Win Ray's New Book

You can win a copy of Ray Comfort's new book at Fish with Trish.

Ray Comfort's new book "You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence but You Can't Make Him Think" is written in a question and answer format and is filled with answers to questions from angry skeptics. One atheist said, "In reading your books...seeds of doubt about my atheism have been sown."

Escape from Hamas

Here is an interview with Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of the Hamas founders, who converted to Christianity. It all started because a Christian tourist to Israel gave him a Bible. Watch this and you will never again question the importance of sharing our faith. This young man could literally change the face of Islam, but in doing so he also puts his own life in danger.

I have included part of the transcript from the FoxNews Special because his testimony is so powerful.

Mosab Hassan: I’m not trying to offend Muslims. I love them. Those Muslims are my family.

Jonathon Hunt: But you are going to offend people and you are going to put your own life in danger, aren’t you, by doing this?

Mosab: Some of them will be offended. Some of them will be offended, but I am sure, I believe that many of them will wake up.

Jonathon: Some of them will try to kill you.

Mosab: They will, they will. If they will kill me, they will kill this body, but the question, what about my soul, what about my ideas, what about my beliefs that I shared with everybody. Will they be able to kill this? I don’t think so.

Announcer: Within days (of the August report), Al-Qaeda, the world’s most notorious terrist group responded, issuing a lengthy statement criticizing Hamas for allowing this young man to convert to Christianity and concluding by quoting the chilling words of Mohammed, “Whoever changes his religion - Kill him”

Jonathon: Are you scared?

Mosab: I don’t want to die and I don’t want to pretend that I like to die. I love to live. I love to serve my Lord. But if this will be the challenge, and this is how I prove my faith, I ask God to give me patience to do it.

Announcer: And Mosab Hassan says his family will likely also suffer.

Jonathon: How does that make you feel? Do you think you shouldn’t have done this? You shouldn’t have gone public?

Mosab: No, I had to do this. I had to do this because this is going to change so many people lives. Hopefully, my family’s life.

Jonathon: Do you believe your father will one day become a Christian?

Mosab: He is not too far from Christianity. He is very close. I told him that. I told him you are very far of Islam and very close to Christianity. That was my last sentence to him.

Jonathon: How do you think he reacted to that?

Mosab: He cried.

Jonathon: Tears of joy or despair.

Mosab: I don’t think it was joy at that moment. One day he will understand.

Jonathon: You’re depending on the charity of others. Your family back home is in tears. How do you cope with all of that?

Mosab: It’s a low price for Jesus. It’s even nothing. It’s like comparing to what He has done to us, it’s nothing.

Elvis's Last Words

I was watching Mike Huckabee this past weekend and he was having an Elvis special. He talked to Rick Stanley, who is a step brother to Elvis and may have been the last person to talk to Elvis before his death 8 hours later. This is the conversation according to Rick.

Rick: There is this girl that keeps telling me I need the Lord.

Elvis: She's telling you the truth.

Rick: I've tried to kick this, I've tried to kick all that stuff. (I was under the impression that to become a Christian you have to stop, you have to kick something to come to Christ. I didn't know that you come to the Lord; that is how you kick. I had it backwards.)

Elvis: It's those people who talk to you about Jesus, they're the ones who truly care.

It's those people who talk to you about Jesus who truly care. Do we care?

Comments by an Atheist

Do we really care that people are headed to hell? Here is an interesting video by atheist Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller. Here is a transcript of a portion of the video.

Penn says: If you believe there is a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell, or not get eternal life, and you think it is not really worth telling them this, because it would make it socially awkward ... how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?

Why is it that an atheist realizes the necessity of evangelizing more than most Christians? This should be a wake up call for all Christians.

Minimalistic View of Conversion

What is the least we have to do to be saved? That seems to be the question that people seem to want to know without actually saying it out loud. After all, we have boiled down salvation to saying a prayer and saying we believe that Jesus died for our sins. It does not matter that we do not care about holiness and glorifying God in all we do. I have yet to read in the Bible where it says that we must pray to accept Jesus into our heart. The closest I can get is Romans 10:9 where it says “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Yet this is talking to early Christians who were being sent to the lions if they publicly confessed Jesus as Lord. That is a far cry from a simple prayer of acceptance. No wonder there is so little evidence of regeneration in the lives of so-called Christians today.

The following is a quote by Ravi Zacharias. See the rest of his article click here.

