Hi Michael,
I'm hoping that's a good "WOW" because you
agree with me.
I'd like to give the following example of what
I mean:
A man I work with had a Christian roommate in
the past who used to "witness" to him a lot until
this man became completely hardened to the gospel.
While on a camping trip with him, my wife and I
had plenty of opportunity to share the gospel with
him and when the subject came up it quickly
devolved into an argument with all the predictable
points and counterpoints touched on and ended
completely un-fruitful and we were so
disappointed. He was "New Age" in his beliefs and
I was operating under the assumption that he just
didn't understand yet what the true gospel is and
that once he heard it, it would soften him toward
it but when I finally was able to completely spell
it out to him his response was "Spoken
like a true Christian!"
At that point, I knew that he knew the gospel
message, but just didn't believe or receive it. We
finally gave up on this tactic and never again
tried to witness this way to him. Instead, we
heard the Holy Spirit say just to live the gospel
and let our light shine and allow the Holy Spirit
the chance to do the convicting. Well in the
course of time, this man's life began to go down
hill and he began having demonic visitations in
his room at night which frightened him out of his
wits and he began staying with us rather than go
home because he said the only place he finds
relief and safety and comfort and love is our
place. We accepted him as long as he wanted to
stay and shared whatever the Holy Spirit was
telling us to share and he said everything we say
comes true and he knew we could not be making this
up. He finally came to us on a day that God told
my wife in the morning "Remember this day" (June
6th 2009) and that evening after our work was done
and we were alone with him, he asked us to pray
with him to receive Jesus as his Lord and Savior.
So it wasn't our skill with the sword that won
this brother to the Lord, but God's skill with His
own sword that took out the enemy and allowed this
wounded man to be rescued from the enemy whom this
man became able to see was indeed an enemy and
liar while the Christian God is the
true, loving Father. He now attends church at
David Jeremiah's church in So California with his
then girlfriend now wife who he was broke up with
back when this all was happening and was part of
his life troubles. We were instrumental in getting
them back together as we waited on God to tell us
what to tell him etc. We sang at their wedding...