Battle Log

Monday, 13 August, 2018

Posted 14 August 2018, 12:19 AM by Matthew Andersen. Permalink

This afternoon, as it was a public holiday, the team headed to Wellington Point to share God's glorious gospel with those having a relaxing afternoon by the water. There was a surprising cool breeze and as a result not many people around. Thankfully, that didn't stop God providing a range of wonderful conversations with people.

One early conversation was had with a young man named Jacob. He goes to youth group occasionally on a Friday night at a local church but apart from that has no real exposure to God. He thought he was a pretty good person and would be going to Heaven. Slowly as the conversation progressed Jacob came to understand that he wasn't the good person he thought he was but rather was a sinner like the rest of humanity. He saw that his sin deserves God's wrath in Hell and that on judgement day, as he currently was, he would face God's condemnation for his sin.

It was a privilege then to share God's offer of salvation, that God has made a way for sinners to be forgiven. Jacob said he understood and was interested to talk about it. Jacob has been encouraged to speak with his youth leaders at the church to ask for a Bible and to ask them more about how he can be forgiven.

A conversation almost on the back of that one was with two Germans who were travelling in Australia. A young man named Leon and his girlfriend, Xena. This couple were a mixture between agnostic and having some Christian background. Both professed that God wasn't important to them and they both had fairly poor understandings of God's revelation about Himself. Both also professed to be good people.

As the conversation progressed, the Gospel was focused on over the next half and hour. Many facets and aspects were spoken about and many questions or challenges to it were answered. At one point, almost twenty five minutes in after all that had been said the question was posed, "What is stopping you from giving up your autonomy and surrendering to the God who punished Himself, so that you could be forgiven?" Xena seemed squirmy at this, from this point onward in the conversation she seemed moved and like she was seriously considering God's call in the Gospel.

Moments later when she was saying, "Maybe if God came and showed Himself to me, now, I would believe". It was at that moment when Leon actually took charge in pointing out that God has. It was even shared that God's revelation about Himself and actions in history were clear. Xena seemed to be left wondering about her eternity. Leon on the other hand, seemed defiant. He tried to defend himself with the same, "we can't be sure" arguments even after they were answered. He acknowledged this and stated that it was because he didn't want God to exist.

These two were left with a thorough understanding of the Gospel and a challenge to find salvation in Jesus Christ.

A final conversation was had with two young Muslims. These guys laughed at their own sin and even tried to play it off as not that bad. They went on for almost thirty minutes declaring how good they were, whilst at the same time being completely apathetic toward the wickedness of their own sin and how angry God is with sinners. They declared that their god just forgives sin, as long as the sinner is "repentant". It was pointed out that the word forgiveness means, "cancelling a debt", in other words, the person whom the debt is against is willing to pay for the debt.

When this was pointed out, the question was asked, "How is your god, paying for the debt of your sin?" These young men squirmed, then declared that he isn't. It was stressed and explained a number of times, that the god they believe in is both a liar and unjust. Firstly, if he doesn't punish sin, when he has declared that it has the penalty of Hell, he has made himself a liar. Secondly, if he has no desire to see justice upheld and will let a guilty person walk free, he is not only unjust, but one who rejoices in and rewards unrighteousness.

These boys were not interested in God being anything other than that which they had been told at their local mosque and it was an extremely sad conversation. Two men, celebrating sin, rejoicing in their lust, lies and pride and completely unable to understand the Gospel as a result. These men, paid little attention to the Gospel and simply mocked at it, even without understanding it.

They also declared that heaven for them was a place where God gave them 70 wives/slaves and that God would reward them by granting them anything they asked for. This is an incredibly perverted view of Heaven, not only is it simply a place to indulge your selfish desires but even worse, it is a place where god serves you. A place where god's best gift to you is that which he can serve you, rather than his best gift being himself.

Please take some time out of your day, to plead with the loving God, that he would justify these two young men by the work of Jesus Christ and bring them to a humble surrender. Please pray that Jacob would come to a saving knowledge of the truth and that Leon and Xena would desire to know God intimately and be willing to give up their sin, in pursuit of the Saviour.