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Senior Member
When the heart is ready...
When the heart is ready.....
(a true story by Alan Molstad)
It was back in the early 1990s and I was living in a small town outside the Seattle area.
One day I was under my car changing oil when I heard the voice of a gentleman asking me some question about the future?
I came out from under my car and there standing before me were 3 people.
A man about my age, his wife, and a little young girl I took to be their daughter.
I noticed that the man held a briefcase...so "Clearly a Jehovah's Witness" I thought to myself.
Because I was covered in dirt and oil, and likely smelled bad from working on the car all morning, I was about to dismiss my visitors with the normal, "Im not interested" conversation ending.
But as I looked at the 3 of them, my heart felt pity for what they were doing and how mixed up they had allowed themselves to become, and so I decided to try something new.
I invited them back next week.
They were very surprised at my invitation to meet the following week, and the date was set.
In that week I got out all my books and tapes on how to deal with a JW and I really practiced and practiced what i would say and I have all the Bible texts I wanted to use listed in the order I felt the most powerful.
The meeting :
They showed up on time,,,,and we sat down in my living room and we had a long conversation where I allowed them to put on their presentation without interrupting them, and then I spoke.
I went over the Bible verses , I said every word I had practiced.
We kinda hit a brick wall with each other, and the meeting ended.
At the door I did two things-
#1 - I handed them a few photo copies that I had made from some of their old Watchtowers, and
#2 - I invited them back the next week to continue our conversation.
a week came and went.
During this 2nd week I really dug into the Bible, and I had a whole new bunch of verses to read to them.
I also made a few phone calls and talked with a few former JWs and got their advice on how to deal with my new JW friends.
The 2nd meeting:
Again they showed up right on time, but this time they had left their daughter with a sitter.
This next meeting they seemed different, and the things that said to me seemed to be just stuff they were quoting and not stuff that they actually knew much about.
As our meeting went along we opened things up and we asked questions for each other, and I asked about this new stuff they were talking about?>>>"Where did you get that stuff?" I asked.
The man answered that right after our first meeting they had returned to the Kingdom Hall and had a meeting with the elder .
And he also told me that during the week he had many of the elders of his church calling him or stopping by to help him get prepared for our meeting.
again the meeting seemed to run smack into another brick wall and we all stood up and walked to the door.
At the door I got an idea...I decided that it was now time for me to travel to his house rather than always haveing the JW come to mine.
So I suggested this idea.
They were again shocked at my suggestion.
I was told that in all their history they had never heard of a Christian wanting to visit the home of a JW.
But because it was their turn , (and I pointed this out to them a few times) they did agree and I got their address for our next meeting.
as they left the house I again handed them a few more photo copies of past watchtowers.
a week came and went...
The 3rd and final meeting:
I showed up early....
I had my own little briefcase , and I had to filled with all kinds of things and about 6 to 8 different bible translations.
I was ready!
It was a smaller home, but well maintained.
We sat in the living room.
It was at this final meeting where both sides got a chance to say whatever they wanted, and our conversation strayed all over the place.
They did ask a few questions about where I got the photo copies?
This was new.
This was about the first time they had showed any interest in that part of our meeting.
I just happened, (mostly by accident), to have in my briefcase the real old Watchtower that I have given them a photocopy of.
I reached down and took the Watchtower out and showed it to them.
They were shocked that I had such an old, real Watchtower at ( It was about 20 years old)....but they did read parts of it with interest.
Now as our meeting ended the man said something abut needing to get ready for dinner and something about that another older daughter that was due.
So I took that as a hint to get going.
But as I went out the door I stopped and once again handed them the last few photo copies I had for them.
About a year goes by.
Then another, or more...
[ The next part of the story takes place in our church in Redmond Wa. ]
My wife and I were just killing time out of the lobby of our church waiting for the first service to end when out of the blue I hear my name?
I turned and saw, (to my shock), my JW friend with his family?
I really did not know what to think...>?
Were they here for something?>..
Where they lost?
I did not have a clue.
Then my JW friend asked me some type of question about how i knew to come there that day to see him baptized?
I had no clue what he was talking about???
But I answered something,,and then I asked how things went?
It was a weird question to ask, but I was clue free as to what to say to the guy.
This was when he told me that he had just been baptized that morning into our church!
He must have thought I had come to see this, (when actually I had no idea), and that I was waiting in the loby to talk with him.
I asked a few more question and I learned what had been the big thing that had changed his heart....it was the photocopies.
Yes, the bunch of photocopies that I handed out after each of our meeting, mostly just as an after thought, had been the key thing that got him and his family out of the JW religion.
He told me that after each of our meetings his older daughter who was very active in the Kingdom hall would come over to their house and right away dig into the photocopies that i had given them.
