The Tulip Gospel Outreach is causing faith to bloom in Iowa.

today on way of the Master, let me quote jesus, he said fear him his power to kill your body and cast your soul into hell, God would never cast his soul to hell, Jesus’s messages were very clear dude, he was just saying be a good dude, I just think personally just be a good person, you know when you say be a good person, but where do you get that definition from? I don’t know, we are here in Pella Iowa, This town has run this festival to kind of celebrate their dutch history. We’d like to share the gospel. Evangelism is an act of faith. No matter how much you know you’re always gonna run into someone who has some different things, there’s no possible way the bible is complete. Have you got one of these million dollar bills yet? No thanks, no thanks, no thanks. Okay, what’s the world’s biggest selling book of all time? Holy bible, Are you familiar with the story of the rich young ruler? No I’m not. Are you Patrick? Probably if I’m caught up to speed on it, I was a catholic school. Okay, so if you remember a young man came running to jesus, he is very rich. He said Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Do you remember that? Yeah. How would you answer that question if I came up to you and says Patrick, what should I do to inherit eternal life? What would you answer me? I tell them you already have it. Okay and what do you think I would say the same. There’s no point in asking the question. We’ve already got eternal life. Is that what you believe? No, you just have to know like if you don’t know that you have you should still ask. But it’s given to everyone. I think it’s not like something everyone’s going to heaven. Well no because I mean if you have eternal life and you can go to the wrong place to you mean hell? Yeah, but you’re still there forever. So how do you get to him? And what do you have to do? That’s the question. You just got to be a good guy, You’re a good guy. I’d like to think so. What about you? I’d like to think I’m a good guy. Okay. You know what jesus said to him? What did he say? He said why do you call me good? There’s none good but God, why do you think he said that? I don’t know making a point because good is relative. If you open a dictionary, there’s over 40 different definitions of the word good. Number one is moral excellence and jesus is saying only God is good, only God is morally excellent and you think you’re a good person, how do you know if you’re a good person, you could feel it if you have a conscience. Some people don’t. What about you? How do you know if you’re a good person, what’s your standard? I would say if you make a conscious effort to just go about your day and do ethical things, okay, you know what jesus did to show that young man, God’s goodness in the 10 Commandments? Remember that? Remember that he gave him five of the commandments? And you added something in there in the middle. Okay, that’s what I’m gonna do with you. I’m going to try and change your mind about being a good person. Can you be honest with me? Many lies? Have you told in your life millions couldn’t even tell you? What do you call? Someone who’s told millions of lies, liar? So what are you, someone who lies? A liar? Someone who lies, You can’t pin it on yourself. Can you have you lied? So what do you call if you lie? Someone that doesn’t tell the truth, isn’t it? Hard to say about yourself? It’s easy to talk about other people morally. But when it comes to ourselves it’s very hard to judge ourselves. So josh, we’re coming up on the spooky season here and fear is all the rage it seems. Can you tell me maybe the scariest or a couple of the scariest movies you’ve ever seen? To be honest? I’m pretty much a fanatic. So it’s kinda hard, what would you say if anything uh would be one of your greatest fears in life? Not accomplishing anything in life? Failure. Yeah. Well let me ask you this um have you ever heard the phrase? The Fear of God. Like someone saying man, Yeah, they put the fear of God and that guy? The fear of God? Okay, when you hear that fear of God, what comes to mind for you personally? I think it’s more like, I guess not fear of himself, but fear more of like what’s after, cause no one I guess no one necessarily knows what comes after man. I don’t even know how to put it to describe. It’s kind of hard to describe. Well let me ask you this, if someone were to die and stand in front of God. Uh, and there’s a reality of a judgment, a place called hell, eternal lake of fire. Do you think that that’s something that should strike fear in a person? And I mean I don’t think it should, but it does, you know what I mean? I feel like a lot of people like to live by the word of God, I guess you would want to say. I feel like it just keeps them from doing a lot of things that they would want to do maybe or maybe that they would like, it just puts a lot of like, like holds back a lot from you actually living. I get to your full potential. Well josh, let me ask you this, what are your thoughts about God? You think God exists? Yeah, I think there’s something higher out there, but personally I wouldn’t even know how to describe it. I just think personally just be a good person? You know do good, do good by you. You know when you say be a good person. But where do you get that definition