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Gospel seeds amid roses


PASADENA, Calif. (BP)–Lots of seeds were sown at the Tournament of Roses Parade Dec. 31-Jan. 1. I wanted to share a few of the encounters I had and ask you to pray for these people.

GI-GI -– Gi-Gi was sitting at a card table putting together a “Star Wars” jigsaw puzzle that her son had been working on. We gave her one of our parade programs (which also relayed the Gospel) and started talking with her about her puzzle. She happened to notice the Evangecube in my hand and commented, “Hey, I have one of those in my classroom.”

So I asked her, “Do you know what it’s about?” She responded, “No.”

So I told her that I use this to explain what the Bible says about how someone can know they are going to heaven. “Gi-Gi, if you were to die tonight,” I asked, “would you be 50%, 75% or 100% for sure you would go to heaven?” Gi-Gi said, “99.9%.”

So I shared the Gospel with her using the Evangecube. When I asked, “Is there any reason why you would not want to receive the gift of eternal life today,” she responded, “I already did that.” However, when I asked her about when she had done that, she could not give me a clear answer.

After sharing a few more Scriptures with her, I encouraged her to look further at the Gospel presentation inside the program and pointed out the prayer for salvation inside.

AMELIO -– Amelio, a short Hispanic man with a bushy graying mustache, was sitting in a chair in the median on Sierra Madre Boulevard. I gave him a program and told him there was some good news about Jesus inside. He asked, jokingly, “Who is He?” I said, “I’ll be glad to tell you.”

Debbie, who was walking with me, said, “In your personal opinion, what does it take for a person to go to heaven?” Amelio tried to avoid answering the question. He said, “I used to have fellowship, but I live in Las Vegas now and I can’t find fellowship there.”

So I replied, “Amelio, I don’t want you to think church is not important, but it is more important that you have fellowship with Jesus Christ.” As we talked, Amelio confessed that he liked to party and drink a lot. He asked, “What if someone sins all their life and then repents at the end?” So I asked, “If I were to hold a calendar in front of you right now, could you put the date of your death on the calendar?” He lowered his head and said, “No.”

I left him with one final Scripture, Acts 3:19, “Repent therefore and be converted so that your sins may be blotted out and the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”

CHRIS — As I was working with the mime team, I began to preach using the verse from Psalm 14:1 which says, “The fool has said in His heart, there is no God.” As I talked about the wonders of creation, this tall African American man named Chris shouted back, “Intelligent Design is not intelligent.” I replied through the megaphone, “Well, I believe in an intelligent Creator.” I continued to present the Gospel and waited for the mime team to set up. Once I was finished, Chris yelled, “What kind of Christian are you?” To which I said, “The kind that believes in Jesus Christ!”

Chris got belligerent at that point. Some of the other team members stepped up and started to talk with him. I continued to preach until the mime team’s performance was finished.

After the performance, I walked over to introduce myself to Chris. What happened next was a real adventure. We began to talk about the existence of God and other philosophical matters.

At one point in the conversation, he asked if I believed that the Bible was literally true. He then said that I was stupid. He also said that born-again Christians were racists, Nazis and several other things that I can’t put in print.

In the end, Chris told us he believed in “mathematics, logic and the occult in that order.” Each time in the conversation that I got him to the point of seeing that his reasoning was flawed, he would change the subject.

Please pray for Chris. Pray that the satanic forces that are blinding him to the truth would be bound and that he would be released to believe.

I hope to go back in 2008 and want to take some of you with me. All together, our team gave out about 15,000 parade programs with Gospel presentations inside and saw a dozen salvations during the outreach. Pray too for the people who received a parade program that the seeds planted in there heart would grow leading to salvation.
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Darrel Davis is an evangelist based in Garner, N.C., and on the Web at www.onlyfoundation.org.

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  • Darrel Davis