NEW CITY; NEW CHURCH?!

More than 3000 miles from home I went looking for a church to attend.  We are here in southwest Florida for a few months or more, so we want to find a church preaching the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ & stay there.  This is something I find difficult, because so few churches in our time are bent on preaching the truth.  Fewer and fewer preachers are opening their Bibles and preaching the Word.  I began a web-search for a church; in this part of Florida, there seems like an inordinate number of churches.  Most of the churches I found online either didn’t have a website, or the material on it seemed a little suspect (read; ‘squishy’). 

Not sure what it was, but something about a church four miles from our house caught my attention.  We took a chance and attended today.  At the door, as fine gentleman, saw we were visitors and handed me a visitor package; telling me to fill out the card & drop it in the offering basket and keep the pen and tract.  They gave me a Gospel tract at the door; good start!  After singing a number of hymns, the pastor stepped up and began preaching the word!  Way cool!  He open up I Peter 1 and verse-by-verse began expounding the scripture.  I chatted with him afterwards, and was very impressed with this man of God.  I think we’ve found our church here in SW Florida.

My friend Bob and I plan on going out to the beaches to share the Gospel here regularly.  Pray that the Lord will send others to come and labor with us.  “Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lordof the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest” (Luke 10:22)

Dawn....motel desk clerk (& Wal-Mart cashier)

 

We arrived in Florida, yesterday. Our boat is not yet ready to live on, so we left our kids on my parents boat and took a room at a motel in a nearby town. I paid for the room with a credit card, but as it turns out, I forgot to get my card back. The missing card was not discovered 'till the next afternoon (today)....causing a little commotion. I called back to the motel and found they had the card. No problem, a bit of an annoyance, but no big deal, right? Wrong!....a divine appointment instead.

Arriving at the motel and asking for my card, I ended up chatting with Dawn, the desk clerk. I began to talk to her about death & learned that she'd been in a near-fatal car crash a couple weeks earlier (still has scrapes on her arms). She and four friends rolled an SUV end over end into a river. She was trapped in the truck, fifteen feet under, finally pulled free by a friend. The attending medical staff at the hospital could apparently not figure out why she survived. They told her that in that type of crash, one's breath is usually knocked out of them, leaving insufficient oxygen for the time she was under water.

A Christian friend has been telling Dawn that God is trying to tell her something & that He has kept her alive for a reason. I explained to her the reason that 'God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance'. I explained to her the inevitability of death; that it should not shock us that someone dies & the only surprise would be as to the timing. All of us will surely die. I explained the righteous standards of God & showed her how she'd failed His standard miserably (as have we all). Dawn began to see that she had failed God's standard & when she stood before God in judgment she would be found guilty and sentenced to eternal damnation in the lake of fire of Hell. Explaining how what seems like an insignificant offense to another human being, is an great offense to God seemed to help (I.e. This makes; 'and all liars shall have their part in the Lake of Fire' make sense).

We were interrupted by motel guests checking in, so I left. Later on, driving by, I dropped in and gave her two tracts (“Are you good enough to go to Heaven?” & “Why Christianity?” both from livingwaters.com). I was going to hand them to her and leave, but she stopped me. If I understood her correctly, her Christian friend had just called her since my previous visit and talked to her again about God trying to get her attention. She asked me where she should be reading her Bible. I told her to read the book of John, for an eye witness account of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ & the book of Romans, for Paul's explanation of Justification by Faith. She kept talking and asking questions. Pray for Dawn.

Something to think about; Dawn is a regular church attender but had not understood the Gospel...didn't seem to have heard it clearly before.

Earlier in the day, a Wal-Mart clerk asked about my “What if?” shirt. I explained that 153,000 people die every day, two every second....what if this were her second? We talked for quite a while about the Gospel. I was amazed because there was no one in line behind us....but all the other tills around us had line-ups. She ended up asking me how to be born again & how could one know if they were born again. I was able to point her to the scriptures and explain. Again, this girl had a history of regular church attendance (though not the recent past). What are churches teaching, if those attending do not even hear the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Currently in Moorehaven, FL,

Glenn.

STEVE, THE POOL MAINTENANCE GUY.

Last night, I stayed at a Hotel in Kentucky, while on my way south to Florida with my family (near Answers In Genesis Creation Museum). While swimming in the Hotel pool with my kids, I met Steve, the pool maintenance guy. Steve was working at repairing the floating rope that divides the deep end from the shallow end. I ended up talking with Steve and offering to help him fix the problem line.

Steve told me a little about himself….seems like a real nice young man. Something Steve told me struck a chord; he mentioned that he was planning to join the Navy. I asked what he thought would happen to him if he saw action with the Navy and died. It took a little digging, but he believed that he would be judged by God (Heb. 9:27 & Acts 17:31).

I opened up God’s Law & showed Steve his personal guilt before an infinitely Holy & just God. I showed him what God’s Word says about judgment & punishment. (I Cor. 6 & Math. 5 & others). Steve admitted that he was very concerned that if he where to die that very night, he would be found guilty & sentenced to an eternity in Hell.

I explained the amazing Gospel of Jesus Christ to Steve. I showed him how Jesus Christ suffered and died on the Cross of Calvary to defeat sin and death; as a substitute. I showed Steve that if he would repent of his sin & put his faith in the Jesus Christ & the blood he shed on the Cross , he would walk out of the court room a free man on the day of judgment. Not only that, but God promises that he would make him a new man now, with new desires to please Christ.

Something we don’t often talk to people about, is the cost of following Christ. I felt prompted to tells Steve of the promise of scripture; the promise of persecution and trials for those that profess faith in Christ. I told him how the scripture tells of persecution & that those that endure to the end will be saved (& those that do not, where never truly saved in the first place…..I John 2:19). We talked for a while about the cost of dying to ones own self & one’s own desires and living for Him; this didn’t seem to dissuade Steve.

I asked Steve when he was going to get right with God and he responded that he was going to do it soon. We did talk about Godly sorrow (2 Cor. 7:10) & I encouraged him to get alone that night and cry out to God to show him his sin & great offense to God.

Please pray for Steve; that God will show him his sin & that God will give Steve the gift of Godly sorrow that works repentance unto salvation.

Glenn.