Battle Log

Friday 25 June 2021

Posted by Posted 26 June 2021, 7:11 AM by Glen Richards. Permalink

It’s been a while since I’ve written a report.  I’ve been enjoying responding to direct messages on Instagram too much!  I still can’t get over the amount of opportunity God is trusting us with to engage people with the gospel.  It’s a big responsibility.  Please continue to pray for us.

I want to talk about one of those Instagram direct message conversations that I’ve had over the last few days.  It’s been fascinating.  I’ve learned so much from it.

So, here are some quotes from the early part of that conversation:

I think it just clicked
After all these years u just helped me so much!!
Thank you so much genuinely!!

Only Jesus Christ. You helped me realize that if I'm believing in Jesus Christ even if I sinned 10000x tomorrow and died, because of him taking my punishment of those sins I would've committed and will sometimes commit, I still go to heaven

Oh my gosh that's so insane
Idk how I've been over thinking it all these years

Wait wait wait
Gosh it just clicked and I almost forgot already 😂

If you're counting on anything other than Jesus Christ alone for the reason to go to heaven, then you aren't.

But obviously that doesn't mean you can't do good things, just don't be thinking that's the reason you're saved

Man you're genuinely doing the most important thing. Going after the one sheep (by texting me and others) while preaching to the whole world(social media)

Me: Join us, there will be sheep you can reach that we can't.

I'm seriously so excited rn!! I'm gonna go tell my family! I'll be gone for a little thank u so much!

Me: Right! So if doing good things doesn't play any part in getting you to heaven, why would you want to do good and not sin?

I'd do it to show God how grateful I am

Thank you genuinely so so so much. This is one of the bigger events in my life

So, that’s encouraging.  But, the conversation continued and it turns out he is Mormon.  So, I started explaining why he would not want to be a Mormon any more (because they don’t teach grace alone, faith alone) and would want to find a church that does teach that.  Well, he was resistant to that idea, and he insisted that the Mormon church does teach the same thing.  All my little tests to challenge that failed, e.g., does the Mormon church teach that you have to be baptised to be saved?  His answer: No.

I thought for a while, and decided I needed to back up a bit, zoom out so we can look at the bigger picture.  I needed to answer this question: why are we agreeing, when I know we don’t?  So I looked at three things: 1) Who is God?, 2) What is Heaven and Hell?, and 3) How do we know we know what God said?  I explained what I thought the answer was to those 3 questions, and he explained what he thought.

Instantly we hit important areas of disagreement.  1) I say there is 1 God: 1 in being, three in person: Father, Son (Jesus), Spirit.  God is eternal.  But he says the Father created the Son (Jesus).  2)  Hell is a terrible place of justice and punishment, a lake of fire that goes forever, even the smallest of our sins means we deserve to go there.  He says there are levels to heaven and hell, most people go to one of the levels in heaven, only the worst of the worst go to Hell.  3) I say it’s only the Bible, he adds the book of Mormon.

Zooming out like this made it really clear how he was misunderstanding the gospel.  He didn’t understand the holiness of God, and the seriousness of sin - that it deserved eternal punishment.  And, most critically, he didn’t understand who Jesus really is.  Only the eternal, holy, God could pay an eternal hell fine.  If Jesus is created, he is not eternal (and not God).  The Jesus he is trusting in can’t save him!

I explained this, and gently, yet firmly held him to it.

The last message he sent asked for bible verses - which I gave him, I haven’t heard back from him within the last 24 hours.

I’m not an expert on Mormon theology, and I’ve always struggled to know how to get them to understand the true gospel.  This conversation has really helped me with that.
 

View previous Online Evangelism report (18 June 2021)

Online Evangelism

Online Evangelism

Here are the tentative weekly outreach times for online evangelism:

Sunday 1-3pm (Practical Training Outreach)
Monday 9am-5pm
Tuesday 1-5pm
Wednesday 1-5pm
Thursday 9am-5pm
Friday 1-4pm
Saturday 1-4pm

These times are all in AEST (GMT+10), so adjust them based on your own timezone.

How to take part

To watch any of our online outreaches, you can watch live on our YouTube channel or Facebook page. Or to take part in any of these outreaches, email us for the virtual room meeting link.