A “Christian” Scam Artist?

I received a telemarketer phone call from a company selling toner cartridges last week. Fast-talking sales guy that then passed me to another rep who, it turns out, had been listening to the first part of the call. They offer to send a free toner cartridge to test the product out – you don’t have to pay for a month. They’re prices are higher than OEM because they last longer. They don’t have a web site because of a lawsuit from Epson (“Epson has had ink cartridges blowing up on their customers and doesn’t want the truth out, so we had to take down our site and update it but it’ll be back up soon.”)

As I was talking with them they were setting off all sorts of alarms in my mind!

After awhile I asked the gentleman if I could ask him a question that wasn’t related to printers. He said I could.

I began going through the good person test with him. His responses were fascinating as he worked to evade and dodge each question. Has he ever told a lie – sure, everybody does. What would that make him – definitely not a liar! Has he ever stolen something, or taken something without permission – nope. It’s only stealing if you have a habit of it (I challenged him to try that in a court of law, “But judge, I only took one thing and it’s not a habit!!”). Has he ever taken God’s name in vain – never! Has he ever been angry with someone or hated someone – sure, he’s been upset with people before but he has NEVER hated on someone.

I sought to share the gospel with him and he professed that he didn’t need the gospel as he was already going to heaven when he died – because he walked with God.

He owns two Bibles: one he keeps at his house and the other in his car. He regularly reads them.

He skillfully brought he conversation back to the printer cartridges, but, even as we talked about that he then abruptly asked, “Hey, on that Good Person Test, how did I do?”

I shared that he was very typical in his responses, but that some of what he shared had indicated something to me that I would share with him, but felt he probably wouldn’t be open to what I would share. He insisted that I tell him, and I shared with him that I had two concerns: that his salvation may not be genuinely based upon what the Lord Jesus Christ did for him and that, in much the same way that pride is a struggle in my life, it is likely a significant issue in his life.

I gave him the example of him not being willing to admit that he had stolen in the past. He shared that, because it was forgiven by God, it was as if it had never happened. That’s why he wouldn’t admit to any sin.

I took a few moments and tried to gently share with him the difference between a proud heart that will not admit having done any wrong, and a humble heart that realizes it is flesh and is full of sin before God, but is overwhelmed with gratitude for the mercy and forgiveness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Even Paul remembered his past and shared that he had persecuted God’s church and considered himself the chiefest of sinners – even though he was forgiven and pardoned.

It wasn’t too much longer before he realized that I wasn’t going to accept his offer of a trial toner cartridge, and we said “goodbye” to each other.

As I was reaching to disconnect my headset (but still had it in my ear) I could hear him beginning to laugh as he hung up his phone. My guess is that he thought our conversation was rather funny and was going to enjoy replaying it to his buddies.

I did some quick research about the company online and found much negative feedback about the quality of their products. Was the company operating a scam? Perhaps not. Where they selling quality products at a fair price? From my research, it appeared to not be the case.

Oh, Canada

It’s been quite some time since I posted. As of late I’ve been sharing more on a different blog… Unfortunately, the other blog is not anonymous, and I cannot link to it or link from it back to this one. And, since this is basically my personal witnessing journal I’ll keep adding to it when I have time and an interesting encounter to document.

In addition, we recently added another level of protection to our internet access, and for quite some time it was partially blocking access to Blogger.

I recently spent more than a month traveling, and a portion of that time was spent in Canada. Several things struck me as we were up North:
- How sparsely populated so much of Canada seems
- How many old, small, church buildings I saw
- How little interest in the Lord Jesus Christ there seemed to be

I met some fascinating Canadians...

One was a young lady who was working as a hotel clerk. The hotel had a fancy bus with an expensive political “wrap” parked in the parking lot. We figured the politician was a national politician because the local politicians wouldn’t have the resources for such a nice campaign bus or fancy artwork.

We didn’t recognize the politicians name or the abbreviation for the political party – but I did see a newspaper inside the hotel lobby with the man’s photo in a debate for Prime Minister (so we were right that it was a national figure). After I had finished sending/receiving e-mail (have to keep up with work on the road) I asked the hotel clerk if she knew which political party the candidate was a member of. She had no idea.

I asked her what the political party initials “NDP” stood for (we knew it didn’t stand for the Liberal Party, or the Conservative Party, or the Green Party – my guess is that the N stood for New and the P for Party – but we weren’t sure of the D). She had no idea! She said she knew nothing about politics.

I asked her how old she was (you can’t do this with older women, but young people are generally OK with it) and said I assumed she was old enough to vote? She said she was 20, and she was planning on voting.

I asked her if she knew the various candidates for Prime Minister and what they believed about various issues. She had no idea.

I asked her how she would know who to vote for. She shrugged her shoulders.

I eventually shared some tracts with her and encouraged her to read them. I told her she can get through life OK without knowing anything about politics but that issues of heaven and hell had to be dealt with before death, or the consequences would be tragic.