from? I don’t know. So do you still think you’re a good person? Yeah, I do think I’m a good person. But like if a soul is in like a human body, like an animalistic nature implements itself onto a soul, like you can’t really blame his soul for having an experience. Try then a court of law. Seriously judge you, rob the bank man. A lot of man is in the court of law. The law of God is different. It’s far more harsh now. Have you ever used God’s name in vain tom What about you? Patrick? Yeah. Did you use your mother’s name as a cuss word would be pretty funny if I did. I’d be pretty horrible if you did. Instead of using the s word, you used your mother’s name in its place. Yeah, but the old testament is different and separate and jesus came to break everyone from, from the old testament and those harsh gods and those unloving gods and he has introduced like a benevolent god. They like that’s what he said, Okay, let me, let me quote jesus, he said fear him his power to kill your body and cast your soul into hell. He was talking about, he’s talking about, he’s not talking about God, he’s talking about the Pharisees who are like persecuting everyone and everything in, He’s not talking about God because God would never cast his soul to hell, God wouldn’t do that, like that’s not God, that’s what the Pharisees were saying and that’s why people like the church, that church that just tried to free everyone from you. Like sin is something that was like, he was like dude like this, like it’s not good, you know, like that’s what he was saying, jesus said whoever looks at a woman and lusts for her has committed adultery already within his heart, Have you ever looked at a woman with lust? Yes, but he and what he’s being like, he’s saying like a woman because everybody does that. Like jesus’s messages were very clear, dude, he was just saying be a good dude, okay scripture says the wages of sin is death. He says the soul that sins it shall die and we may think lightly of sin and says no big deal, but God’s holy and he says it’s so serious that occurs the death sentence, but the scriptures say God is rich in mercy and has provided a way of escape and this is where it’s so important patrick, if you wanna acknowledge your sins and make up a false jesus and say I’m a good person, you’ll never ask God for mercy. You, you brought up the notion of good, just be a good person? I think the most important thing is for us to ask ourselves, are we good not by our standards, but by God’s standard, what do you think God’s standard of goodness is would you, would you have any inkling of that? Any idea or thought on that? Because he must have one right? I mean if God made us and he created us, he must have a standard of hey, this is right, this is wrong, This is good, This is bad. Wouldn’t you think? Well, let me tell you what it is. I’m gonna cut to the chase. I’m gonna get you. You’re doing great man. But the bible talks about God’s moral standard. I’m sure you’ve heard of the 10 Commandments, you grew up going to church or anything like that. I’m actually I was raised catholic. Okay, I was too. So I kind of understand that background. So you familiar with any of the 10 Commandments, josh? Mm man. It’s been a while to be honest. But yeah, God’s moral law. If you can imagine it’s kind of like a mirror. Right? When you look into a mirror, it reflects back to you. What’s true about yourself? The mirror is not gonna like lie in the story unless it’s one of those like carnival, you know, circus mirrors. But but it reflects back to you what’s true about yourself and on the day of judgment when you stand in front of God, He’s not gonna compare you to other people? He’s not gonna compare you to your own standard of morality, but to his and that’s that’s his moral law. So let me ask you a few questions and see by that standard whether or not you’re good enough to get into Heaven by by God’s standards. So one of the commandments, as you said, or that it’s close to the one you mentioned is you shall not lie. If you were to think about all the lies you’ve told over the course of your lifetime, how many would you say those are that couldn’t keep count more than you can count. Okay, And and I want to press you on this. What would you call someone who’s told more lies than they could ever count. That’s a good question. Well, if I told you more lies than you could ever count, what would you call me? A liar? That’s right. It’s hard to say, isn’t it, bro? I know man, sometimes I’ll be talking to my kids and I’ll say, hey, you did this or you did that and then they’ll respond with Yeah, But and I see that sometimes in evangelism, you’ll be sharing the gospel with someone, you’ll be laying heavy with the commandments, they’re coming under conviction. And then it’s like they’ll have this lightbulb moment and they go, oh yeah, but I believe in God, if someone believes in God, but doesn’t obey them, they’re more guilty of someone who’s an ignorance they said, I believe in the law, but I still break it, that makes them more guilty. And so they find consolation and snuggling up to God that they believe in. But God doesn’t want our beliefs, he wants our obedience. Satan also believes in God. Right? So that word belief, I like the way the amplified. Does it were to place our trust in clinton rely upon this is where