Hey Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed and the weekend holds fellowship and joy in the Lord for you. I had a good day on campus and Cam a big offensive lineman on the football team prayed with me to receive Jesus. I also sat and talked with Tia, a small Latina girl (who is effectively in a cult group on campus). I have bumped into her on campus a few times. Those details are below if you have time. Thanks for your prayers for me and the students who come to Christ.

Tia knows the Gospel. She is a professing Christian but is in the Chicago International Church of Christ. This is effectively a cult-like group on campus that used to be called the Chicago Church of Christ and came out of the Boston Church of Christ. They teach that your righteousness and baptism save you along with the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. Of course, we have no righteousness of our own to offer God. She asked me some questions and asked about baptism today; saying someone they had been teaching had rejected her pretty severely when she brought it up. We sat out on a bench in the sunshine outside the SRC building. I quoted Paul saying in 1Cor. 1:14 to her “I thank God that I baptized none of you” saying he would not have said that if it had been salvific to baptize. He would have gone after it right away with everyone.  I also explained that Peter teaches baptism saves you by an appeal to God for a clean conscience (1Peter 3:21). She asked, “What about Christ’s saying that they should baptize in Matthew?” I said that was a directive to the Apostles that they should baptize, but Jesus does not say that someone is not saved were they not baptized. If there was some kind of delay between their baptism and when they believed in Jesus as their Savior, placing their trust in Him, there is no passage that says this will send you to Hell. I explained that the Holy Spirit enters you when you believe and seals you. There is no place in the Bible that says the Holy Spirit enters you when you are baptized. You are one with the Holy Spirit then when you believe and you cannot go to Hell because the Holy Spirit cannot go to Hell. I said baptism is a religious work and there is no list in the Bible of good things you must do to be saved, though there is a list of evil things that if you do not do them you will not inherit the Kingdom of God. I recited some then and she agreed. I asked her what she thought the Bible taught about baptism and she said she had gotten a teaching on it when she had first gotten involved with the Church but had not studied it deeper. I accepted that. We talked a bit more and she ran off to work at Starbucks. So I will be praying we can talk further.

 Cam was sitting in the PE lounge. He is a very big dude, an offensive lineman for the football team.  He’s African American. He had a round face and soft features, a large nose (like John Krasinski from the Office TV show) and dark skin. His hair was pulled up into a ball over his head, and he wore grey sweats and a dark blue t-shirt, purple stud earrings. When I asked him what he would say to God to get into Heaven he said, “I don’t know. I tried my hardest even though I messed up and I’ll keep messing up. I think that’s all people can do. I know I failed you a lot, I have tried. If I had more time I’d keep trying.” He thought he had about a 60% chance of going to Heaven. He listened carefully to the Gospel then and agreed with me as I went. I asked what the big thing Jesus had done to take away his sins was and he said, “I’m not from here. Back at my Church in Indiana my pastor gave this sermon. It was before I believed anything about God, and it was like he was right in front of me like we are talking across the table.” Cam didn’t seem to be able to communicate the content of the sermon but he was trying to express when he felt like he’d had an experience with God. I’ve had people tell me about an intense experience in their lives when I asked that question before. “Well, God takes away your sin with Jesus,” I replied after we said a few more things about what had happened in that sermon, “and I think that your pastor would say something like this about how that happened.” I went on to explain the Gospel and Jesus’ cleansing blood, which he agreed with, and the imputed righteousness of Christ. I talked about receiving Christ by faith and not by trying to do good things. I asked him which kind of person he was. Did he want to trust in Jesus and what he had done to be forgiven for his sins or did he think something else? “I would love to be forgiven for my sins,” Cam replied earnestly. I said that if he wanted to be forgiven, there was a prayer he could pray and I talked him through it and asked if it was what he wanted and he said yes. I said he could pray it silently and I wouldn’t hear him, but God would hear and then he would know he was forgiven trusting in Jesus. He said “OK,” and I said, “Just pretend I’m not here.” And he took the booklet and prayed to receive Jesus. I told him he could keep the booklet when he had finished and used learning the plays on a foot ball team by drilling over and over and the outside would become the inside until it was automatic. “Right,” he agreed. “But Christianity is the opposite,” I said. “You ask God to transform you on the inside by His Spirit and then you become a good man who does good things on the outside. Everything is by the Spirit’s Power. The book of James says you do not have because you do not ask, so just ask. God will help you to do anything that He wants you to do and make you as successful in doing it as you need to be to continue on the path He has for you.” I told him if he was trusting in the righteousness of Jesus to be his righteousness, the likelihood he would go to Heaven was 100%. I gave him a Bible study on ways Jesus claims to be God and the book 20 Things God Can’t Do and wrote his name and the date and “forgiven!” and “By the Spirit’s Power” in the front. As I got up I said I would “pray for him each day for the next yea.r” “This is perfect timing,” he replied. “’Cause life has been throwing me a curve ball. I think this was meant to be,” he said happily. “That’s good to hear, thanks man,” I replied and I headed out having said I’d see him around.

So thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today if you had a chance. God truly blessed. May you have a blessed weekend.

In Him,

Bob