Spurgeon wrote in his autobiography, that a snow storm pushed him to enter into a little Primitive Methodist Chapel. He wanted to go somewhere else to worship that Sunday, but the blizzard didn’t allow him to go further.

There was a dozen people in the congregation. The snow also kept the preacher from showing up that morning. A shoemaker was filling in for the preacher.

A shoemaker. Spurgeon says that the man did not have much to say and could hardly extract ideas from his text that morning: Isaiah 45:22.

Look to Me, and be saved,
All you ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.

Spurgeon wrote that the shoemaker didn’t even pronounce the words right.

The Lord used a humble shoemaker to save and raise up the man that is known as the Prince of Preachers.

The power wasn’t in the shoemaker, but in the message in the Holy Spirit’s hands. What a reminder of God’s sovereignty!

I had the privilege of teaching in that very church last weekend. It was very humbling and exciting. My prayer is that the Lord used this shoemaker to stir up his people and to raise up labourers for the gospel.

From Monday until Friday, a group of Christians got together in the morning to get teaching on Evangelism, and in the afternoons, we went to a neighbourhood, to do different activities with children in a public square. Everyday, the activities were geared towards explaining a part of the Gospel: God’s holiness, sinfulness of man, judgement, the cross, etc…

While a part of the group was ministering to the children, the others would knock doors and share the gospel with the neighboors. It was beautiful.

I was asked to share five messages during our morning meetings. The group was so committed to evangelism: to do the social activity for the community, but also to verbally share the gospel with the participants (adults and children alike).

The outreach ended on Saturday with a Giant Barbeque for the community. We served grilled sausages in sandwiches, freely for all who came. There was also live music, and activities for the children. But most importantly, and the reason for it, was that every person who came and ate was exposed to the gospel. Verbally.

I pray God will bless associations like Coeurs Nouveaux in Lille, that will always verbalize the gospel in any community outreach.

Praise the Lord!

He said that some years ago, he was involved in an outreach in California. His church got invited by the organizing ministry, to reach out to the homeless people in the community. They gave out clothes, food, and even played some music and performed drama.

This Pastor approached the organizing ministry and told them that they all should also share the gospel verbally with the homeless. But they responded that they rather share “God’s love” through their actions. The Pastor wasn’t comfortable with it and decided to back up from supporting the outreach.

As he and his group were getting ready to leave, the organizing ministry came to him and asked them to stay. They agreed to verbally share the gospel with the people. But when the time came, they changed their mind and asked the Pastor to remain quiet and just “love” them with actions: food, clothes, music, drama, etc.

Tragically, a homeless lady that had attended to the outreach, was struck by a car as she was crossing the street. The lady died that evening. Without hearing the gospel. She was fed, dressed and even entertained; but never heard the gospel.

The Pastor said with Paul “Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men” (Acts 20:26).

How tragic…

“Oh my friends, we are loaded with countless church activities, while the real work of the church, that of evangelizing and winning the lost is almost entirely neglected.”
-Oswald J. Smith

On my way back to the airport, I spent an hour talking to the taxi driver. He said his name was T. I deliverately swang the conversation to spiritual things, to find out that he was a practicing Muslim from Afghanistan. After giving him time to explain a bit about his beliefs, I shared the beauty about the Christian message: that we are saved by grace.

My heart broke at the burden that this man carries everyday to gain Heaven. I shared the Law and the Gospel very clearly. His heart was hardened and wouldn’t understand or see the logic in God offering salvation as a free gift. He needs to earn it- he wants to deserve it. Pure slavery.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1).

Thanks God that T’s eternity does not depend on me or my effort that morning, but in God alone.

Please pray for T and daily pray for opportunities to verbally share the Gospel. You’ll be surprised…

The Garden has “something” that brings comfort and agony to the believer’s heart.

I was vividly reminded of the great sacrifice that our Lord voluntarily took upon himself. I thought of the quietness of the garden during that night, the disciples slept while Jesus pleaded with the Father three times:

“O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Mat 26:39).

Surely the steps of the soldiers could be heard at the distance, as they crossed the Kidron Valley and up to the Garden. The disciples slept while Jesus sweated blood. The noise of the soldiers’ armors made more and more noise but Jesus focused his attention on his prayer. He had a mission to accomplish. Disciples sleeping. The soldiers and religious leaders entering the Garden.

“Rise, let us be going. See, My betrayer is at hand,” Jesus said.

