Fair Stories - Matt
From MattB: WOW! That’s the best description I can come up with for how God worked yesterday! In fact, His work began way before we ever set off for the fairgrounds! It was obvious that the devil was hard at work trying to prevent us from going for the God, but as the Lord Jesus said…”And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive “(Matt 21:22). You might want to refill your coffee mug and get settled in as this will be a long one!
The weather was the first obstacle that we faced. The skies were black and it poured all day long where I was at, but God is the one who makes “a decree for the rain” and He made things beautiful before the fair started. In fact, the rain caused God to be glorified further because it knocked down the pollen enough to allow Kristi to go with us, as she previously was unable to go due to horrible allergies! He then answered our prayers for our brothers under attack from the devil, trying to discourage them from going. Both soldiers were on the front lines last night! The last miracle (these things are miraculous in my eyes)…Tami was sent home early from work just in time to be able to go with us! The devil has nothing on our God!
I believe 18-19 people came out to the battlefront, and many more were back home in prayer. After pairing up and praying we were off to the fairgrounds. I was teamed up with Dan Archinal, and what a blessed time we had!
Our work began well before we ever got to the fairgrounds. While walking up the street there were dozens of folks in their front yards and hanging on the sidewalks. I saw a group of 6 teenagers talking so I walked up and said “did you guys get one of these yet?” and handed them each a $1 million dollar bill. There were 4 girls and 2 guys (a few others came over and got tracts and left), and as soon as I began with the million dollar question, “are you good enough to go to heaven”, the boys and 2 of the girls took off. Samantha and Kate were very interested in talking with us though and our conversation went very well. Although Sam did most of the talking Kate was nodding her head in agreement with everything and her eyes were very focused on mine. Although at one point she said she had gotten saved and was baptized I pretty much ignored that and continued asking her about her goodness using the law. She was guilty of all and by her own admission was headed for hell, and when I asked if she knew what God did so she didn’t have to go there she said “NO” (despite her previous statement that she was saved). She was concerned, as was Kate, and the gospel was very good news to them! They said they would think about getting saved before they went to bed that night. I think we gave away about 10 tracts overall with this encounter as many kids came up and grabbed one and walked away.
Next, right by the entrance, we came across a couple of young men headed in. After giving them millions we engaged them in conversation. Their names were Aaron and Dre’, and you could tell they came from a little rougher background (they even carried fake plastic guns on them J ). They were very willing to talk, and when asked about death they said they definitely didn’t want to die but realized that it could happen at any moment. After going through some of the commandments and telling them that every second 2 people die, and they both had an appointment with death themselves, Dre’ said “I don’t want to talk about this anymore, you’re scaring me”! So, after scaring him a little more I gave them the good news of Christ’s acceptable payment on their behalf…this was good news to them! Overall it went well and they seemed to really be tracking with what they were hearing. Here’s the coolest part though…when they went into the fairgrounds Kristi was there handing tracts to a group of kids and talking with them and Dre’ walked up and said “I got one of those…the guy told me I was going to hell!” Kristi looked at him and said “No, he didn’t tell you that you were going to hell, the Bible did!” How awesome and divine was that! An immediate confirmation that what he had just been told was true!
We spoke to a couple more teens, Mason and his buddy, before going in. I was content to just give them tracts and head into the fair, but Mason seemed very interested so I started talking with him. His eyes were focused on mine like a laser beam and he was very receptive to the gospel…especially after admitting he was a lying, thieving, adulterous, blasphemer who dishonor his parents, and is headed for hell! His heart was very soft and he knew he needed to get saved. He promised to get right with God that night, so let’s pray for Mason to follow through on his word!
