"Daddy, if the teenage Satan worshipers or the Goths or Druids were to pick a leader, they would choose you .. . they like you!" said Talitha Rudd.

"It's Your Festival"  June 28-July 1 Greetings! The fair was four days from noon to 11 P.M. each night. Here are some of the highlights!

In total, we had an estimated 1500 take the eight question Bible quiz. We enrolled six children from four different families into the VBS. Got about five good leads for Bible study.

Stories

"Daddy, if the teenage Satan worshipers or the Goths or Druids were to pick a leader, they would choose you .. . they like you!" said Talitha Rudd.

We had several good talks with these teenagers who have bad taste in clothing and makeup. They tend to wear all black with chains and "African type" face painting, and bright dyed hair sometimes with many one-foot high spikes. They are quite scary to look at. However, I have observed that these rebellious teens are actually quite open to talk about God. They usually come into the booth in small groups.

Can I Come Dressed in Black?

I invited one group of Goths to church and the 16-year old girl asked if she could come as she was dressed. I said, "As long as you have nothing vulgar, swear words, etc. on the clothing and not topless, and if you felt you could not learn about God dressed any other way, come as you are! God is concerned about the inside more then the outside."

Beware of God!

Another incident where a teen Goth girl had on a T-shirt that said on the front, "Beware of God." I commented that I liked that shirt because if you do evil, God will get you ...so yes, beware of God. He is alive and watching you always.

"I Believe in the Devil!"

Another time, a Druid came up to my wife, Loreen, and said in a slow, deep scary voice, "I believe in the Devil." My wife quipped back with a smile, "So do I." The young boy of 17 looked stunned and didn't know what to say.

We Love Pain and Suffering!

Yet another time a very rough group of four self-proclaimed Satan worshipers came to the booth, two 16-yearold couples. They started telling me how Satan is good to them, how he purifies them, and praising the devil for various things he has done for them. I replied that the Devil wants nothing but bad, pain, and suffering for them and that they were mistaken. They replied that pain was good. At this point three of them pulled off their arm stockings and showed me multiple scars on the inside of their lower arm. They told me that pain was good, that they liked pain and suffering etc. I looked at them and said, "So I guess you don't like sex!" They replied, "Well that's different." I went on to say that the very friendship, kinship, and love they showed to each other within their own group the Devil would love to destroy, that the Devil wanted them to be fighting, alone and afraid, even dead. This group I have seen down town before and they will remember me next time we talk.

Confused 13-Year-Old Goth-lesbian

A 13-year old girl dressed as a Goth, came into the booth with three of her friends. She asked me what I thought of lesbianism. She said that she knew that it was genetic and she wasn't sure if she was lesbian. She was loud, open, and highly vocal. I told her that homosexuality was acquired by learning, not genetics, and that you choose to be lesbian. She said, "Do you really think that I would choose to be homo and thereby reap heaps of ridicule and persecution?" I replied, "Have you not considered that by the way you dress in all black with chains that you have chosen to heap ridicule and persecution? As you can see, our choices in these matter are what counts." She agreed that she suffered every day from people mocking her about her Goth dress style. After I told her that I really didn't think she was lesbian, my kids took over and together a group of about four discussed all kinds of things for about 45 minutes.

"Of Flag and Flyer Burning"

One evening a group of about five Goths came into the booth. We, as usual, handed each of them a flyer about our building location etc. A tall "Goth" of about 18, stepped just outside our booth onto the grass and set the 8.5 x 11 page on fire. It created quite a bit of light and attention. He dropped it to the ground, and with a lot watching started stomping on it to put it out. (These kids love attracting attention.) My two children, Daniel (14) and Talitha (13), looked on in frightful horror wondering what was going to happen next. He walked out into the park about 20 feet away to join another group of Goths. I waited about 30 seconds then walked out to the group. I spoke with him for about five minutes. Gave him another copy of the same flyer he burned, and he walked away intently reading the flyer. My kids had kept a close eye on their daddy, for fear as to what might happen. When I walked back to the booth, they both pounced on me in amazement pleading and begging in absolute amazement, wanting to know what I had said to change this burner in to a reader! I told them that it was not anything I had said, but just that I had shown them I care for them. As I handed him the flyer, I showed him my phone number and told him he could call me day or night and I would drive down and see him. It was at this point that my daughter Talitha commented spontaneously, "Daddy, if the teenage Satan worshipers or the Goths or Druids were to pick a leader, they would choose you .. . they like you!"