I was so vividly reminded of the agony Jesus went through even before being arrested. And I thought to myself, why do sometimes I rather stay in my comfort zone instead of witnessing to someone? Why do I try to impose my will (not to witness to such and such) when Jesus, in spite of the Garden’s agony, prayed for the Father’s will?

We know God’s will: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

Our apparent suffering before passing out a tract or swinging a natural conversation from the natural to the spiritual, is nothing… NOTHING compared to what Jesus felt in the Garden.

We must step out of our comfort zone. Let us not fall asleep like the disciples but obey the Lord’s command of reaching out the lost. We have a mission too.

A couple of days ago, we were filming in the Mount of Beatitudes, when a man with long beard, worn out clothes, cane, backpack, etc; came walking up the mount. He happened to be a Catholic Priest from France, that has been walking since August 1st, making his way from France to Jerusalem.

Imagine that! More than 300 days of pilgrimage. I got to interview and witness to him, and found out that sadly, Luc was trying to pay back for all his sins. He said that he understood God’s grace, BUT still there was something that he was supposed to do to cover his sins and go to heaven.

Such a sad and misplaced zeal. If all energy And persistence was put into evangelism, many things could happen around us. Although he heard my presentation of the Law and the Gospel, Luc left as we had never met. Please keep him in prayer…

“For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness” (Rom 10:3).

Ps.- For photos of our journey in the land of God and the Bible, go HERE

Get my updates on Twitter, by following @Dikayo or on Facebook too.

Please keep us in prayer.

Thanks!

I had the honor to teach the course to about 15 people, including US Soldiers that are based in that town, waiting to soon be deployed to Afghanistan.

On my way back home, I grabbed a Starbucks coffee in the airport and the cashier said, “That’s an interesting wristband.”

Few months ago, I ordered a silicon wristband that has printed on it “1 Million Question,” hoping that it would help me to start witnessing conversations… And it did today!

I explained what the “Million Euro Question” is: “What do you think happens after someone dies?”

It was very cool. God is good and provides opportunities to share the gospel all the time.

I left the young man and his colleagues with tracts.

Please pray for them.

The small group listened with attention and they were kind with their feedback. An evangelist visiting from California said:

“[He] is passionate about evangelism and it showed as he facilitated the first Crash Course at CC Nice France. The info was clear, concise, and got everybody stoked to hit the streets to share the Gospel.” -Mitch Sorensen

We also spent 2 afternoons doing outreach: music, tracts, open-air preaching, etc. It was very nice and we had some meaningful conversations.

Please keep this Crash Course in prayer as God opens doors to present it in other churches.

Book your FREE Course today- http://bit.ly/Freecourse

Thanks.

We usually hit the streets after church, to share the gospel.

Today it was particularly hard: lots of people rejecting tracts, wall-hitting conversations, hard hearts, distractions, etc. My wife even had a headache after talking with a guy that said was 8th grade something-metaphysic and that sees angels and hears God.

We were exhausted.

After analyzing our day, we found out that we “prayed lightly” before our outreach. Like if it was not a big deal, just another activity in our day.

We learned the lesson.

We are in a real battle and the enemy hates us… Specially when we go and share the gospel.

I built a relationship, it took me about 5 minutes: spoke about his job, projects, challenges, the weather and country. Then, with the help of a gospel tract, I took the conversation into the spiritual realm.

He tried to justify himself and found many excuses to justify his sin, but the law humbled him. I explained God’s grace in Christ and finished with repentance and faith. He was very receptive and admitted that his wife feels terror when she thinks about death. Now this gentleman heard the cure to that fear.

It took me 5 minutes to build a relationship before I shared the gospel. We don’t need to invite people to a BBQ in the park, to have dinner with our family, to our church’s Christmas concert, to talk to our pastor…

We don’t.

We landed, we shook hands and he said, “Thank you for this.”

I might never see him again in my life. I’m glad I didn’t wait. I pray you don’t wait neither.

I met 2 Muslim gentlemen that trusted their good actions would out balance their bad deeds in the end. I took them through the law and explained the gospel. They listened carefully. In the end, they said that they were Muslims and they believed something different but I pleaded with them to consider our conversation.

If what I was saying was true, there were in big trouble. Otherwise, they would probably make it to Paradise.

They ended up taking a Bible, both of them.

Please pray for N&N. Also for the other conversations and tracts.

Praise God for my Pastor and our church, where evangelism is taught AND practiced!

