Saturday morning, out on the street with our church talking to shoppers.  I usually look for someone who is just sitting down having a rest, and often we have a conversation.  The first today was a Buddhist man.  I asked if he had a statue of Buddha, which he did, so I just told him straight out that it was an idol and idols have demons with them according to the Bible.

He had never heard this, so we had a conversation about the Bible, about which he knew nothing.  These conversations have to be very condensed, because you do not get long.

So I told him it was divided into books like a library and the last 27 told about Jesus and the Christian church.  He accepted a gospel of John and some other literature.

Then I spoke to a Sri Lankan mother who told me Britain had sent missionaries to her country who established Christian schools, so that was how she and her family had come to be Christians.

But now she was living in the country which was credited with her knowing about Jesus, and she was amazed.  Her children were at a Church of England school, and the 5 year old was supposed to join the yoga class, where they give the children a ‘mantra’ (a meaningless sound they keep repeating while they do the exercises).  The exercises themselves are acts of physical worship of Hindu deities – false gods.  ‘Salute to the sun’ is one exercise.

She told the teacher they were a Christian family and not to take her son to that class, but to give him some other activity.

Her older child was being taught in religion class about a temple to another ‘god’ .

So the country through which she learned the truth had adopted the lies of false religions.

‘I know we must respect all religions,’ she said.  ‘Well I do not,’ I said.  ‘I respect truth, not lies.’ 

She thought I was very brave, but actually I’m not brave, but just cannot go along with nonsense. 

We have been fed a load of baloney for decades, like, ‘We are a tolerant nation…’  Well, OK, be tolerant of things that make sense and are rational, but be very intolerant of  lies including false religions which claim to be on a par with Christianity. 

After all, Jesus warned us in Matthew 24 that religious deception would be a leading sign of the end times.  So why would you agree to condone it?

The dear Sri Lankan mother thought she was putting her children in a Christian school like the one where she learned the gospel.  She was wrong.  The Church of England which runs the schools is full of compromises, like making a woman the head of it (Archbishop of Canterbury). 

She would love to find a real Christian school, but sorry, there isn’t one anywhere near us.  There’s a Catholic one, but you will only find more false teaching there.

Can anyone come and start a school here?

That dear sweet lady moved on, and I found another to talk to…turned out to be a Catholic!  My happy hunting ground!  I told her  I was raised Catholic, but started reading the Bible here in England when I was 36. 

Somehow I knew from the first line I read that it was the Word of God and every word in it was true.  By the time I read through the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and half of Luke, I was completely in love with the Lord Jesus.  I saw Him as He is, not as the ‘holy cards’ showed him.

And I saw myself also as I was, completely lost, worthy only of Hell.  So I got down on my knees at home and just told God I believed every word of His book, that Jesus was real, really died on the cross, was buried and rose again.

I didn’t think He would want anything to do with me, but I begged Him to forgive my sins and make me one of His people.

That was the night I was born again.  Later someone told me:  ‘Pat, that was all He was waiting for.’

What Jesus did for me, He can surely do for you, dear reader!  He said He would never turn anyone away !

Anyway, the Catholic woman accepted a book Alan and I wrote, ‘Cults and Isms:  True or False?’  It has a chapter on the Catholic church, listing what they say  and in the next column what the Bible says.

Her teenage daughter joined us and started nodding in agreement as I went through some of the false teachings of the Catholic church – like the sacrifice of the Mass, sacrificing Jesus over and over when He had cried:  ‘IT IS FINISHED!’.  The book of Hebrews chapters 9 and 10 nail that one.  No more sacrifices!

Another point…Mary.  For goodness sake, don’t worship anyone other than the Lord Jesus!  Only God is to be worshipped.  Jesus made it so clear if any Catholic can be bothered to read the gospels, which most of them cannot.

Another point…’Call no man Father’, the words of Jesus Himself.   So how dare they barge their way between us and God?  There is only ONE mediator, the Lord Jesus Himself.  We go to Him, not some man in a long black dress!

Anyway, the Catholic woman and her daughter listened to all that and did not dispute any of it, but the mother said she would read our book.  I also gave her a gospel of John and a pamphlet showing our little church, a far cry from the fancy churches Catholics are used to.

So there we are.  I pray the Buddhist man and the Catholic mother and daughter will come to faith in the real Jesus, not a counterfeit.  I pray the Sri Lankan mother will maybe be able to start a Christian school, something this area desperately needs.