john 3 16 for God so loved the world that he gave, his only begotten son, that whoever believes you must have complete obedience, I am putting on the Lord, jesus christ. The amplified bible has seven pages for jesus wept Oscar Is that a byproduct of the easy believe ism climate that we’re living in the midst of I think people want to believe in a God who’s just sort of there for them like this, this genie in a bottle that you can kind of turn to when you’re, when you’re suffering, when you’re struggling and he’s there to make your life a little bit easier. They don’t want to believe that God is the sovereign ruler, that he rules and reigns, that he is the lord of Lord and king of kings, that he deserves our loyalty, that he deserves our love. It’s a lack of the fear of the Lord. Yeah, it’s the lack of the fear of the Lord and God’s our enemy, not our friend, his wrath abides on us with Children of disobedience and we need to repent and trust christ. And then we can call him our friend because jesus said you are my friends, if you do what I tell you, sunny California isn’t the only mission field God is working in. He’s also reaching people in remote locations all around the world like Iowa. So john there’s a lot of tulips here. What’s going on there is where are we? What is this? We are here in Pella Iowa. It’s a dutch settlement skull. T came over fleeing religious persecution over in Holland. That’s a christian guy. He’s a christian guy. He came over here and settled. This is a town that was deliberately built on christian principles, but you’ve got something here that’s just so natural, start talking about that and then transition to the Gospel. I mean the name paella is taken directly from a town that christians fled to over in Israel. Yes, for the last 85 years, this town has run this festival to celebrate their Dutch history. Their Dutch heritage as well as tulips are hallmark for Poland, there’s probably a quarter million tulips here. There’s thousands of Here and it happens every year and you do something every year, don’t you tell us about that? So every year, about 2,017 we started doing what we’re calling it tulip gospel outreach. So because of all the people coming here. Um and you know, tying in with the Christian history here of this town, we’d like to share the gospel and and get the gospel message out to people here? It’s a small town here in rural Iowa, there’s about 10,000 people who live here. But over this weekend we’re getting about a quarter million people. And so you’re based at a church, Give them some training throughout the day. And so it’s a combination of training people and then bringing them out and letting them practice what they preach. Take that training and apply it right away. We’ve got team leaders to help organize groups of people because we have a pretty good tryouts coming in, learning, uh, you know, and, and participating, volunteering, you know, to go out a team leader basically is just someone who has done this before and they get to be the example of how do you go up and approach a total stranger and explain the gospel job. I’m gonna go through some of these tracks and materials that we’ve got available. These are incredibly easy to give out here because people want their coming to Pella. They want information. You know, you give them some information and get them the Gospel at the same time. Hey, we’ve got a history of paella here. Are you from Pella? Oh great. So this city has an amazing christian history. We are giving out these Gospel tracks. These are so valuable because this is a lot more valuable than $100 bill. This is the gospel. This is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. We’ve also got a number of um you know, million dollars bills from living waters as well with a million dollar bill tracks. Did you get your million on the back of the million dollar question? You guys get a million dollar bill yet? It’s got a it’s got a million dollar question on the back. Evangelism is an act of faith. And so often we forget that I could see the girls started getting uncomfortable and that’s why I just like, okay, I’m just gonna talk to the guy. Then the guy still felt uncomfortable because I’m thinking, oh brother, you know his mom is right there. You know, he doesn’t want to say he’s a liar. I don’t get too discouraged by that because we got 250,000 people here, no matter how much, you know, you’re always gonna run into someone who has some different things or some weird take that you’re like, this isn’t any of the books, There’s no possible way the bible is complete. Things are things are omitted, things are intentionally left out. Have you gotten one of these million dollar bills yet? Thanks no thanks. We’re trusting in God to give us clarity. Give us boldness and most of all to help us present the gospel to the lost people around us. That’s our goal today. Mhm. About the clock here. This is actually the clock and spiel below it. You have um kind of Marion s three different scenes that that come out every hour. The first one really talks about Maria skull T. So she was the wife of Hendrix culti who’s credited as the founder of the town here when she moved over here. All of our good china was broken and she was heartbroken over. It just shows some of the emotion and struggles they had. You’ve also got