GIVE'M JESUS!    DO 2401          1/88
--A New Positive Approach to Winning Pagans!

         1. THIS SUPPOSED PROBLEM WITH BUDDHIST TRADITIONS, I DON'T BUY IT AT ALL! I've witnessed to Catholics right & left & gotten'm saved, & I don't think there's all that much difference. The Catholics are just as heathen, pagan, idolworshipping & unsaved as the Buddhists, & their whole system is just about as false!
         2. THE APPROACH I'VE USED WITH CATHOLICS HAS BEEN THE VERY SAME THING, THE SAME IDEA. I certainly haven't attacked their religion! We've gotten Catholics saved & gotten them all turned on about our teachings & everything, & we didn't say a WORD about not going to church, not a WORD about not being Catholics! If anything, we've almost promoted it in some cases, & said, "Well, that's fine, go ahead, that's all right!" We've told them, "Watch out what you say to your relatives & the priests & try not to say anything they're not going to like or be offended by. Just get turned on to JESUS & say you're an even BETTER Catholic now than you ever were because you've really got Jesus in your heart & you're really turned on!"
         3. BUT I DON'T SEE ANY PROBLEM WITH THOSE BUDDHIST TRADITIONS. They're nothing but forms & ceremonies & going through motions. Good night, a lot of our folks have gone back to the Catholic church & gotten married just to please their relatives & all that kind of stuff, what's the difference? It's just going through the motions, going through the ceremonies!
         4. YOU CAN JUST TELL THEM, "YOU DON'T HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR CEREMONIES, YOU DON'T HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR TRADITIONS OR YOUR CUSTOMS!" Buddha himself, personally, virtually totally abandoned the concept of gods or God. He just taught a system of ethics, a system of thought, meditation, & of course the whole thing led to demon possession.--The whole system of meditation & going into a trance & all that junk.
         5. ACTUALLY, MOST PRACTICING BUDDHISTS TODAY HAVE GOTTEN ALMOST TOTALLY AWAY FROM HIS TEACHINGS, they have no Scriptures really, they have no actual doctrines or criterion or dogmas or anything. If you read anything about Buddhism, you'll see that the whole religion in many of those countries is really nothing but a system of ceremonies & traditions & customs without any religion. It's not a religion! They don't worship any actual gods. So to just practice their little ceremonies & marriages & a few little traditions, for goodness sake, it's nothing but a FORM & going through the MOTIONS & has nothing to do really with RELIGION!
         6. SO I THINK YOU CAN JUST TELL THEM, "YOU DON'T HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR RELIGION, you don't have to change your customs, you're not adopting a new religion!--JESUS is NOT a RELIGION!" I've taught that for years! Jesus is NOT a religion, He is a PERSON, He is a special inner personal FRIEND you can have! If the Buddhists can teach that you can get a piece of God in you by all this meditation & blah blah & you can become part of the Great Spirit by having a part of Him in you, well, let's teach it about JESUS! That's exactly what we're teaching! You can have a part of the Great Spirit, GOD, the God of LOVE, by having a part of Him, His SON or His Holy Spirit inside of you!
         7. IT'S A PARALLEL! THEIRS IS THE COUNTERFEIT, OURS IS THE REALITY! They're teaching a very similar idea, that you can be God through having a piece of God in you, this Spirit of God, & become a part of the Great Spirit of all. Well, that's exactly what we teach, only we teach that His name is JESUS! So, what's the difference? The main thing is to get'm hooked on JESUS, then HE'LL take care of all the rest!
         8. THE LORD TAKES CARE OF THOSE THINGS! You don't have to teach the Catholics about all their wrong doctrines, just get'm to read the BIBLE! You don't have to attack Mary & attack idolatry & attack the Pope & whatnot, that's the worst way in the World to go about winning Catholics!