Jehovah's Witnesses Well Trained

by the Organization

I can almost always pick out the Jehovah's Witnesses when they come to the booth. Being highly superstitious and quite pompous, they come into the booth and look atthe questions from a slight distance but will not actually push the buttons to see if the answer is correct (for fear of demon possession or something). Three Jehovah's Witness ladies came into the booth and after peering at the first two questions with a smug "checking out the competition" grin, I asked them what church they attended. When they said Jehovah's Witnesses the one woman said, "I think I recognize you." I answered, yes it was probably when I knocked on your door to see if you were interested in learning about Jesus. A discussion began about how Jehovah's Witnesses are organization bound, hold the Watchtower to be inspired and really don't follow the Bible. I told her that most Jehovah's Witnesses were former Catholics because there was little to change except where world headquarters re-sides (Brooklyn from Rome) and the adoption of Arianism. As I talked to her she clutched my flyer in her hand at waist level. Without batting an eye or moving, she slowly and loudly ripped my flyer that I had placed in her hand in two. It was done almost as an unconscious reflex. I paused, then remarked, "The organization sure has you well trained to rip up apostate materials." She was quite embarrassed and after I offered to restore the flyer, she took a second one then walked away. I am sure that she was going to use it to further demonstrate this ritual of disposing of apostate materials further to her two understudies.

Prove to Me There Is a God!

Daniel, my 14-year-old son, engaged in a 2 1/2 hour Bible study on the grass ten feet in front of the booth. The two other boys were about 15 and 16 years old. They were attacking the Bible and God and wanted Daniel to prove God and the Bible. I could see that at times, they were whipping him good, but I remarked to Loreen that Daniel will learn more about the Bible in these two hours than five years of my sermons! In the end, Daniel felt that he prevailed.

The Blind Can See, The Deaf Can Hear!

Daniel and Talitha spent about two hours teaching the Bible to a French man who couldn't speak English. They took them through each question then answered several of his questions. They also spent about ten minutes taking three deaf-mutes through the booth and answering question with sign language. The school they attended in K-5 taught signing to all the kids.

"The Not in the Devil's Tale"

There were two questions that opened up a lot of discussions:

Ephesians 3:4 says "When you read you can understand."

This means that: You must have a priest or a pastor explain the Bible to you.

You must have the Holy Spirit to know God's will. Reading the Bible daily is a good way to learn the Bible.

Which of the following is a quote from the Bible?

"You see that a man is saved by faith only."

"Baptism now saves you."

"Pray the sinners prayer and thou shalt be saved."

We were able to emphasize that the Bible can be under-stood by simply reading it with the Ephesians 3:4 passage. Calvinists and Pentecostals alike always got it wrong! The quote from the Bible question was superb. We would say: "James 2:24 actually says not by faith only." We removed "not," so it is wrong. Baptism now saves you is a direct quote of 1 Peter 3:21 and the concept of "praying the sinners prayer" isn't even found in the Bible but is a man-made doctrine. We would ask, "Did you know that of all the con-version examples in the Bible, not one of them was ever told to pray .... If the person defended the "Billy Graham" gospel, we would point out that the official creed of their church did the same thing that the devil did in the garden  added the word "not." (We called this the not in the devil's Tale = you shall surely not die.) Baptists re-move the word "not" in James 2:24 and add it in 1 Peter 3:21. If the person seemed inclined, we would offer them our "discover it yourself' baptism study.

Lights Out!

Each night we had to literally ask people to leave be-cause he had to shut down for the night and turn the lights out and get home to bed by about midnight. The fields were white for harvest!

We have three more fairs this summer! Our next one will focus on "Who is Jesus?" Bible Quiz. We need help especially on VBS week. A fair, July 18-20 and VBS on July 22-24.

Guardian of Truth XLI: 18 p. 14-16
September 18, 1997