peter skull T. He’s a Dominy or pastor and Holland who fled much of the religious persecution. The scene here shows him baptizing a baby baptizing infants only of members was what they believed to be, you know, what was, what was scriptural, but what the state church was coming in and saying, hey, it doesn’t matter if they remember or not if they want to baptize baptizing, right? So you see a little bit of the controversy there as well as just representing new life here in Pella, the city of refuge. And then I believe the third scene is a blacksmith. Uh, there’s 800 people that came over with from Holland with uh you know, the skull tease, it represented a new life and industry. You know, a lot of them were poor over there and as they settled here, it was, it was new life and business and industry and everything. So realistically aspects of Christianity are really part of this whole festival. Yes. So you’re saying it makes for a very easy transition into talking about the gospel. Yeah, just just something for you to read. It’s got talks about how it talks about the gospel of jesus on the back, so so brad. I noticed that walking around this place, it’s different from where I live in southern California. Just a little people are nice here. Why why is that? Like what’s going on? It’s a very religious community and there’s a lot of churches around here, a lot of christians, also a lot of people that, you know, our churchgoers, you know about jesus christ, you just you think he might have been just a good person? Yeah, I used to go to church, I know a lot about it. Is there a belief that belief system that you have to believe in science or anything like factual stuff that I can see the evidence for? Okay. What The difference between a Christian and churchgoer um those that are that have been born again and have placed their faith in Christ um have repented of their sins and trusted in Christ as opposed to those who like I did for 25 years, just go to church and listen and and go live like the rest of the world the rest of the week. How many have you heard of the commandments? Yeah. Okay. You think you’ve kept them mostly? Okay. Um that’s interesting. The Bible says most every man, almost every person will proclaim their own goodness. So you’re like the rest of us? We like to proclaim our own goodness. So why did you go to church for 25 whole years. And yet it wasn’t something you were taken to heart. It was a family thing for one. Um my family is very, you know, there were Christians or religious combination, and so it was just what we did. Um it wasn’t actually until I came across the way of the master that I stumbled upon the Gospel and and it was those little videos with Kirk Cameron and Ray comfort in the green screen behind them. It was that um time in my life when God started to show me that I had never truly been born again, didn’t understand repentance, never turned from sin. And and uh yeah, I realized I was a false conference, but you did admit that you’re a liar. Said you’ve never stolen, said you’re a liar, you used God’s name in vain, which is, you know, you’re a blasphemer. That’s what, you know, when you use his name in vain, you’re an adulterer at heart and a murder at heart. Would it be heaven or hell? Based on that standard message of scripture is that we need to repent that we need to turn from our sin, turn from what we know is wrong, Stop being the God of our own life, because that’s ultimately what we all want. We want to be our own God. So we can just go do it whatever we want right and enjoy our sin. We need to stop repent of our sins, stop being the God of our own life. Place our faith and trust in God’s son, jesus christ who took our sins for us on the cross and rose again on the third day. Really? After a while I read the way of the Master book and listened to Hell’s best kept secret, true and false conversion and God revealed to me that I was lost. And it was at that time that I got saved and it was like a light switch went off and now I became the crazy guy that comes out here and wants to talk to people in the street. Yeah, Now you’re cheerleading teams and teaching other people how to do that. That’s right. I just want to know what, have you heard the gospel like that before or what do you think? No, I haven’t heard it like that, that kind of makes sense. I just threw a whole lot at you. There. Is this something that you’ll think about or consider? Yeah, I think I’ll consider it. My wife actually found a way of The Master is the one we went around to different places around the world. Different countries like europe episode, europe episodes. Yeah, we got that and we watched it and it’s like that’s interesting. That’s that doesn’t seem that hard. Now. Are you evangelizing before? You saw No. Okay, so this is this is for evangelism, right? But I’ve always had this stirring in my heart, but I didn’t know how to do it the first year. We did anything, we just bought a bunch of the um 1 80 videos. We took it to the christian store over here and said, hey, can you give these out free? What is it you want the people to go away with? When I first started evangelizing, I went and did it. And you know, after a few conversations I came out and I just had such great joy. It’s like why I’ve been missing this all these years, right? I sit in church. I