Wrapping up 2015 with a Candy Cane Tract

Here's a candy cane gospel message we made to give out over the Christmas holiday season, in hopes of redeeming the time and pointing as many people as possible to the Savior.

I looked up various versions of "The Candy Cane Story" on the internet, and using these as a reference I wrote the story in my own way using Microsoft Publisher. We used a local print shop to make about 200 cards. We donated a bunch for family gift packages for our church's bus ministry children, our friends Aquila & Priscilla Sletten took a box full over the the Iowa Veteran's Home. The rest we've been giving out around town. May the Holy Spirit water this seed sown, that many would come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The text of this message is below:

We Hope You Enjoy this Candy Cane! 

As you take it in your hand, turn it upside down: you will see
the J that reminds us of Jesus, who left Heaven’s glory 2000 years ago, and was born in a lowly stable in Bethlehem, just as the prophets had written many years before.
Turn it back upright, and you will see the shepherd’s crook, that reminds us that he is the Good Shepard who loves and cares for all who will follow him. The stripes remind us that he was wounded for our sins: the red speaks to his blood shed on Calvary’s cross to pay the penalty for our sin, and the white tells us how only he can wash away our sins, and make us white as snow. For all have broken God’s Law, the 10 Commandments, and all deserve the punishment … eternity in Hell. But God wants all to be rescued from this fate, and this is why Jesus came into the world.

We are glad you accepted this candy cane as a gift from us, but even more, I hope you will accept the gift of forgiveness and eternal life that comes, not from religion, a church, your sincerity, or by being a good person, but from trusting in this same Jesus as your own Savior. If you have not done so, why not turn to him today?

A Word for Our Ukrainian Website Friends....

We get a lot of Ukrainian "referring  URL's" or "referring sites" hitting our Iowa Seed Sowers website that are basically pornographic in nature, and apparently there is no way to block these sites from pinging us. So, since these poor souls are being manipulated and used by the enemy of our souls to snare so many, many people through their filth, I thought I would respond as Jesus did, with scripture. So for any Ukrainian Website friends who might be reading, this one's for you!

May your eyes be opened to see your great need of deliverance from sin, death, and Hell, and may you flee to the Lord Jesus Christ who alone is that Deliverer!

(Matthew 5:27-30)

Від Матвія 5 Ukrainian Bible (UKR)

27 Ви чули, що сказано: Не чини перелюбу.
28 А Я вам кажу, що кожен, хто на жінку подивиться із пожадливістю, той уже вчинив із нею перелюб у серці своїм.
29 Коли праве око твоє спокушає тебе, його вибери, і кинь від себе: бо краще тобі, щоб загинув один із твоїх членів, аніж до геєнни все тіло твоє було вкинене.
30 І як правиця твоя спокушає тебе, відітни її й кинь від себе: бо краще тобі, щоб загинув один із твоїх членів, аніж до геєнни все тіло твоє було вкинене.

Come Witnessing With Me - On My Birthday!

September 4th, 2014.

God has blessed me with 52 years on this beautiful, crazy planet. It was a very hot & humid day in Marshalltown, Iowa, and I wasn't sure if too many people would be out on my way home from work. I usually bypass the downtown area & all the stop signs, but today I intentionally drove that way, to stop and pass out some tracts, and see if I could talk to a few people about Jesus Christ.

So, come along witnessing with me (through this audio recording), up & down Main Street here in Marshalltown. Click the link to listen HERE.

You'll hear 3 interesting conversations with Terry, Rick, and Josuina - at least I found them interesting. Forgive me for the couple of spots where the wind noise cut in pretty loud. Maybe in the future, I can use a better microphone or something. Let me know what you think.

I hope this message is an encouragement to you:

• If you are a born-again Christian, may you be bold in sharing Jesus Christ with everyone around you.
• If not, may you turn to the one-and-only Savior of sinners, and be washed clean of all your sin, before you step into eternity!

