Battle Log

Tuesday 31 March 2015

Posted by Posted 16 April 2015, 11:47 PM by Ryan Hemelaar. Permalink

Woodridge evangelism

We had a good outreach at Woodridge. As soon as I arrived, I saw some of the high school students I shared the gospel with the week before at the same spot, and so I started talking with them again.

It wasn't long before they asked one of their friends to join the conversation. He said he was religious. I asked him why he is going to Heaven, and he replied by saying that he has been taught by his church that baptism wipes away all his sin and that is why 2 weeks ago he got baptised. Thus he thought that he was all good to go to Heaven.

I pointed out Matthew 5:48 to him, how Jesus says we must be perfect. Then I went through some of the commandments with him asking if he had kept them. Just like the rest of us, he hadn't. He began to realise that he deserved Hell, but then said he would try be better from now on. I pointed out that doing that wouldn't get rid of the history of his sin. Neither would getting baptised or asking for forgiveness - I gave him the courtroom analogy to make this clear.

When I said that the only way of forgiveness is through a perfect person taking our Hell punishment for us on our behalf, he was beginning to understand it, but his bus then turned up. He said he wanted to continue talking with me next week.

Soon after, I had two other young men come over to ask me a question. They asked, "Is there a certain day you need to go to church?" I responded by quoting Romans 14:5-6 how the day of the week that one goes to church isn't a big deal. But I immediately recognised the bigger issue, I needed to find out whether these guys understood the gospel.

Desra, the one who liked my answer to the question, thought he was going to Heaven because he is reforming his life and starting to read the Bible.
While Bernard, the one who didn't really like my answer to the question, thought his own goodness and praying saved him.

So I talked about sin, the coming judgement, Heaven, Hell, the cross, repentance and faith with them. And it took about half a dozen times of explaining the gospel over again in different ways before they came to grasp it.

I could tell Desra was clearly counting the cost, seeing whether he was prepared to repent and trust in Christ. He asked if someone could come over to his house regularly to explain the things of the Bible. I could tell they were both really open, and so I went through a few key passages with them, such as Ephesians 2:8-10, Matthew 10:32-39, and Matthew 5:27-30. Please pray for them that they will truly repent and trust in Christ. I am hoping to continue going through the Bible with them in future weeks.

Other team members began to arrive during this time, we had four of us in total.

In the attached photo, Stephen is talking with a man about the gospel, but this man said he wants to take the blame for his own sin instead of having Jesus take it for him.

Please also pray for:

• Jonathan - he said he believes in Jesus, but said he needs to do a bit of good to be saved. He was receptive to the message of salvation by grace through faith alone.

• Raw & Nimrod - heard whole message. Said they really appreciated the chat and would think seriously about the message.

All the glory goes to God!

View previous Woodridge (QLD) report (10 March 2015)


Woodridge

Woodridge Team (QLD)

Meets 2-5pm every Tuesday afternoon at the Woodridge train-bus interchange on Station Rd.

Contact Ryan Hemelaar for more information.