Spiritual Transitions with Emeal EZ Zwayne

Using a Visual Object to Start a Spiritual Conversation

The way we play this game is usually you're in a group, you'll call someone out, so I'm calling out EZ. And if you want to be nice to them, you can let them just do a spiritual, anything spiritual.

You have a feeling you're not going to be nice to me, Andrew.

Oh, no, I'm always nice to guests. I usually don't get intruded. I usually get the harder one. The harder one is it has to be specifically evangelistic. So it's kind of if you want to make someone really be a little bit more narrow, but you basically get the choice of a spiritual conversation or an evangelistic conversation, and then you name something.

So what I'm going to name for you is a picture that we didn't put up yet on the Facebook group that we're probably going to, which is, so picture this. A large elephant is going for some water. And there in the water is a baby alligator that is grabbing the trunk of the elephant.

So you're going to need to transition that to a spiritual conversation. Now, I've done this with things like someone's goatee. You know those little plastic things on the end of a shoelace? I've actually had to transition that to a gospel presentation.

And I had 15 seconds to do it. If you teach kids, and so we do this in the youth group. I also would do this. This is how I'd open when I taught junior church. I'd let the kids start a message. I didn't know what they were going to say.

Someone's actually asking for our academy that we do, the Striving Fraternity Academy, to start every week with someone in the chat room to do it. So Michael, what do you have for me?

You're going to give me one. So you know how you can go to a fair, big containers of different color and flavored sugar? And kids can get a big plastic tube, like a straw, and fill it with different sugars?

Actually, no. OK, you know better. You can get this big, long tube with whatever color sugars they wanted, and then they can sit and drink the sugar.

So it's on a drink of just pure sugar? Yeah, yeah. Parents' favorite? Yeah, a bit of gospel presentation. A gospel presentation. OK, so let me make sure I get it. So it's a container that you get with a big straw, and they just go and put different, is it liquid sugar?

No, it's just granule. It's just granule sugar. It's like a Pixie Stix. You ever see a Pixie Stix? OK, OK. It's like that. So they just go get these Pixie Stix, and then the kids just drink it. OK, so now I'm walking up and seeing that, or am I talking to someone about that to transition?

How about it? OK, that would be easier. OK, good. So I walk up to this situation, and I'm with my buddy, Yeezy, who's not a believer.

Yo, he's back in the day, yeah.

Turning a Cultural Object into a Gospel Conversation

By the way, you do realize, this is a side note, but you do realize that the Middle East crisis is solved right here. Hey, Jew and Arab. A Jew and an Arab? All right. So I'm talking to my Arab friend.

I forgot my turban. Where's your yarmulke, huh? It's at home. So I'm talking to my crypt friend here, the Arab crypt.

What a mix, huh? Cruising around, crypt walking, eating falafels.

And I'm actually not worried, because actually, the Jewish mafia is the one that funded the Italian mafia, and that was actually my family background. So we're walking up, and we're watching this. And I walk up to you, and I'm saying, you know, take a look at that.

Do you see that child that's demanding of his parents? Tell me something about how society is. We have, as children, we don't respect our families, our parents, those who are in charge. But it also tells us something.

You and I look at that child. You know what we see? We see someone who is rebellious. And the child doesn't think he's rebellious. Child thinks he actually has a right to make those demands. But the reality is, is you and I are just as rebellious with that child to God.

We rebel against God, and we don't see it often, because we think we have a right to demand these things of God. But we've broken his law. We violated his law in many ways, in having pride and lustful thoughts, lying and stealing.

And just as we can notice that rebellion in someone else, we need to notice that rebellion in ourselves, and we need to get right with God. That's how I would answer that. Now, some of you may have had something totally different.

That's the fun of the game, because then you can share what you've come up with. And we do this, actually started doing this regularly on Facebook. So I've given you a lot of time with the elephant and the alligator.

Look at the picture of that elephant and alligator. Do you consider yourself to be a good person? Who is your father-in-law? That's exactly what Ray would do. Oh, man. A Ray Comfort transition. Yeah.

