Upcoming Event - 4th of July Celebration in Canton, Ga.

It's that time of year again where thousands of people will decend upon Canton to watch the fireworks show!

Hundreds of people will get there hours early just to get a good spot before the rest of the crowd rolls in. We have an awesome opportunity to reach out to the lost in our community and give people the Word of life!

Think about it. How often do masses of people just sit around doing nothing waiting a couple hours in the summer heat for a few minutes of entertainment?

Not often.

Last year we had a team of 9 evangelists (and a few kids helping out) handing out Gospel tracts, water and the words of life.

See the following links for those stories...

Here

Here

Here

Here

Here

Here

As you can see by some of the posts from team members last year, we had a great time and God was glorified through the spreading of His Word.

Here are my plans right now -

When - July 3rd (Saturday)
Where - Meet in front of Hibbitts Sports (next to Publix in the Riverstone Shopping Center)
Time - 6:15pm

Meeting at 6:15pm will give us plenty of time to group up (we will put the newbies with the more experienced folks). After grouping up we will pray and then hit the streets!

My goal would be to have at least as many people this year witnessing as we did last year. I will have about 1,400 tracts...but please, if you have some bring them!

I will be on vacation next week in Myrtle Beach with my family, but I will check emails if anyone has any questions. You can email me at Hisfeet@tds.net

While at the beach I will employ my latest hook to draw the lost to me. See how I used this hook last year for the first time by clicking here.

Hope to see you on the 3rd!!

Dawg

Ten Reasons To Not Ask Jesus Into Your Heart by Todd Friel

The music weeps, the preacher pleads, “Give your heart to Jesus. You have a God shaped hole in your heart and only Jesus can fill it.” Dozens, hundreds or thousands of people who want to get their spiritual life on track make their way to the altar. They ask Jesus into their heart.

Cut to three months later.

Nobody has seen our new convert in church. The follow up committee calls him and encourages him to attend a Bible study, but to no avail. We label him a backslider and get ready for the next outreach event.

Our beloved child lies in her snuggly warm bed and says, “Yes, Daddy. I want to ask Jesus into my heart.” You lead her in “the prayer” and hope that it sticks. You spend the next ten years questioning if she really, really meant it. Puberty hits and the answer reveals itself. She backslides. We spend the next ten years praying that she will come to her senses.

Telling someone to ask Jesus into their hearts has a very typical result, backsliding. the Bible says that a person who is soundly saved puts his hand to the plow and does not look back because he is fit for service. In other words, a true convert cannot backslide. If a person backslides, he never slid forward in the first place. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.” (II Cor.5) No backsliding there.

Brace yourself for this one: with very few if any exceptions, anyone who asked Jesus into their hearts to be saved…is not. If you asked Jesus into your heart because you were told that is what you have to do to become a Christian, you were mis-informed.
If you have ever told someone to ask Jesus into their heart (like I have), you produced a false convert.

Here is why.

1. It is not in the Bible. There is not a single verse that even hints we should say a prayer inviting Jesus into our hearts. Some use Rev. 3:20. To tell us that Jesus is standing at the door of our hearts begging to come in.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” There are two reasons that interpretation is wrong.

The context tells us that the door Jesus is knocking on is the door of the church, not the human heart. Jesus is not knocking to enter someone’s heart but to have fellowship with His church.

Even if the context didn’t tell us this, we would be forcing a meaning into the text (eisegesis). How do we know it is our heart he is knocking at? Why not our car door? How do we know he isn’t knocking on our foot? To suggest that he is knocking on the door of our heart is superimposing a meaning on the text that simply does not exist.
The Bible does not instruct us to ask Jesus into our heart. This alone should resolve the issue, nevertheless, here are nine more reasons.

2. Asking Jesus into your heart is a saying that makes no sense. What does it mean to ask Jesus into your heart? If I say the right incantation will He somehow enter my heart? Is it literal? Does He reside in the upper or lower ventricle? Is this a metaphysical experience? Is it figurative? If it is, what exactly does it mean? While I am certain that most adults cannot articulate its meaning, I am certain that no child can explain it. Pastor Dennis Rokser reminds
us that little children think literally and can easily be confused (or frightened) at the prospect of asking Jesus into their heart.

