Alex Palade is a gifted evangelist who maintains a burden to confront the secular college culture that is no friend of Christ. This month he reports of the resistence that he had with various students who view Christianity as foolish:
“I went to the Brasov student campus with a group of Christian young people. There I met a young female student who was in the hall with two other girls and a young man. She said she used to attend Christian summer camps. But the devil changed her path and she started living in immorality with a young man. She strongly defended her position saying that she didn’t commit any sin because she hadn’t have sexual relationships with several men, but only with one. She said that the Bible doesn’t say anywhere that it is a sin to live with your boyfriend before marriage. She believed that God understood her, even if the repenters didn’t understand. She believed that God loved her and she was going to heaven. She quoted Romans 10:9, saying that she believed in Jesus and that God had raised Him from the dead, so she would be saved. Then she said she had her own God and her own faith. The girl was actually seeking a church that would tell her that she could live in sin with her boyfriend. She said it was difficult for her to live without having sex. She also said she couldn’t accept our narrow doctrine. The other two female students listened to us carefully during our discussion.
We went caroling on the campus and I preached the Gospel to the students that came to listen. Then I talked to several other students. I explained the Gospel to them more in detail. They understood for the first time that they were going to hell. These young people who were devastated by and impoverished with sin were searched by the Word of God. They took the New Testaments that we gave them and one young man said he wanted to read it.
I met another student in Brasov. He had never thought of God’s opinion of him. Hearing what God said about sin and how holy He was, he understood that he was going to hell. He used to think that it was OK to live in immorality. He used to think that to believe in Christ meant not to deny him, no matter how you lived.
I also met a Catholic student. He had been to a Baptist church once when invited by a girl. He believed that God had a good opinion of him because God loved everyone. He was sure that he was going to heaven, because God loved him, no matter how he lived. He didn’t know he was a murderer and an immoral person. I spoke to him about God’s justice and by the end of our discussion he realized that he hadn’t taken into account that God was just. I was glad to see that God helped him understand that he was lost without Christ.
Then I met some other students. One of the guys said that God’s opinion about them was according to their deeds. They didn’t know that God was just. At a certain moment, he invited me to have a seat in the hall. I have seldom met students that would be so eager to talk about God’s Kingdom. So, we took a seat and I started listening to him. The other students were also there. Two girls also joined us at a certain point. After one of his parents died, the young man told me that he joined a gang and learned to do many bad things. He also hurt many people. He said that violence was necessary. He even alluded that he might hit me and asked me how I would react. He said he loved God, but he believed that God was a feeling. He didn’t accept that God was a Being and that He was the only true God. He talked about God’s Word, but he didn’t believe that it was entirely God’s Word. He said that everyone could do what I was doing, meaning to share the Word of God. He also said I was speaking theories, even though I had shared with him my personal testimony and others’ experiences with God. I also told him other people’s experiences that God saved using me. This young man tried to teach me how I should speak about God and not how the Bible teaches me to do it. So I told him that his knees should bow before Christ and he replied that he didn’t bow his knees, only his heart and his mind as he believed he was a good person. I told him that the Gospel was the only thing that could heal a soul and save a person. They said they were intelligent people and they could understand the Scripture, not like the homeless and the beggars. So I replied that the homeless and the beggars wood get into the Kingdom of God before them. I also gave them an example from our church of a former homeless man, who repented, without being as smart as they were. I told them that if they would truly understand the Scripture, they would instantly fall down before God. I also told them to beg for God’s mercy, so that they would be saved and that they would put their youth into Christ’s service. The young man left and a guy started asking me if he should do transcendental meditation and take yoga lessons. I told him that these things are part of the eastern religions and he shouldn’t do that, as he would exposed himself to evil spirits. He believed in reincarnation. So I told him that man only dies once and then comes judgment. Another female student didn’t believe in the Orthodox Church and the priests and she asked me if she should repent. I gave her biblical arguments on these subjects. She also believed in reincarnation. It was a pleasure for me to talk to these young people. They were deceived, but open to understand the truth. I gave them my phone number and New Testaments. Many students came to listen to our carols and Christmas message.
I preached the Gospel to several international students in Dormitory no. 10. I shared about God’s justice and then about His love shown in Christ’s coming as a sacrifice for our sins. After I preached, I approached a guy and his girlfriend. They didn’t know how God saw their sin or that they were going to hell. I urged them to put their trust in Christ in order to be forgiven and also to read the New Testament. I think that all these seemed nonsense to them, because they smiled cynically as I was speaking to them.
I also went to Dormitory no. 9, which is considered to be an infamous place, because the students drink and get drunk very often there. This is also a nest of the Orthodox students. I was mocked many times in this dormitory and also kicked out of the building by a group of the Orthodox students, while other brothers got spit on and cursed. So I went there and started talking to two male students, who were freshmen, from Maramures. As I shared the Gospel with them, they became serious when they understood for the first time that they were going to hell. They didn’t know that God is also just. They listened carefully to me as I was telling them how they could be saved. I urged them to read their Bible, to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Christ.”
Don is serving as the HeartCry Coordinator for Eastern Europe. As an itinerant evangelist, his pulpit ministry is directed toward preaching on the inner life of the believer and the spiritual need of the lost. With HeartCry, his ministry includes organizing Bible conferences and corresponding with the HeartCry missionaries in Europe. He and his lovely wife Cindy live in Tuscumbia, AL.
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