Witnessing for our Lord was a great birthday present to me from God. And when I got home, my wife Mary made sure I knew how much she loves me by making it a very special day. Maranatha!

Earnestly Contend for the Faith

Today is Saturday, August 30th, 2014, the last weekend of the summer, and the start of Labor Day weekend here in the United States. I made it down to the Des Moines Farmers Market in the historic Court Avenue district, to herald the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, in order to:
1. Extend God's offer of forgiveness to all who will repent & trust in Jesus - and Jesus alone - to save them from the consequences of their sin against God.
2. Encourage believer's to boldly live for and share Jesus Christ with everybody & anybody while they can during this short life here on earth.

This is my little corner of the harvest field. Someone commented about there being "better soil" elsewhere, but all these people are eternal souls, who will spend eternity either in the presence of God with unspeakable joy, or as miserable creatures suffering the judgment of God forever separated from His love. No, this is my field, and I will work it as long as the Lord gives me strength of body & mind to do so. Here's my view from the south-west corner of Court Ave. and 2nd Street where I spoke today.

Wow, what an excellent day! My friends from the Atheist booth down on Court & 3rd drop by to pay their respects. I always enjoy their efforts to disparage or to stop the preaching of the gospel, because they help draw a crowd of interested listeners, and that was certainly the case today. So thank you, my atheist friends: I love you for Christ's sake, and I am praying for you. You claim to be "free thinkers", but will never know freedom or experience truth until you humble yourself before your God, whom you do know, and look to the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. May that be true for all of you!

It was a great day, and the war of worldviews was on! Praise God that I was clothed with His holy armor (Ephesians 6:10-18), and that the weapons of my warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Click HERE for the link to the audio.

Please remember, this is a raw, on-the-street recording, so while it may not be Dolby stereo, it pretty much reflects the environment we work in. It includes times where I am standing on my box & speaking out to people walking through the Market, times when people came up close & personal to dispute what I was saying, and also personal discussions between 1 or 2 people. I left it all on there, and you can skip through or listen to as much or as little as you like.

PLEASE NOTE: I was down at the Market alone today. You will hear comments or statements made by other Christians who jumped into the fray. I do not endorse or approve of anything anyone may have said in support of the gospel proclamation. Be a Berean (Acts 17:11), and check out everything everyone says (including me) against the Scriptures.

You'll want to hear how things went down...it was a real rhubarb, but God is always faithful, and I am so much more encouraged to live for His glory, both publicly & privately, and to reach out to those who are blinded and taken captive by the enemy or our soul, through false religion or philosophies that are contrary to the revealed word of God. Please pray for all who heard, especially the atheists, that they might repent and trust Christ Jesus before it is eternally too late. Maranatha!

Jesus Just Talked About Love?

If you listen to the latest audio from our public ministry in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, you'll hear a great exchange with a young man named Tom, who did not particularly agree with my style of communicating the gospel, claiming that Jesus just talked about love. And while it is true that Jesus spoke about love, and that the Bible tells us that God is love (1 John 4:16), that is not all that He is.

In other words, God is not love to the exclusion of His other attributes: He is also absolutely holy and righteous, and He will not overlook sin. All good Bible preachers know that we must proclaim the whole counsel of God, not just the parts that sound good. We speak the truth in love, and let the chips fall where they may.

Listen HERE, and let me know what you think.

I was so thankful that Tom showed up this day. A half-way decent heckler is like gold to an open air preacher. So, thank you Tom. I do hope you get your theology straitened out, but you are welcome to my street corner anytime.

Maranatha!
Paul

Answering "The Problem of Evil" Excuse

Mary and I got down to the Downtown Des Moines Farmers Market on Saturday. Many gospel tracts went out, and I used the argument from my atheist antagonist (see previous post) from a week ago: he said that if he saw a rape going on, he would stop it, and that God sees all these rapes going on and does nothing to stop it. In general, it is the question regarding the problem of evil.

