Of Chords

Prayer Requests:  

• Bible Study preparation for tomorrow (Tues) evening on Psalm 27. This will be in English, thankfully.
• Bible Study preparation for Wednesday evening on Matthew 7. This will be in Swedish, but for immigrants. Omid will be there, so I don't have to sweat too many bullets.  It will be interesting to see how this works.

Photo Journal:

Omid and I with two of our victims

Friday night: Omid and I had just been evangelizing these two guys we met hanging out downtown by the river.  As with all other Swedes we've evangelized, these guys don't believe there is a God, and they really haven't even given it much thought. But they came to acknowledge through the course of our conversation that they have doubts, and if God does exist, that they need a savior.  I hope to follow up with them on facebook, but I can't find their page yet.

After speaking with these guys, we found another guy sitting alone, an African man, also drinking beer.  Unlike the other evangelistic conversations, we had to stick with Swedish since his English wasn't good.  He would consider himself Pentecostal,  but is fearful of the last judgment and Christ's return, unsure if he is saved.  He also seemed to me to be lonely and sad about something.  After explaining the Gospel to him, we invited him to come to our church and bible study, and gave him our contact info. He was gleeful when we left him, believing our talk with him was a divine appointment, and we are praying that the Lord will water and grow the seed that has been planted within him, and if possible, that the Lord will use the church as part of this process.

Saturday: I met up with my friend who had taken a long train ride from another city in Sweden to come see me.  She comes from a missionary family, but has a long-time boyfriend who is not a believer.  She argues that the Bible doesn't really say it is wrong for Christians to marry unbelievers.  Later, I met her sister who goes to a church near our church plant. She actually lives very close to the church plant.  I explained to her a little about it and invited her to come.

Sunday: I preached a 20 minute sermon at the church plant on Zechariah 14.  It's a special challenge to boil down into 20 minutes such a large and difficult-to-understand piece of scripture. This time there were only 7 adults in attendance.  I preached in English, and Omid translated into Swedish.  It was video recorded, so I'll probably be able to post the sermon later. Everyone there understood English, but it was translated for the sake of the future internet audience. There was some lively discussion afterward about the fearsomeness of God's judgement and Hell, with one member arguing for the Annihilationist view.  There are a couple members in the group who have grown children that have rejected Jesus as Lord, and this is of great concern for them as loving parents.  My thought now is that what we needed more than a discussion together was a time of prayer together for these lost souls.  How many more concerned parents and grandparents there must be in Sweden, and in all of Europe for that matter. As D A Carson has put it, and later Mack Stiles in his book, Marks of the Messenger, European Christianity has taken the nose dive over two to four generations in this way: 1) The Gospel is Accepted 2) The Gospel is Assumed 3) The Gospel is Confused 4) The Gospel is Lost.  Among ethnic Swedes, re-vival is out of the picture.  Re-evangelism is what is needed. But as I've seen in every case so far, it is evangelism that cannot assume any knowledge of the Gospel, nor any acknowledgement of a Holy God that has been offended by sin. The Gospel has been lost, and buried under materialistic, atheistic hedonism.