Group Therapy

10 CommentsE-vangie VIDEO!

My friend, Allen Peek, followed along with the team I was leading at Ambassadors’ Academy #16 and shot this footage of a rather challenging witnessing encounter with about ten or so distracted, profane and squirrelly teens. Here’s what he wrote at his blog, CrossBearingServant:

We were at Santa Monica Ca, 3rd Street Promenade. In the video you’ll see Steve…deliver the Law and the Gospel to a group of teenagers. As you watch this video keep in mind that I edited out approximately eight minutes of the footage. Steve had to do a considerable amount of wrangling, reasoning, repeating and recapping, in order to help these teens understand their eternal destiny without Christ. It was a rather difficult encounter.

Comments (10)

  1. dede

    Reply

    steve,
    did you get to talk to talk with them after the camera went off?

    LISTEN…LISTEN…LISTEN…
    sounds like my house with my two teenage and one 21yr old sons.

    James 1: 19 “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…”

    well done bro!

  2. Paul Latour

    Reply

    I saw this on Allan’s blog. That was a toughie for sure. Way to stick with it! From the look on their faces, I trust that God was softening the hearts of a couple of them there. I love that God’s word is never wasted, no matter how indifferent some may seem while you are giving it. It’s good to be just the messenger.

  3. vintango

    Reply

    Eh, the ‘pack leader’ did bring up an interesting part, every human being has a physical desire towards the opposite sex… or sometimes the same sex… sexual thoughts exist in nearly all males and females, enough to the point that when Steve asks people the same question about lusting after people the answer seems to almost be unfailingly yes. Not surprising considering roughly 1% of the population is completely assexual or non-sexual. The question the ‘pack leader’ seemed to ask is everyone lusts, if god made ‘mental lusting’ a sin then why would he give mankind the drive to do that? Controlling your thoughts is nearly impossible, if someone asks you not to think about something you typically think about that very thing, try it sometime. If God gave us free will and the ability to think and reason, why would he make our thoughts criminal, that would make me paranoid. If we didn’t have ‘lust in our hearts’ how would we continue on as a species, if no one had any attraction to one another of any kind why go out on dates? Why get married? Why have sex? Furthermore, Steve, one thing I haven’t seen you do on your videos (The ones where the people aren’t shouting at you so loud you can’t be heard) is elaborate more on how a person accepts Jesus and admits their sins. It seems to be, that if a person speaks personally with Jesus, mentally through prayer I’m assuming, and agrees to repent of their sins they get into heaven and are saved from the lake of fire (Fire isn’t a liquid). But by your own standards, lying, mentally lusting = adultry, getting angry or even hating = murder, then mankind and even Christians are perpetually doomed to re-sinning because nearly all human beings do this from time to time. Take the Reverend Ted Haggard, cheated on his wife with a male prostitute and took drugs, and lied about it repeatedly, these were actual ACTS not thoughts. I assume now if he prays to Jesus he will be forgiven of these sins, but in a recent interview he was honest and said he still could not control his homosexual thoughts. He said he still has lust in his heart, so he’s condemned to hell? Or will he perpetually ask for forgiveness through prayer till he dies, eternally unable to be unrepentant? I guess the ultimate point I’m trying to make is that if thinking about things (lustful thoughts, anger, hatred) is the same as acts of adultry and murder and praying to Jesus for forgiveness will wash these sins clean, then you would be able to do some pretty despicable things and still get into heaven. You could, rape, steal and murder on a massive scale, infanticide, genocide, jihad, you name it, the world could be your oyster as long as you find Christ before you die you’re guaranteed to go to heaven, however I’m not sure all the people you condemned to death would be eager to meet you at the pearly gates. At least Catholicism has actual confession, where you bare your soul to a priest and gives you a penance (Might be to turn yourself in for committing that murder, or theft, or rape, it does happen) or you can be booted out via excommunication (Sorry Adolf Hitler, killing 6 million Jewish people pretty much means you’re not going to see heaven) Can you imagine though, if before Hitler died, he prayed to Jesus for forgiveness as he was taking his life… we’re talking bullet is already in and he’s bleeding out, he says a prayer to Jesus, begging for forgiveness, and he feels genuinely sorry for what he did, and accepts Jesus’ love in his heart. He’d be in heaven right now, and 6 Million Jews would be in hell, they could have been good people that were adhering to their faith, a faith far older then Christianity, but it still doesn’t seem to save them from being condemned to Hell.

  7. robert moss

    Reply

    hey steve or anyone else for that matter….. What happened to Custom Tract Source website? went to it and it was nolonger there????? Have they gone out of business or just forgot to renew their website fee?

  10. Thomas Moore

    Reply

    Pastor Steve way to go!!! I have been in similar encounters before and I am never discourage after them because I know just the fact of stepping out and speaking to individual’s like that is never discouraging because we can not fail when we step out for the Lord! No matter how small or large the step may be! God bless!!!

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