We are going to ask you to leave!!

I want to give a little background before I start this story. I have preached the Gospel in Raleigh, NC, since 2008, and we have never really had any issue with the Raleigh Police officers. However, this year we have been asked to leave two major events that we usually attend with no interference.

 This year has been different. The event coordinators say they don’t want us there, and the Raleigh Police Department asks us to leave.  We are on public sidewalks, and we are being asked to leave. We have respectfully submitted but are going through the proper channels to get this cleared up as quickly as possible.

 After contacting the board members of GGM and the elders of my church, we determined that the GGM team was denied their First Amendment rights. I contacted the police chief’s office and was referred to the Police Attorney Ashby Ray. Pray for this to be resolved quickly. We have another preaching event coming up next weekend.   

 The leadership team at GGM is on the front lines in spreading the Gospel, and we realize that we will face opposition in preaching the Gospel. Therefore, please remember to pray for and support ministries like GGM. Our rights are being pressed against, and we must stand for these fundamental rights as Christians.  If not, we could wake up one day and our rights will be gone.

Meredith, the confused Non Believer

This week the GGM team went to proclaim the Gospel on NC State’s campus in Raleigh, NC. We had interactions with several different beliefs, ranging from atheist, Agnostic, Buddhist, and Muslim. I was excited I was there to share the life giving hope of the Gospel with every one of those individual souls. However, there is one person I cannot get out of my mind. Her name is Meredith, a young lady in her early twenties with a bright smile and a sharp mind. She grew up a daughter of a Presbyterian pastor.

She came right up to me with great zeal and stated, right from the beginning, that she was a Christian. As always, I followed her self-assured statement with a question. How would you explain to somebody who is a non Christian how to become a Christian? She paused and smiled while stating with a grin, “I would pass him on to my father.” I did not let her get off that easy, so I focused her back in on the question.  There was only silence- she had no answer. I asked again from a different angle. How do you think the Bible says a person can become a follower of Jesus? She said, “Oh, that book- you can’t take it word for word.”

In the next fifteen minutes she gave me a buffet of religious choices.  She believes that each belief system has its own heaven, so neither what you believe nor do really matters. In the end you will go to your own heaven. After she spoke about all her different beliefs, I assured her she was not a follower of Jesus according to the Bible. (John 14:6)  I explained that her belief at the core was polytheistic, which is a big word that means that she believes in many gods but is choosing only to worship one out of the many.

I showed her she was guilty of sin by taking her to God’s commandments and showing her the wickedness of her sin that caused Jesus to die on the cross and how she could be freed from the sin of idolatry. She just smiled and said, “No, I am fine. I am a Christian just like you. I believe same thing you do.” It was as if she was trying to reassure herself with her lies as the truth was pressing hard on her conscience.

She said, “There is obviously a generation gap between me and you. My generation believes differently than your generation.”  I was able to show her that no matter age, race, or nationality, truth transcends all. She was deceiving herself, saying that all religions will enter their own paradise, and at the same time claiming that she believed in the One True God of the Bible and the redemption that is given through the death of Jesus on the cross. She held this contradiction in her mind without any noticeable mental stress. She would stroke her boyfriend Brad on the arm from time to time and look him in the eye for comfort and assurance.

How can she live at such ease in her mind with this type of glaring contradiction clogging her cognitive faculties? Her culture is catering to this type of belief. It comes from TV shows, movies, music, news broadcast, Internet, books, and any other outlet of information that man can produce. What is the underlying message? You can believe whatever you want. If it is true for you that’s all that matters.  You may say, “This is not me.” The tentacles of this type of thinking are creeping into undiscerning minds. Beware!!

I give you the words of Jesus. “I am the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE. No one comes to the Father except by me.” (John 14:6)

 Prayer list

1.       Support for our ministry- prayerfully and financially 

2.       Prayer for Officers Odette and Clark and the whole Raleigh Police Force

3.       Prayer for Ashby Ray, the Police Attorney 

4.       That we would continually be bold and discerning in our preaching of the Gospel