a list of questions and results posted on his BLOG.

Wally and I had been discussing the idea. He found the materials at the hardware store and made the whiteboard for me. The board folds in half for easy transport.

We arranged to use the Free Speech area at Brookhaven College in Dallas. We set up the board and wrote “Do you consider yourself to be a good person?” on the top. As the kids walked by we would ask them if they had time for a quick one question survey. In an hour and a half we got 27 yes, 6 no and 4 I don’t know answers. That is 37 answers. In the same time we handed out about 150 bottles of water. So about 1 in four answered.

The great thing was that having the white board there lead to a number of conversations with the kids. In addition to Wally and I, David, Brian and Arnold were also there. I believe that all five of us were in near constant conversations with the kids the entire time that we were there at the college. At one point it seemed like each of us was actually talking to small groups of 3-5 kids each.