3. In order to be saved, a man must repent (Acts 2:38). Asking Jesus into your heart leaves out the requirement of repentance.

4. In order to be saved, a man must trust in Jesus Christ (Acts 16:31).
Asking Jesus into your heart leaves out the requirement of faith.

5. The person who wrongly believes they are saved will have a false sense of security. Millions of people who sincerely, but wrongly, asked Jesus into their hearts think they are saved but struggle to feel secure. They live in doubt and fear because they do not have the Holy Spirit giving them assurance of salvation.

6. The person who asks Jesus into his heart will likely end up inoculated, bitter and backslidden. Because he did not get saved by reciting a formulaic prayer, he will grow disillusioned with Jesus, the Bible, church and fellow believers. His latter end will be worse than the first.

7. It presents God as a beggar just hoping you will let Him into your busy life. This presentation of God robs Him of His sovereignty.

8. The cause of Christ is ridiculed. Visit an atheist web-site and read the pagans who scoff, “How dare those Christians tell us how to live when they get divorced more than we do? Who are they to say homosexuals shouldn’t adopt kids when tens of thousands of orphans don’t get adopted by Christians?” Born again believers adopt kids and don’t get divorced.

People who ask Jesus into their hearts do. Jesus gets mocked when false converts give Him a bad name.

9. The cause of evangelism is hindered. While it is certainly easier to get church members by telling them to ask Jesus into their hearts, try pleading with someone to make today the day of their salvation. Get ready for a painful response. “Why should I become a Christian when I have seen so called Christians act worse than a pagan?” People who ask Jesus into their hearts give pagans an excuse for not repenting.

10. Here is the scary one: People who ask Jesus into their hearts are not saved and they will perish on the Day of Judgment. How tragic that millions of people think they are right with God when they are not. How many people who will cry out, “Lord, Lord” on judgment day will be “Christians” who asked Jesus into their hearts?
So, what must one do to be saved?

Repent and trust. (Heb.6:1)

The Bible makes it clear that all men must repent and place their trust in Jesus Christ. Every man does have a “God shaped hole in their hearts,” but that hole is not contentment, fulfillment and peace. Every man’s heart problem is righteousness. Instead of preaching that Jesus fulfills, we must preach that God judges and Jesus satisfies God’s judgment…if a man will repent and place his trust in Him.

If you are reading this and you asked Jesus into your heart, chances are good you had a spiritual buzz for a while, but now you struggle to read your Bible, tithe, attend church and pray. Perhaps you were told you would have contentment, purpose and a better life if you just ask Jesus into your heart. I am sorry, that was a lie.

Car Show Saturday

This Saturday (June 19th) is the monthly Car Show at the Riverstone Shopping Center in Canton, Georgia.

If you would like to come out and be part of our witnessing team please meet us in front of the Hibbetts Sports store right next to Publix.

Time: 4:30-6pm

This is a perfect opportunity for those of you who have never had a one-to-one conversation with someone about spiritual things to partner up with some of us and take the gospel to where the people are.

Come join us even if you have never handed out a tract before. The mood is always very good at the Car Shows and people almost always take our tracts!!

Hope to see you there!

Dawg

A Poem On Law & Gospel:

The law supposing I have all,
Does ever for perfection call;
The gospel suits my total want,
And all the law can seek does grant.

The law could promise life to me,
If my obedience perfect be;
But grace does promise life upon
My Lord's obedience alone.

The law says, Do, and life you'll win;
But grace says, Live, for all is done;
The former cannot ease my grief,
The latter yields me full relief.

The law will not abate a mite,
The gospel all the sum will quit;
There God in thret'nings is array'd
But here in promises display'd.

The law excludes not boasting vain,
But rather feeds it to my bane;
But gospel grace allows no boasts,
Save in the King, the Lord of Hosts.

The law brings terror to molest,
The gospel gives the weary rest;
The one does flags of death display,
The other shows the living way.

The law's a house of bondage sore,
The gospel opens prison doors;
The first me hamer'd in its net,
The last at freedom kindly set.

