Battle Log

Wednesday, 29 August, 2018

Posted 29 August 2018, 11:41 PM by Matthew Andersen. Permalink

This afternoon in Brisbane City a total of nine team members out! This enabled great coverage of the square and many people heard the Gospel as a result!

A stand out conversation was with Lachy and Maddi. The first thirty minutes were with Lachy. He was approached with the new tract and asked if he knew where he would go after he died. He went onto say that there are many options and ideas and many of them are probably right. This tied in perfectly with the new tract, so we looked at the first few questions on the front, clearly showing that there is only one right answer for each. 

Then turning inside the next question was considered, "Which religion is right?". Over the next thirty minutes many explanations and examples of why Christianity is the only true religion and why we as humanity desperately need Jesus as Saviour were given. A slow but careful theology was being built. All the while explaining why other ideas are each wrong and disagree with God. This was going well.

Soon afterwards Maddi came along. She had missed a lot of discussion but was slowly bought up to speed. She wasn't hostile but had a lot of ideas that disagreed with God. At one point, while Hell was being explained, the question was asked, "What would you do to avoid being alone?", to which Maddi said, "I would do absolutely anything! In fact most of our lives is based around us doing things so that people will like us and be with us". As Hell was explained as a place of isolation, separated from God and His good gifts, under His eternal punishment, Maddi said, "WOW! That is unfathomably awful, I definitely don't want to go there! When you talk with people you should start there and explain that!"

The conversation flowed over a range of other topics, mostly centered around why Jesus is required for salvation, how sin is as simple as living according to my ideas rather than God and a range of other details. The conversation drew to a close as Lachy and Maddi had to head off to grab some dinner but they remarked, "This has been a very worthwhile discussion! Usually no one ever wants to talk about the deep things of this life and wants to ignore them. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us!"

Please be praying that Lachy and Maddi will have understood the Gospel, will read the tracts they were given and will call out to God, in desperation, for salvation!

Another conversation which flowed on from that was with Ken. He declared to be an atheist/agnostic due to his study and had listened to almost 30 minutes of the prior conversation. Ken declared to have a basically comprehensive understanding of Christianity but sadly when asked three simple questions stated that Christianity was simply a set of rules, Jesus was just the role model and His death was to show us how we should live.

This was very worrying as it seemed that Ken must not really have been listening to the previous conversation as he had missed at least three clear explanations of why Jesus was not just a role model but was the only hope and Saviour for humanity. Ken admitted to having an Anglican background and was not willing to accept the idea that Christianity was salvation on the basis of Jesus' righteousness and sacrifice. He wanted to hold onto the idea that Christianity simply believed that Jesus is a role model and as long as we do good and follow him, we get to Heaven.

Please be praying that Ken's willful ignorance is overridden by God's love and that Ken will come to understand God's offer of salvation, not just intellectually but personally.

A final conversation was had with two young girls, they mostly just shared their own ideas, talked about what they believed and talked about how "science" had created this world and disproved God's existence.

The Gospel was present in the conversation and many attempts to explain it were made. One girl wasn't interested in it whilst the other seemed to understand but wasn't sure. 

Please be praying that these two will read the tracts they were given and seek to know God, rather than simply reject Him so they can live their own way.