         9. THE FIRST THING YOU HAVE TO ASK A CATHOLIC IS, "ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE GOING TO HEAVEN?" And they say, "How CAN I be sure? I've got to wait till I die & balance up my good works against my bad works, & then I'll know if I earned my way." I'd tell'm, "We don't have to do that--look what it says right here in the Bible! All you have to do is receive Jesus! He ALREADY paid for your sins & it says right here you can be SURE you're going to Heaven!" And they're just absolutely amazed to hear that Salvation is so EASY, all they have to do is receive the Lord! I have never had them fail yet to bow their heads & pray & ask the Lord to come in. I have had some real tremendous decisions that way, whole families saved!
         10. THE MAIN THING IS, YOU SHOULD TRY TO CONVINCE BUDDHISTS THAT YOU'RE NOT TRYING TO MAKE THEM CHANGE THEIR RELIGION. Don't argue against their religion, don't even TALK about their religion unless they bring it up, & they usually do. They say, "What do I have to do now, change my religion? But I'm a Buddhist!" Or "I'm a Hindu!" Or "I'm a Shintoist" or "I'm a Taoist!"
         11. TELL'M, "WELL, YOU DON'T HAVE TO STOP THESE CEREMONIES & you don't have to stop these marriages & Buddhist forms & rituals, just going through the motions, as long as they don't MEAN anything to YOU, as long as you're not WORSHIPPING the stone images or the idols or whatever. As long as you know it's just a form & a ceremony & you're just going through it to please your relatives, don't worry about it!"
         12. "TAKE JESUS INTO YOUR HEART! YOU DON'T HAVE TO ABANDON BUDDHISM!" Buddha was a great teacher & he said a lot of good things, believe it or not. But he was a COUNTERFEIT, he was the Devil's own predecessor of Jesus to produce a counterfeit to try to insulate the people against Christ when He came, Confucius the same thing. Confucius taught so many things & so many sayings almost exactly like what Jesus said, only Confucius taught them in a sort of negative way. For example, one of his main criterions was, "DON'T do to other people what you DON'T want them to do to you!"--Sort of a negative approach. Whereas Jesus' is the positive approach: "DO unto others as you would have them DO unto you!"-Mat.7:12. Get it?
         13. SO THIS BUSINESS OF WORRYING ABOUT ABANDONING THEIR RELIGION, FORGET IT! Jesus is NOT a religion! The CHURCHES have a religion, they've got CHRISTIANITY, but that's NOT what WE'RE peddling! We're NOT peddling CHRISTIANITY, we're not peddling CHURCHIANITY, we're not peddling a CHRISTIAN RELIGION, that's something else, & we don't even care for it ourselves! We don't go for it! We don't go to church, we don't promote churches, we don't promote Christianity, we don't promote Christendom, we don't promote churchianity, for God's sake! We're AGAINST it! We're just FOR JESUS! "We just want you to take JESUS! He's that Member of the Godhead, the Great Spirit," or whatever they call it.
         14. WHATEVER BUDDHA ACTUALLY DID TEACH, HE WAS AGAINST THE GODS OF THE HINDUS & THE GODS OF THE OTHERS, but he preached that there was a Great Spirit, that you can become part of the Great Spirit, that everything is a part of the Great Spirit, the whole Creation's a part of the Great Spirit, everything is God, you're God, & you can have God & his supernatural power if you'll just meditate & get in a trance & get a piece of his spirit, one of his spirits.--That is the DEVIL'S spirits, of course!
         15. OF COURSE WE DON'T HAVE TO GO THAT FAR, TO ADVOCATE OR AGREE WITH ALL THAT SPIRITUAL BUSINESS. What they're mostly concerned about are their family traditions, family ceremonies, marriages & whatnot that the family wants them to still partake in & think that if they refuse, then they're no longer Buddhists, in fact, they're no longer one of their own people!--Not Japanese or Chinese anymore!
         16. I THINK THAT WE OUGHT TO HAVE A MUCH MORE POSITIVE APPROACH WITH THESE OTHER RELIGIONS: "You don't have to abandon your religion! We're not offering you a new religion, we're not offering you Christianity, churchianity or a Christian religion! JESUS is NOT a religion! JESUS is a PERSONALITY who wants to be your FRIEND, your SAVIOUR, & guarantee that you get to HEAVEN, Who will help you resist all these evil powers & evil spirits you're always worrying about!"