She at first doubted them...at first she was sure they were all fake, or that they were taken out of context.
But as time went on, she started to see how the photocopies were real, and they proved a true history about the JW org that was hidden to them.
The key thing that really proved the photocopies were real was that one single old Watchtower I had given them.
Once they saw that the photocopies were real, this gave them a new set of eyes to view the whole history of their religion, and suddenly it looked to them a lot like something that one guy just dreamed up on his own.
I never saw my old JW friend after that day...
I had moved within a year of that due to my work, and so that is the end of the story I guess..
But there is one important lesson I took from this whole encounter.
I was so concerned with learning the right bible verses, and practicing what I would say, and having the right answer to every question.
I had felt at the time that the key thing in outreach to the world of the non-Christian CULTS is to be prepared.
To know the Bible
To have every answer to the questions asked by the member of a CULT
To have everything down pat,,,every fact...every verse,,,,every Hebrew word correctly translated..
To practice, practice, practice, until I could lead a person to Christ in my sleep.
But thats not how it went.
Turns out all that stuff was rather a moot point.
Yes, God did use me, but not at all as I planed for.
In the story of the salvation of this family, my only part was to deliver some paperwork.
Paperwork I just dismissed as a afterthought...just something to hand out to them at the end of my epic presentation.
so?
So what is this story about?
Why did I write it and post it here on the Walter Martin Forum?
Its a response to people that always will try to cast doubt on the work of others .
There will always be detractors,,,,these are the people that want to get others to doubt their importance in the work of the Great Commission.
I cant tell you the number of times I have seen members of a cult point fingers and say, "However, if you guys are not qualified ..." in the hope of quenching the Spirit of they who labor in this important ministry.
My response is to point out the fact that the way God has used me is not at all as I might have thought was how it was done.
God has his own ideas.
There was a great victory in the life of my old JW friend, and I look forward to entering into the Kingdom one day and seeing him and his family there, and perhaps many more that were also saved through the changed life of my friend.
But truly God gets all the credit for this victory, all I did was show up on time with the paperwork...
So have courage my brothers and sisters in this type of outreach to the world of the CULTS, you dont have to be an expert to help change a life.
You dont have to know all the answers.
You dont have to have a perfect testimony
You dont have to have a photographic memory.
You dont have to be good at playing "Bible Ping-Pong"
Because, as in my own case, sometimes all you need to be able to do is hit "PRINT".....
......or "enter".
Last edited by alan; 11-08-2019 at 10:46 AM.
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Senior Member
Sometimes all you have to do is show up, and be willing to have a conversation with a member of a CULT....
Remember its not "we" who do the work of saving people, its the Holy Spirit.
The person trapped inside a CULT like the Mormon Church, while far from the truth, are yet never far from our Lord.
And it is the work of our Lord to both spread the seed of the Gospel, as well as to make the ground ready to receive that seed.
The fact that you might be currently dealing with a Mormon may well mean that the good Lord has correctly prepared the heart of that Mormon to now receive the seed of the Good News that we will share with them.
Fear not, for He is with us to the end of time!
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How Alan Molstad uses Satan's tactic.....
(a truth revealed by TheWay)
I can understand why you say in wasn't you that converted anyone...
Because let's face it, you don't know the answers to the most basics of how a person is saved. Likewise, whenever I ask you about your interpretation of a Bible verse, you deflect to someone else's interpretation. You also talk about not having to have a perfect testimony... which is true, however, I have yet to detect even the slightest bit of a testimony or faith from you. You can't even bring yourself to ***le what you posted as a testimony, you called it a story.
You my friend, are the typical Critic... you blame your failings on God and refuse to take any blame for your part in it.
Well go ahead, you don't need to feign humbleness, because you deserve ALL the credit as God was nowhere to be found in the story you told.
Let me prove it by quoting your own words...
"Yes, the bunch of photocopies that I handed out after each of our meeting, mostly just as an after thought, had been the key thing that got him and his family out of the JW religion."
You are literally saying it was doubt and disbelief that brought them out of the JWs to God.
Sorry, God does not work that way, God does not deal in doubt, questioning, or in disbelief.... never has God told anyone to doubt; for doubt is the polar opposite of faith. The only thing Christ has ever said about doubt is to "Doubt Not". That's because doubt only breeds more doubt. That's why if you were ever successful at dragging someone out of the Mormon Church, its a known fact that most will never join another Church.
Doubt is the exclusive domain of Satan... Even from the very beginning he asked Eve “Did God actually say...?”
Just whose side are you on anyway?
The only way you can know something is true is for the Spirit to reveal it to you, however the Spirit will not reveal to you that something is false (like what you are claiming happened), because that would take away your God given free agency...
Last edited by theway; 11-11-2019 at 08:50 PM.
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