(Photos: view from corner of 4th & Court where I spoke, looking east on Court - you can just see the box I stand on near the light pole (left). And, the view (right) looking north up 4th Street.)




Sometimes people might say it something like this: "If God is all powerful, He could get rid of all evil in the world. But, evil exists in this world, so either God is not all powerful, or He doesn't care about evil." And this is supposed to somehow "prove" that the God of the Bible does not exist, or is merely on par with any other "god" out there. 

The atheist who uses this excuse couldn't be more wrong! 

Why?

Well, how do you get evil without God?

Okay, I hope I made you curious...click HERE to listen to the audio, complete with just a little bit of rather poor heckling (you just can't get good hecklers these days!).

And, just for fun, I threw in an answer to the old "Who Made God?" smokescreen, with a tip-of-the-hat to Dr. Walter Martin.

Mary helped these two Middle Eastern ladies (wearing headscarves),
and made sure they got CONTRADICT gospel tracts!

The Bible teaches clearly that all who claim to be atheists, skeptics, free-thinkers or agnostics actually do certainly know the God of the Bible, but they are holding that truth in an unrighteous manner. God says He has revealed Himself to all men everywhere (Romans 1:18-22), and that these philosophical excuses will not hold up on Judgment Day. I presented this message with the hope that any who were impressed with these faulty arguments would be challenged to think about it, and I pray that many would repent & believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Thanks for stopping by, and as always, please pray for gospel ministries everywhere, and those laboring in the harvest field. We appreciate it! Paul.

Memorial Day Weekend: The Conspicuous Gallantry of Jesus Christ

Mary and I got a chance to get down to the Downtown Des Moines Farmers Market on Memorial Day weekend. The corner of 4th & Court Avenue was open, so we set up there. Many gospel tracts went out, and I was able to speak about the amazing love of God demonstrated for us on the cross of Calvary.

During our time there, Mary had a fantastic 30-40 minute conversation with Shalih, a muslim man from Iraq. She had given him a "CONTRADICT" tract (below left), and as he stopped to look at it, she asked him if he had any questions, which he did. After a while, they moved out of the street into the shade of the buildings on 4th Ave, as you can see in the picture (below right).

Shalih started with the question of who was Melchizedek - can you believe it? How would you like to get that question? Wow, talk about jumping right into deep waters! But Mary patiently had a conversation with this man, who has bought in to the misconceptions and un-truths that Islam has cast on true Biblical Christianity: that Allah and the God of the Bible are the same, Jesus was a man, and not God come in the flesh, that good works are necessary for salvation, why all the different Bible versions if Christianity is true, etc.

Now, we know that Issa, the Jesus of the Q'uran, is not the Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible; We know that God has revealed himself in his word as THE one-in-three, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; we know that there is no other name (other than Jesus) under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved. Our goal is to present the true gospel of Jesus Christ to all men, so that they may be convicted by the Holy Ghost, repent towards the God of the Bible (who all men do know, according to Romans 1) and trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. So this is for Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Janes, Buddhists, Roman & Orthodox Catholics, Coptics, Protestant Christians, Pagans, Wiccans, Satanists, Atheists, Animists,...all men everywhere (Acts 17:24-31).

Overall a very good day. Pray for Shalih, and pray for Mary as she studies God's word and how to respond to the challenges & questions that come her way as she holds forth the word of truth. Praise God for his goodness and mercy towards us.

Here is the LINK to the open air preaching.
Please note there is a lot of street noise in this audio, but it's not a problem with your speakers or my recorder. This is what it is like preaching open air, and it is very different than sitting in a comfy church building with great sound systems and comfy chairs. I hope you enjoy the experience. There are a few minutes of delay as we were getting set up. You will hear us pray, and then Mary heads across the street with tracts while I get ready to preach the gospel.

Getting Ready....