We had four remarkable conversations: Ali from Iran, Abddulah, Eric, and a group of Serbian young friends. Today
we could see clearly in their facial expression, how Holy Spirit convicted them of their sin, through the law; and how they accepted to desperately need a Savior.

Two of them, gladly took a card from our church.

We were very encouraged today. Praise the Lord.

Please pray for the above names, that the Father draws them to Jesus. Pray
also for the many many tracts given.

1. The God Who Cares:

Let me put a question to you. If I was to point a building out to you, and then asked the question, “How do you know if there was a builder?”, how would you respond? Most people would answer by saying something like, “Buildings don’t build themselves; therefore there must have been a builder.” Things made need a maker.

The same is true with the world. If we look at nature and the complexity of life, we must conclude that someone had to have made it. That being is God. That then raises another question, “Who is this God?”

God is not a quiet and distant God, but rather He is a God who speaks and cares for us. He has communicated with humanity by giving us a book, which is His Word. We call this book the Holy Bible.

In the Bible, God tells us: “For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!),

who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other.’” (Isaiah 45:18)

There is only one God, and He is the one who created the world.

God has made the world and all that which is in the world. He made you and He made the animals. He even placed the stars in the sky. This God is a God of love and He cares for His creation. He has made us to have fellowship with Him, but we have a problem. No one in the world naturally has a relationship with God. The relationship has been broken and we are separated from our Creator.

2: We Are Separated from the God Who Cares:

God says to us: “…your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” (Isaiah 59:2)

We see from what God has said that we are separated from Him. Our iniquities and sin have made a big gap between us and our loving God. Every person in the world experiences this separation, since we all have sinned. God has given us a Law, and when we break that law we are guilty of sin.

The Bible says, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)  We have all done that which is wrong in the sight of the God who created us. We show how by nature we are sinners when we lie, steal, lust, hate, curse God, disobey parents, have sex before marriage, commit adultery, covet, get drunk etc.

If we break the law in our society there must be a punishment (e.g. jail or fine). It is also true of God; when we break His Law there must be a punishment.

The Bible tells us what the punishment is. God says, “…the soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4) and “…the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23)

Because of God’s goodness, He must punish sinners, and God’s place of punishment for all eternity is Hell (eternal torment in fire).

But remember, God is a God of love and He cares for you. Because of His love, He has provided the only way to have forgiveness of sin and go to Heaven when we die.

3. God’s Only Solution:

Nothing we can do could ever provide the solution for sin. Our good works won’t take away our sin; our prayers and fasting won’t do it either. Nothing we can do will ever get us right with God.

2000 years ago, God Himself became the solution for our sin. Jesus Christ (God in flesh) came to Earth to “…save His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21) He was born of a virgin and lived a perfect sinless life. He lived the life we could not. He was the only person in all of history to remain free from sin, even though He was tempted. When Jesus Christ was about 33 years old, He paid the price for the sins of His people.

Our sin demanded that we be punished with death, but Jesus Christ died in the place of sinners. He was killed on a Roman cross and, while on that cross, He paid for the sin of those who would believe. On the cross, He became sin for us, so that we can have a personal relationship with God.

The Bible says: “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

But the story doesn’t finish there. Three days after Jesus died, He arose again from the dead, defeating sin and death. Now because He has paid the price for sin and beaten the grave, He can offer you forgiveness of sin and right relationship with God. i.e. He paid the price so that we didn’t have to.

4. Our Response:

How can we have this forgiveness of sin? How can we have fellowship with God? How can we be assured of Heaven when we die? The Bible says, in order to receive this forgiveness you must repent (turn from and forsake your sin) and trust that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again from the dead. If you would trust that He did that for you and if you repent of your sin, then the Bible says you can have fellowship with God.

That is the good news for you and indeed all people. We have sinned against God, but God loves us and sent Christ to take our punishment on the cross. Then He rose again. God Himself has provided you the greatest gift. The question is, will you respond to Him by repenting of your sins and trusting in Jesus alone?

SPECIAL THANKS TO: Josh Williams

http://evangelism-matters.blogspot.com/

It was a million dollar tract. He continued, “It has something written in the back but I don’t know what is it, it is all in Spanish.”

I thanked God for this opportunity! I took the bill and started to translate the message as I read, “La pregunta del millón es: ¿Qué pasa después de la muerte?”

The gospel was heard thanks to a faithful laborer that put the tract in his hands.

Never underestimate a gospel tract, even if it’s in an unknown language for the recipient. Give it away, keep sowing- God will make that seed grow.

–(Thanks Skippy)–