He could pull that off, though. He could, I know. I know. I may do something like this. And you know, it all depends. And sometimes, interestingly, you don't necessarily have to use the exact item before you.

You can use it as a springboard, even to just start a conversation by saying, hey, how you doing? That's pretty interesting. And then you can transition from there. I'll tell you exactly what I would normally do.

I'm really tempted to, as I was thinking through it, go into a story that I've heard about this alligator and this boy who jumps into a lake. And the alligator attacks him, and his father jumps in and saves him.

And then after he gets out, he tells his father and wants to go do it again. But that's not what I honestly would normally do. Normally, I would just come up to someone and engage them. I may get into talking about what I do.

Like, even on the way here, I'm talking to someone. And I'll get into maybe what they're doing. They're going to school. And I'll say, oh, yeah, man, school really wasn't for me at one time. Oh, really?

Yeah, I was kicked out of two schools. I used to be a gang member in a hoodlum out there. And they'll be like, what? Because, of course, I would have charmed them with my beautiful personality. So they're trying to imagine me being a gang member.

But, you know, I'll go from there. I go, yeah, I had a pretty crazy life. And I'll go into my testimony. I'll say, you know, but back in August of 1991, a friend of mine invited me to an event. I went with him and heard the gospel for the first time.

And, you know, God changed my life. He said, you know, my problem was I used to compare myself to other people. You walk up to a guy smoking weed. He says, hey, I'm not bad. He looks at the guy slamming heroin.

You go up to the guy slamming heroin. What are you doing? He says, look, I know I shouldn't be slamming heroin, but I'm a good person. At least I'm not hurting anyone. He's a rapist. You go to the rapist, he points to the murderer.

You go to the murderer, very carefully, hello, Mr. Murderer. How are you today? You know? And, you know, and the murderer will point to someone like Adolf Hitler or Mussolini or, you know, and I say, so, and what I do is I'll start sometimes even to share my, the gospel in the form of my testimony.

And I'll say, but that day I realized, man, I'm going to stand before a holy God. And he's not going to compare me to Adolf Hitler or Mussolini or to the grandma next door baking cookies. He's going to compare me to his own standard of righteousness.

You know? And then, and often what I'll do is like say the picture of the alligator and the elephant, I'll come up, maybe start a quick conversation. And I'll say, you know what, man, can I ask you a crazy question?

I know I'm a random stranger, and this may seem weird. But imagine I walked up to you right now with a briefcase in my hand packed full of cash, let's say a million dollars. And I was a scientist, and I said, hey, I'm out here collecting human eyeballs, and you happen to have the perfect sort.

Okay? I'll take your right one, your left one. You have one hidden somewhere. We'll take that one, too. We'll replace it with a glass eye so you won't, you know, look funny. You won't feel any pain. It'll take 15 minutes, and you'll still have vision out of your other eye.

So no pain. You won't look funny. You'll still have vision. Million dollars, tax-free, cold cash. Would you do it? No. What if I offered you 400 quadrillion dollars for both your eyes?

I won't be able to look at my wife anymore, no way.

Right. So, and then I'll transition over there. I'll say, now think about it. If these eyes, and I said, why are your eyes so valuable to you? If you think about them, if you consider their size and weight, they're insignificant compared to the scope of your body.

But why are they so valuable to you? You won't sell them for all the money in the world. It's because your eyes are the windows to your soul. If these little windows are more important to you than all the money in the world, how much more valuable should be the soul that's looking out of them?

And most people I share that with go, whoa, that's deep, you know. And I say, you know, most people say they wouldn't sell their eyes for all the money in the world, but in essence they sell their soul for a dollar.

I say, what about that most important part of you that's going to live forever? You know, do you think, you know, when you die you're going to go to heaven? And from there I just springboard into the law, and from the law, the gospel.

See that? I made something out of an alligator and an elephant. What do you know?