Today as usual I was out and about ready to give the gospel and felt prompted to go into a shop in a shopping mall (it was near closing time which is a good time to give the gospel to shop keepers because they are nearly always bored and have no customers).  I am glad I did. The lady was working on her own in a shoe shop. As I entered the shop I got eye contact and smiled and said ‘Hi…you look like your bored!’ And she said ‘I am!’ So I said ‘Great. Would you like to see a video which will show you how you can be 100% sure of going to heaven when you die?’ And she said enthusiastically ‘Yes!’ Now this is new first line which I am trying. I used to say ‘Would you like to see a video which summarises the whole Bible in 11 minutes’ which worked well but it pays to try things. Anyway, I have tried this since and it seems to work really well.  This young lady was sitting on a chair at the back of the shop. I explained that if a customer came in, she could pause the video and put the customer first – it pays to establish some ground rules.  I stood by her as she watched the video. This also helps to keep the person watching focussed and on task.  I prayed as she watched. I was praying for things like: the Holy Spirit to make it real, give her revelation, open her eyes, bring belief, bring conviction; I also prayed that no one would come into the shop. Someone did momentarily but she just browsed and left..phew! At the end, I asked her the usual questions:

1. What did you think?
2. If you died tonight, where would you go? (heaven or hell)
3. What were the two things we need to do to be forgiven? (turn and surrender)
4. Is there any reason why you shouldn’t turn and surrender right now?
5. Would you like to surrender right now? (If they say ‘yes’ lead them to Christ. If they say ‘no’ ask them gently why that might be)

Well, this young lady said she would go to heaven. I asked her why this would be so. She said she’d been baptised 5 years ago. I said ‘OK, which church do you go to?’ She said ‘I don’t any more’.  I said ‘Why was that?’ She said ‘I got involved with the wrong crowd  – a boyfriend to start with and then all his non Christian friends’.  We are talking very softly and gently now. I said ‘That’s so sad. You know the Bible says ‘What does it profit a lady if she gains the whole world and loses her soul’.  At this point I noticed her eyes beginning to well up with tears, but she did not cry. I said ‘why don’t you come back?’ She said ‘I should. I need to.’  I offered to pray with her and she accepted. So we prayed. Turns out her parents go to North Shore New Life Centre in Auckland. Imagine what her parents would think of what just happened! Any loving, caring parent would have been praying for their daughter like crazy, praying for God to intervene. And he did – through me.  Guys, prayer is not enough. If we pray for the lost to be saved and don’t go  to them with the gospel we are hypocrites.  Surely we must be worse than hyprocrites. Think about it. If a building was on fire next door and people were inside screeming for help to get out, and we had ladders and fire exstinguishers but all we did was pray for God to help them without actually doing something ourselves, a court of law would probably implicate us in their death.  At best we’d be judged cold, callous, and  heartless brutes.  Now, please take action. Get hold of my DVD’s and start training! At the final judgement, you won’t be judged for how many souls you saved, but rather by how much action you took to play your part, which is to go to them with the gospel (either through tracts for verbalising the gospel – see my book page 14). The other question I had was this – why are we teaching in our churches that Baptism equals salvation? I think anytime someone is baptised we ought to make it clear Baptism is only an outward sign of an inward change, and if the inward change doesn’t result in a changed life, then Baptism is just a bath! (Matthew 7:16).

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