         17. JUST SAY, "I'M NOT TRYING TO GET YOU TO CHANGE YOUR RELIGION! If you still want to be a Buddhist & practice these ceremonies, that's up to you, but why not take JESUS on top of it all? Why not try JESUS? He'll make you a part of the REAL Great Brahma or the Great Spirit, & He'll REALLY give you power & heal you & do miracles & supernatural things & help you fight these devils & demons & evil spirits!"
         18. SO WHAT YOU'VE GOT TO DO IS CONVINCE BUDDHISTS THAT THEY DON'T HAVE TO ABANDON THEIR RELIGION OR CUSTOMS OR FAMILY TRADITIONS OR FAMILY CEREMONIES OR OBSERVANCES OR WHATEVER! "You're just going to have something BETTER, you're going to have JESUS on top of it all! YOU know that you don't REALLY have much faith in those traditions. You don't REALLY have a religion, you don't really believe in ANYTHING, you don't have any REAL faith."
         19. SO WE'RE NOT PROMOTING ANOTHER RELIGION, WE'RE NOT EVEN PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY, MUCH LESS CHURCHIANITY! How about that? We're just promoting JESUS! "What's wrong with JESUS?-What have you got against JESUS? Why don't you want JESUS? He was a good Man Who went about everywhere doing good & His Spirit lives on. He just wants you to have His Spirit, & God has promised that you'll get to Heaven if you'll take JESUS!" That's all they have to believe!
         20. THEY DON'T HAVE TO NOT BELIEVE BUDDHISM TO BE SAVED! They don't have to believe they're SINNERS to be saved! They don't have to know they're NOT righteous to be saved, all they have to do is believe in JESUS! "Just accept Christ & believe that He still really lives today in spirit & loves you & wants to help you to fight all these evil spirits you're always worrying about!"
         21. WE DON'T PROMOTE CHRISTIANITY, CHRISTENDOM OR CHURCHIANITY, WE JUST PROMOTE JESUS! We don't promote the Christian faith as described and dogmatised and practiced by the Christian religion. We promote CHRIST!--Not Christian faith, not churchianity, not Christianity, Christendom, nothing! We just promote JESUS! "We're not against your Buddhist religion, you go ahead and practice your little motions, whatever you want to do."
         22. THE THING IS NOT TO FIGHT ALL THAT STUFF, THE LORD & HIS SPIRIT ALONG WITH HIS WORD WILL EVENTUALLY WAKE'M UP TO THE RIDICULOUSNESS OF ALL THAT STUFF, that they don't even need it any more! This is the first thing that a lot of Catholic converts will ask you: "Well, it doesn't look like we need to go to CHURCH any more, it doesn't look like we need to pray to the Saints & images any more!" You don't HAVE to tell'm! They get the point, why go to church? They'll say, "Well, we enjoy YOUR classes & YOUR fellowship a lot more than we do going to CHURCH! We don't get anything out of going to church!"
         23. THERE HAVE BEEN TIMES WHEN WE'VE EVEN ADVOCATED & SAID TO CATHOLICS, "WELL, MAYBE TO KEEP PEACE WITH THE FAMILY & THE RELATIVES & NOT GET TOO MUCH UNNECESSARY PERSECUTION, GO TO CHURCH! You can talk to the Lord in church just like any place else if you want to. You can worship the Lord in a church, you can pray in church, & now that you can really pray better, you'll be a BETTER Catholic & you really KNOW what you're doing & WHO you're doing it with & HOW!"
