No black squiggles
Greetings from Colombia! I’m sharing this story with you from my book, It’s All About Him, which is packed with the real-life adventures of my sister, Anita, and I who have been missionaries in Armenia for over 40 years…
Minnie’s eyes clouded over. She could make neither head nor tail of the black squiggles on the white board. And she didn’t want to. She sat through the remainder of the discipleship class completely detached. I was sitting in on the class and saw when we lost her. I knew why. Minnie was illiterate.
The information written on the whiteboard was life changing. We couldn’t leave her stumbling along the path of religion, trying to earn what had already been paid for.
By the following Sunday morning class, I had the answer. There were no black squiggles to squint at, or to ignore. There were pictures. Minnie’s eyes lit up. These simple pictures are powerful. The absence of written words provokes animated discussion in small groups.
What does the cloud represent?
Who are the three little fellows?
Why three and not four, or two?
Why is the tall fellow in the second picture so happy?
Folk express ideas and come to conclusions. They discover the cloud is a Who, not a what. They give names to the little fellows, and scribble key words as they grasp the good news, the gospel. This presentation gives nominal Christians the opportunity to be born again. Good people realise it’s not about being good.
How to use this diagram as an evangelism tool.
When God created the first human beings, He created them with a perfect design. A human being is a spiritual being who has a soul and lives in a body. God gave him a spirit so that he could communicate with Him because God is a spirit.
God gave him a soul (emotions, intellect and will). The soul is the bridge between the spirit and the body; it is a de-coder that transmits the spiritual to the natural. The body is the outer case, which permits the human being to live in the natural world. God gave this human being free will, the capacity to obey Him or choose to live independently from Him as a result of disobeying Him.
What happened to the original design?
When Adam and Eve sinned by eating from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they chose to become independent from God. Immediately the communication between God and the human race was cut off.
The spirit dies because separation from God is spiritual death. The soul gets bigger and starts to exert its own will; it does right and wrong things according to its own criteria. But it doesn’t realise it is just a marionette in Satan’s hands. There is now nothing that it can do by itself, to restore the communication with God. (The soul was kidnapped and taken away to the kingdom of darkness, to Satan’s territory).
Because of this situation and this condition, this person is a sinner.
Everyone born on this earth is in this condition. I was born a sinner, separated from God. You were born like that too, a sinner, separated from God.
How can we re-connect with God?
What do you need, in order to change your condition as a sinner?
Who can re-connect you with God?
Who can rescue you from the kidnapper?
A saviour!
The Saviour’s name is Jesus Christ.
When Jesus died on the cross, He defeated Satan and paid the rescue price. He is the only one who can re-connect you with God. Would you like to tell Him that you recognise your condition as a sinner? That you believe that He died to save you, and that He paid the rescue price?
“Lord Jesus Christ, I recognise that I was born separated from God, in the condition of a sinner. I realise that in this condition, I cannot do anything to re-connect with God. I need a saviour. I believe with all my heart that You are the One who paid the price to rescue me when You died on the cross. Thank You for saving me, for rescuing me and for relocating me in Your kingdom. I accept You as my Saviour; I accept Your government and decide to leave the kingdom of darkness where I was born. Today I am born into Your kingdom. I decide to live under Your direction.”
P.S. The diagram has no copyright. The more copies made, the better!
Kathleen