One of my favorite encounters was when Dan went to the information booth and asked Bob for directions…directions to heaven that is! Bob was a sweet guy and seemed to enjoy talking with Dan, but his answer that you needed a ladder didn’t quite cut it with Dan, so he asked him “who goes to heaven and who goes to hell?” He said “good people go to heaven”, so Dan asked if he was a good person. His said “yep”, so Dan asked if he could ask a couple of questions to make sure. After going through 4 or 5 of the commandments Bob had to admit that he in fact wasn’t a good person, and when Dan asked if he would go to heaven or hell he pointed thumbs down and said “hell”. Bob was very receptive to the gospel and at the end he told Dan that he got saved at a tent revival 2 weeks ago. It was funny because Dan said “then why did you say you were a good person, you should have told me you were a bad person but Jesus paid for your sins on the cross.” It was a very sweet conversation and I really appreciated the privilege of being able to witness it first-hand.
After walking around a little bit Dan noticed how long the lines were for the rides, so he said let’s give everyone in line a tract…so he started on one end and I got the other. We handed out 30-40 tracts and many folks were reading them as they waited in line. We did this again for another ride, so I would guess we handed out about 60-70 tracts. One guy told me “no, this isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”, but little did he know that I had already given his wife and kids one…I saw him reading it a couple of minutes later!
One of my favorite personal encounters was with a gal working one of the booths. I think she started asking Andy Speight, Aaron, and Dave Knop for money or something because Andy said to me “Matt, give her some money”…so I walked up and gave her a million dollar bill. I forget her name (as I often do if I don’t write it down right away, I’ll call her Dana but God knows her), but she said “I don’t believe in this, I don’t believe in God”. I said “it doesn’t matter what you believe, it matters what is true Dana. If you don’t believe in trucks and you stand in the middle of the freeway, it doesn’t matter if you believe in trucks or not you are going to get run over and killed.” “Likewise, if you don’t believe in gravity and you jump off of a ten story building you are going to fall to the earth and die regardless of your belief”. I then pointed at a van next to her and asked how she knew the van had a designer, an engineer, and a group of men to assemble it?” At first she was unreasonable and said “I don’t know that”, so I asked her again and she kept saying she didn’t know for sure that there was a designer, so I said “Dana, you are not being reasonable, be reasonable with me. I care about you, I don’t know you but I am out here making a fool of myself to you because I don’t want you to go to hell and neither does God. When you look at creation all around us you know that there is a creator! It is not reasonable to think that nothing created everything and ordered it!” She finally agreed and said that she believed in God but she hated Him. I was saddened of course, and simply said, “so life’s been rough for you, I am sorry to hear that…but think how bad an eternity in hell will be! God didn’t cause the bad things in this world, it was very good when he created it, but sin entered in and corrupted it and God is angry because of that. One day He will judge sin and punish sinners for all eternity, and if you die without Christ a billion billion billion years from now your eternity without Him in hell will just be getting started. God doesn’t want that to happen to you and neither do I.” The more we spoke the softer she got. She was obviously hurting and without hope, but as hard as it was I had to explain that she had broken God’s laws and would have to pay for it on judgment day. Only then would the healing power of Jesus make sense to her. I was able to share the love of God and His sacrifice on the cross for her. How a legal transaction was satisfied with Christ’s blood, and even though she didn’t get saved right then she thanked me for talking to her and promised to consider the things we talked about. Wow, God is amazing! Psalms 119:133 Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
It was getting late and Dan and I ran into Pastor Rufus and Alan Vaughn. We encouraged each other with our stories and fellowshipped for a few minutes, then Pastor Rufus and Dan each went over separately and began talking with a couple of men each. Dan spoke with a couple of guys that looked to be in their twenties named Justin and David. They were all very receptive to what they were telling them, admitting freely their crimes against God. It was so awesome for Alan and I to witness them doing the work! We could see them tracking with Dan and Pastor Rufus as their eyes were locked to theirs, what a blessing! They all four wanted to know what God did for them so they didn’t have to go to hell and were thankful for the message. Pastor Rufus gave one of the men his business card and the guy said he would be contacting him…praise the Lord!
What an amazing night it was! As always God delivered and we were privileged to join Him in HIS work and be blessed beyond measure.
May He alone be glorified!