         24. SO, PRAISE GOD! WHY WORRY ABOUT BUDDHISM? For goodness sake, Buddha was just another man, a great teacher, he never claimed to be God! It was his FOLLOWERS that promoted him to a god & worship of his images & idols. But most of the people our Family's reaching & witnessing to, students, intellectuals, businessmen & rich people, they're not the kind to go around really worshipping idols & shrines & going through ALL the motions & everything, they're just concerned about the little family CEREMONIES, the things that their families are concerned about. "Well, can't we at least attend or help perform a Buddhist marriage in our family, & can't we do this or that?" Well, fine, let'm go ahead & do it! That's not going to interfere with their faith in Jesus & their love for the Lord!
         25. WE DON'T HAVE A RELIGION, WE HAVE JESUS! We don't have CHRISTIANITY, we have the LORD! We have the HEART of it all, not the FORM, not the ceremonies! THEY have the "FORM of godliness without the POWER thereof."--2Tim.3:5. WE'VE got the POWER, the HIM, the HE, the MAN, not the MANNER! Praise God?
         26. I DON'T EVEN LIKE THE WORD "CHRISTIAN" ANY MORE, IT HAS A BAD CONNOTATION. Most of the World doesn't like Christians! They've seen too many phony Christians in church & churchianity. That term is no longer good in our case. In the early days of the Early Apostles they started calling them Christians, but I like the term CHRIST-ONES, one of His! "I belong to Him, He belongs to me! He's my Saviour, He's my Friend. Go ahead, I don't care about your Buddhism, that's up to YOU! Just take JESUS! I'm not telling you to abandon Buddhism, I'm not telling you to abandon your ceremonies with your family, I'm not telling you you've got to quit everything!"
         27. WE'VE BEEN KIND OF RADICAL & EXTREMIST IN THE EARLY DAYS ABOUT QUITTING JOBS & SCHOOL & EVERYTHING ELSE, but that's not the tack to start on! GOD will show them that! That's not up to you to show them, really, not to begin with at least. Why preach that when they don't even have JESUS yet? You can't preach to them, "You've got to stop this & quit that & forsake something else" etc. when they haven't even got the POWER to do it, they haven't got the DESIRE to do it, they don't know why they SHOULD do it if they don't have JESUS! They've got to have JESUS first, that's the main thing!
         28. JUST TELL'M, "WELL, YOU JUST TAKE JESUS & HE'LL TAKE CARE OF ALL THAT! Don't worry about it! You can do whatever you want to about that after you have JESUS!"--Because you KNOW what they'll want to do once they've got JESUS, HE'LL work on that! Amen?
         29. SO PRAISE GOD! LET'S QUIT TRYING TO CONVERT BUDDHISTS TO CHRISTIANITY! Let's just start giving them JESUS & let HIM take care of their Buddhism! Praise God! And the same goes with Catholics or any other kinds of pagans or heathens, including the PROTESTANTS!--They're almost as pagan & heathen as the rest of them, the way they depend on works & churchianity, which doesn't save them!
         30. WHAT YOU'VE GOT TO CONVINCE THEM OF IS THAT THEY NEED JESUS! Praise God!--That He's not another RELIGION, you're not trying to CONVERT them--at least not to THEIR way of thinking--you're not trying to win'm over to churchianity to go to church or Christianity as they see it and Christians as they see them, you're just trying to give'm JESUS! If they'll just receive JESUS, that's all you want them to do!--And then have the faith to trust GOD to let JESUS take care of the rest! Amen? Praise God!
         31. LORD BLESS THIS & MAKE IT A BLESSING TO ALL OF OUR FOLKS TO REALISE HOW TO PREACH YOU!-Not to preach, but to sell, offer, give!-Tremendous opportunities & tremendous advantages & a real wonderful wonderful JESUS!-Friend, Saviour, Helper, Miracle-Worker, Healer, ALL the blessings that You can give them without attacking their religion or having them abandon their religion, Lord. You'll take care of that when they get YOU! So in Jesus' name we ask You to make it a blessing, & bless them, Lord, going all out with a new spirit, a new approach, a new attack & a new offer, & not preaching AGAINST things but for YOU, Jesus!--Amen? In Jesus' name! Amen!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family