An angry God the law reveal'd
The gospel shows him reconciled;
By that I know he was displeased,
By this I see his wrath appeased.

The law still shows a fiery face,
The gospel shows a throne of grace;
There justice rides alone in state,
But here she takes the mercy-seat.

Lo! in the law Jehovah dwells,
But Jesus is conceal'd;
Whereas the gospel's nothing else
But Jesus Christ reveal'd.

Ralph Erskine, The Beauties of Erskine, 1745


HT - Monergism

Love your Heckler

Although this is from Labor Day 2009, read this from Ambassador Alliance brother Allen Peek:


Labor Day weekend 2009 was over the top! A friend of mine and I preached open air at the Pismo Beach Pier on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. We arrived on Saturday at around 2PM. It was a glorious time serving along side my brother in Christ. While he preached, I prayed, passed out tracts, and served as a single-man "rent a crowd." Brother Robert had an appointment at 4PM, so after that, I was on my own. I reasoned within myself, 'better leave now, you shouldn't continue by yourself.' But at the same time I questioned my motive for wanting to leave. What was it? I was thinking of my own safety.

My self-centered-reasoning was not based on loving GOD lifting up the Name that is above every name. My motive for wanting to leave was not based on loving man. I was more concerned for my own well being instead of thinking of what was best for those who are lost, dying, under the wrath of God, and who desperately need be saved and enjoy peace with God. I understand that God can save people without me He is in need of no help! But at the same time, I also understand this, "brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 1:26-31

So I stayed. Right after Brother Robert left on Saturday the hecklers came out in full force. They heckled me from every direction. It was imposable to keep up with all their straw-man arguments and false accusations.

I continued to preach their need to be born again. I hammered John 3:18-19, 36 expounding on the ramifications of a person who "rejects the Son" - while pointing and firing the ten cannons of God's moral law at them. The more I preached the more angry hecklers came out of the woodwork. The more angry hecklers - the bigger the crowds grew.

It was a wonderful time! There were times when I spoke very gently to try and calm them. There were other times when I spoke firmly with them. During the times when it was got a bit volatile, I was trembling inside while at the same time had great sense of peace about being there. I was threatened; hecklers coming right up to me few times but God caused me to trust in Him through it all.

Even now, I trust that His will is accomplished through the preaching of His law and the lifting up of the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord. I was so encouraged! I pray that this encourages you my fellow fishermen - especially you who find yourself out on the streets alone. "DON'T QUIT!"

Sunday afternoon really went about the same - decent sized crowds standing/sitting listening to the preaching. However, I found out before Saturday's open-air meeting, that amplification is not totally prohibited the code stipulates that the sound generated cannot exceed a certain decibel level. I was informed of this by an on-duty Sergeant from the Pismo Beach PD. He was very kind and showed me the actual code he had with him. I was overjoyed.

I didn't have my PA with me on Saturday so we went "A la Whitefield." But Sunday I brought the PA and used it all afternoon. I was so pleased because my voice was burnt from Saturday. I thank our Sovereign God for all the support, encouragement, and yes, I thank Him for each and every one of those dear hecklers. Because of them, (ultimately because of God) many heard the law and Gospel over the two days of preaching.

I don't feel it necessary to defend my actions in any way shape or form. However, for Christians who might hear/watch this, it may sound like I'm yelling at these people. This is not the case. I do my best to keep from sounding like I'm yelling. While I'm preaching I regularly explain why I'm lifting my voice. My voice is raised, not because I'm angry, but because I want everyone near and far to hear the preaching of the law of God and the Good News the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Sola Dei Gloria!

Allen Peek
---------------------------------------------------------------

This brother was open air preaching. What excuse do we have for (at the very least) not handing out a gospel tract?

The majority of the confessing church is silent when it comes to opening up it's mouth and proclaiming Jesus Christ.

Why?

Are we afraid of the heckler? Are we afraid of man in general? Are we afraid we might not have the right thing to say to a particular question? Are we afraid we will die right there on the spot?

Is not He who is in you greater than he who is in the world?

People all around us are dying and going to Hell and we have the Word of life and the cure for sinful man.

At the very least we can give someone a tract...right?

Dawg