Hey brothers: hope you are getting ready for the warmer weather, to reach out to our lost world with the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course we don't let cold weather slow us down, and there are people to meet in the malls, convenience stores, and the Wal-Marts, and we can chat with them about the eternal truths of God. If we love God and we love them, we will try to reach out to them. We don't have to have perfect, memorized presentations or lots of charisma...it's not our ability, but our avail-ability that God wants, and God can use our mistakes and fumbles in our efforts to be light & salt in this dark world.

So along those thoughts, I wanted to show you my new preaching platform. It's a little taller than my toolbox platform, and about twice as wide, so you can move around a little bit (and try not to fall off).  I have a bunch of new tracts ready to go, so if the Lord allows and we can proclaim Christ in the outdoors this year, I'm going to give this platform a try.

Mission Good Friday will be here in about a month, so maybe I can use it to share the biblical account of Jesus' death, burial & resurrection, under the blue sky, because I get the day off as a company holiday! I put this on the Calendar page...come join us if you can! In any case, don't wait for "perfect weather" to live for the Lord and share Him with everyone you can, until He comes to take us outta here, or we go to be with Him.

New from Mark Cahill

Couple of newer teaching videos from our brother in Jesus Christ, Mark Cahill. Good encouragement to all soul winners and concerned, caring Christians. Second video based on "Pray for BOB."

 

In Mark's message, "Pray for BOB", this is not a person's name, but an acronym...

• B stands for BURDEN: Pray to God for a burden about the lost around you. Do you care about lost people ? Get your head up out of your phone, and look around you: every person has an eternal soul, and will be alive forever either in the presence of God with unspeakable joy, or separated from the love of God in a real place of torment called Hell. Do you care? Do you care enough to do something about that?
• O stands for OPPORTUNITY; God gives each of us 24 hours in a day. Pray that during your 24 hours, God will give you opportunities to share the gospel with lost people. In your neighborhood, at the gas station, at work, etc. And by the way, there are lots of good ways to open doors of opportunity with people: for example, gospel tracts, or just striking up a conversation about normal, everyday things with someone, then swinging the conversation to a spiritual focus with a goal of sharing the gospel.
• B stands for BOLD: now that you've got a burden for the lost, and you've cried out to God for opportunity, go out there an live a Bold life for Jesus Christ, and let the chips fall where they may. Through the leading and power of the Holy Spirit, tell as many people about Jesus Christ as you can, until he comes to catch us away, or you go to be with him!

 

G.O.S.P.E.L.

It stands for...
God. Our. Sins. Paying. Everyone. Life.
This brother spells it out quite well. Check it out...

Did you watch it? Wasn't that great?

Okay...now, will you take the joyful, hopeful, awesome, wonderful message of the gospel out of your room, and out of your house, and out of your church building, and share it with:

• Your family
• Your friends
• Your enemies
• Neighbors
• Strangers
• The lady that rings up your groceries at the supermarket
• Thy kid behind the counter at the gas station
• Your boss...yeah, your boss (or, do you care about your annual raise more than his eternal soul?)
• The waitress at Perkins
• The people in town who do not speak like you, look like you, or dress like you
• The people in town who do

Will you pray for opportunities, and even go out of your way to take advantage of and make opportunities, to share the gospel with someone today, either by conversation or through gospel literature, Bibles or DVD's?

In other words, let's take Mark 16:15 seriously. Because that's the point of the gospel. And because Jesus Christ is worth it....

Love ya,

Paul

Is It Too Early for Valentines Day?

Is it too early? Well, not when it comes to sharing the great news of the gospel of Jesus Christ! Mary and I spent a few minutes this evening "wrapping" some "One Second After You Die" booklets to give away to complete strangers. Some red & white ribbon and a heart-shaped York peppermint patty candy taped to the cover, and voila!

And after a moment of prayer over these babies, that Almighty God would open doors to give these out, and that those who got them would be led to saving faith in the Lord Jesus, we're ready to try them out.

Maranatha!