"Therefore, as Christians, we ought to take time to reflect seriously upon the question, “Has God truly wrought a miracle in my life? Is my own heart proof of the supernatural intervention of God?” In the West we go through these seasons of new-fangled theologies. The whole question of “lordship” plagued our debates for some time as we asked, is there such a thing as a minimalist view of conversion? “We said the prayer and that’s it.” Yet how can there be a minimalist view of conversion when conversion itself is a maximal work of God’s grace? “Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV).

If you were proposing marriage to someone, what would the one receiving the proposal say if you said, “I want you to know this proposal changes nothing about my allegiances, my behavior, and my daily life; however, I do want you to know that should you accept my proposal, we shall theoretically be considered married. There will be no other changes in me on your behalf.” In a strange way we have minimized every sacred commitment and made it the lowest common denominator. What does my new birth mean to me? That is a question we seldom ask. Who was I before God’s work in me, and who am I now?"

Do I simply want heaven and nothing else? Do I want to have the ability to do whatever I want, without Christ interfering in my fun? Do I want to be able to watch whatever garbage there is on TV and in the theater without my conscience convicting me of my sin? People often ask “What Would Jesus Do?’, but since that is a standard so above our ability, we simple say that we are just being human. That is true, but if we are abiding in Christ shouldn’t the work of the Holy Spirit be at least somewhat visible in our life? A better question, is what would the apostle Paul or Peter do? Would they spend their time in worldly entertainment, or would they be trying to spread the Gospel wherever they go? Do I love the things that God loves and hate the things that God hates?

Jerry Bridges says, “I think one of the common misunderstandings of the grace of God is, “God’s cutting me some slack. Grace is God’s letting me get away with a few things.” That’s the furthest thought from the grace of God. The grace of God comes to us through Jesus Christ as a result of his sinless life and sin-bearing death for us, but that grace is more than just God’s kindness and benevolent feeling toward us. The grace of God is dynamic. The grace of God is God in action for our good. And so when the apostle Paul said, “By the grace of God I am what I am,” he was speaking about the empowering of the Holy Spirit that God in his grace supplies to each of us as we seek to live for Him.”

Try Jesus?

On Hannity and Colmes, Pastor Rick Warren made a comment to "try Jesus for sixty days". Now I am not trying to tear down Pastor Warren, but I think think that idea has basically infiltrated the modern church. Try Jesus to see if He works for you, if not, then try something else.

I do a fair amount of evangelism on the streets as well as working with teenagers in our church youth group. The biggest challenge I have is people and kids who say that they have tried Jesus and He does not work. But it is not about us and our happiness. Jesus never promised us happiness - He said to take up our cross and follow Him. He said that we will have trials and tribulations. Most of the apostles and many of the early Christians died for their faith.

I did not repent and believe the Gospel because of what it would give me. I put my trust in Christ because of what He did for me on that cross and because He is worthy to be praised regardless of what happens to me. It was not just the physical agony of dying on that cross, but the fact that He exchanged His righteousness for my sin. He bore the wrath of God that I deserved and I received His righteousness in exchange when I repented and put my trust in Him.

It is so hard to see teenagers who prayed some prayer to accept Jesus, but never trusted in Him as their Lord and Savior. They have been told that if they try Jesus, He will give them happiness and peace. Then when trials come, they get disillusioned and reject Him. They have never been shown their sinfulness in view of the Ten Commandments, and they have not been told about the judgment that is to come. Therefore, the sacrifice that Jesus made makes no sense. For more information, listen to "Hell's Best Kept Secret".

Watchman

I do not want to stand before God empty handed with blood on my hands of all those I come across in my daily life. I just read recently in Ezekiel 33:1-11 The word of the LORD came to me: Son of man, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand.

“So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. “And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, Thus have you said: Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live? Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?

According to Mark Cahill: In ancient times, watchman were positioned on the wall surrounding a city to keep watch. Their job was to be on the lookout for the armies that were coming. When they saw an enemy approaching, they were to blow the trumpet to warn the city’s residents. It was not their job to make everyone ready; it was the people’s own responsibility to get ready. The watchmen’s job was just to sound the alarm. God has left believers on earth to sound the alarm to others, to warn the wicked that if they do not repent of their wicked ways and come to Jesus, they will regret it both here and for eternity. If we know the wicked are dying and going to Hell and we do not warn them, their blood is on our hands. We must tell the lost about Jesus. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and neither should we. Earlier in Ezekiel 3:11, the Lord tells Ezekiel, “And go to your people, and speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD, whether they hear or refuse to hear. “ Remember, it is our responsibility to speak the truth, whether our listeners listen or refuse the message.