you know, I study the bible, I do all these things. I’ve been doing this the whole time. Yeah. And paella is a city of refuge, right? So just like the christians fleeing Jerusalem, they saw paella as a refuge. That’s what I wanted to do is really pass on that joy. And uh mobilized christians right in their own church, in their own communities to kind of take that home. God says pray the Lord to harvest, right, send out laborers into the field. Well, that’s hopefully part of what we’re doing, right? Not just getting the gospel to the, to the last here in this place, but mobilizing them the volunteers in the outreach so that they can go do that in their own convenience as well. God on his day of justice. Judges is according to our sins. We’re gonna be damned as sure as hell will be damned because God is perfect and holy, but he is rich in mercy. And he provided a savior. And you touched on it before top when jesus was on the cross, he took the punishment for the sin of the world and most people know that, but they don’t know this. You and I broke God’s law the 10 commandments, Jesus paid the fine and full. And even though you and I are guilty before God, God can dismiss our case. He can let us live take the death sentence office because the fine was paid by jesus on the cross. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes or trust in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And then Jesus rose from the dead and defeated death and hell simply repent of sin. Not confess to a priest, but go straight to God and say God, I’ve used your name as a cuss word. I’ve been looking at pornography and fornicating, lying and stealing. I deserve your damnation. But I trust in your mercy today. You’ve got a promise from the God who cannot lie. He’ll forgive your sins in an instant, not because you’re good, but because God’s good and rich in mercy, I’m deeply concerned for your salvation. If death seized on you tonight and you die in your sins, Man that horrifies me. Take your breath away. And I want I want to see you in heaven, not in hell. And that’s why I want you to think about this seriously, will you do that? Okay? And when you do that, Patrick? Yeah. So Eddie, Yes, you were a catholic when you before you go, I was. What’s the difference? While Catholics believe most of the same stuff concerning the nature of God, the trinity who jesus christ is they get it wrong on how we get saved. So a catholic would believe we have to do certain things in order to work our way to heaven, where the bible teaches that through the death and resurrection of jesus christ, God has made it possible for us to be granted forgiveness and to become perfect in his eye. And you heard it from Eddie, a producer? So josh again, I’m not judging you today, I’m just holding up that mirror of God’s standard and as you look into it, what it reflects back to you based on the answers you gave me is in God’s sight, that would make you a liar, A thief, a blasphemer, an adult er and a murder pretty heavy. Right, so let me ask you this, but honestly, by that standard, do you think you’d be good enough to get into God’s kingdom? Do you know what God did? So that we can be saved and be made right with him so we can go to heaven instead of hell, He had brought jesus to us now and then he sacrifice like jesus sacrificed himself for our sins or something like that that’s it, we broke God’s law which means we deserve his wrath and his judgment because of our sin. And then christ came think about that God from all eternity who created everything in the universe condensed himself into an itty bitty man went to that cross and then there at that cross josh he bore the wrath of God in the place of sinners like you and me, he took the judgment of God that we deserved on himself and then three days later he rose from the dead so that if you repent that means you stop and say you know what I’m not a good person, I’m not an okay guy, I’m a sinner in the sight of God his standard is what matters and I deserve hell but God and his love sent christ to die for sinners like me rise again three days later and I can be saved and have everlasting life. So is that something worth thinking about? Yeah I’d say so. So that was interesting guy starts out talking about his horror movies and then it turns out he does have a spiritual sites and he does believe in God and yeah interesting stuff. Yeah yeah you know it’s always good to start in the natural obviously we’re on camera has a little bit of a different dynamic but you know when you’re interacting with other people as well, talk about often, you know, if you’re waking someone up who’s asleep, you don’t come and put a spotlight on their face, right? You start with a light dimmer and you slowly turn it on. There’s some alarm clocks like that, right? They start to wake you up but there’s light and it gets brighter and brighter and brighter. And so when when you connect in the natural and then you tie that in with the spiritual, I think it has a lot of effectiveness. So yeah, it’s, you’ll be amazed at how people will begin to make logical connections and how you know, God uses that to shine the light of truth on their hearts. We hope this episode of way of the Master has inspired you to share the gospel with others. 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