Jesus is Enough—the 2025 Iowa State Fair

After the first two days of the Iowa State Fair it has been a whirlwind of conversation with many different types of people with many different beliefs. At the end of the day we discussed our conversations and people to pray for; and we noticed a pattern that most of them were Roman Catholic for at least two days.

There were several conversations that I would have guessed I was having with a solid Christian and follower of Jesus Christ. One gal, who reminded me of my goddaughter, was picking up material at the booth to share with her friends. She was commenting that there is a revival going on with young people and they were wanting to know more about God and eternal matters. Most volunteers in the booth would have stopped there and helped this “fisher of men” get more bait. But I’ve learned never to assume. Somewhere in the dialogue, something didn’t settle right. That’s when I use questions to try and pinpoint who I am talking with, and see where their faith really lies in. Questions like:

• What church do you go to in town?
• Who is Jesus to you and why did He come?
• Are you a good person?
• How often do you read the Bible?
• What is the gospel?

Most of the time I share Ray Comfort’s “3 minutes to live” scenario with the person I am talking with, and it gets right to what the person is trusting in to get them into heaven. I’ll say something like, ‘A man just came through here stabbing people. There’s a knife in my back; I’m scared of dying and want to go to heaven and don’t want to go to a bad place. What would you tell me?’ Whatever they say in the next few minuites is what they are subconsciously trusting in themselves to have eternal life. Then you know what to say to refute those arguments after finding the flaw with them. After “3 Minutes to Live” it was obvious she wasn’t trusting in Christ fully, but relied heavily on Mary and the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist.

The Catholic “Game”

A man named Hayes, came into the IowaGO! booth wearing a Roman Catholic crucifix, and I used the initial question, “Where do you go to church?” He answered the name of a church in town and I asked if it was a Roman Catholic congregation. He said, “Yes.” So, I brought out my Pocket Evangelism Kit: A New Way to Share Your Faith with Roman Catholics, cards.

I explained that guys are mostly visual people, and that since he seemed like a nice guy, I felt comfortable using the cards. I said, “These cards represent various things in life that some people think are necessary to get into heaven.” I went through each card with them face up, and then asked Hayes to pick his top three. The game itself says to have the person pick as many cards as he or she wants. But, I limit it to the top three. I then said, “Now that you picked three, is there anything else you feel strongly about that you would like to add?” Again, I want him to pick his top, even if it’s more than three.

I then put the other cards away because I want to focus on the five he chose: Believing in God, Being Baptized, Trusting in Jesus as Savior, Dying with No Unconfessed Sin, and Recieving the Sacraments (Eucharist). I asked him to go through each card and tell me what each card represents to him or why he chose those particular cards. Again, I don’t want to assume, and also asking questions at this point should be unthreatning being I am asking his thoughts and opinions.

But, it didn’t. He immediately got defensive and his friends checked out of the conversation. I believe this was a good thing though. It’s like the old saying goes, “If you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that yelps is the one that got hit.” I believe he visually saw his beliefs laid out on the table and it convicted him. He went through each one and the reasoning behind why he chose it. But his voice was irritated. Again, I want him to tell me why.

After that, I then flipped each one over and read out loud the explanation of why that was the wrong choice, saving Trust in Jesus as Savior card last, because it was the only right answer. This was when he really started squirming and his voice was raised. I can’t go into detail here about all that he said and talked about, but one thing that really drove the point home was what he said.

"Well, you Protestants can't agree on everything either. The Calvanists interpret the Bible one way, and the Armenists another. The Methodists one way, the Lutherans another."

"But not on the essentials," I said. "We may disagree on a lot of things, and it really boils down to individuals. Here's what I mean. Read this verse and interpret it for me." I handed him my Bible and asked him to read John 14:6.

He read, "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

I said, "How do you interpret that, Hayes?"

"That no one can go to heaven except through Jesus Christ." 

"Alone?" I spoke. Now his eye started twitching like crazy. I knew I struck a nerve, and he saw it. "Let me just say, Hayes, how I think you really believe. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me, baptism, believing in God, dying with no unconfessed sin, and receiving the sacraments."

"I gotta go," and he left in a big hurry. So much that he left his refillable soda cup behind. 

He eventually came back for it, and I explained what we do and that I care about his salvation, or lack thereof. We shook hands and the last thing I said to him was, “Either Jesus is enough or He’s not. If God almighty sent His one and only Son to die on a cross to pay for my sin as a free gift, then what could I possibly add to that?”

Jesus is Either Enough or Not

There were other conversations with Roman Catholics I had that bothered me and I made it really known that what they are believing needed to change.

Take purgatory for instance; why is it even a thing? Imagine explaining to someone that Jesus Christ, God’s one and only Son, paid for our sins, but not all of them. They would question if He had the power to do so—and if He did—why doesn’t He? Is it because He can’t…or He won’t? I can not even type this out wthout cringing. What it really boils down to is:

• God’s authority: Is He the supreme authority in my life and His Word, Holy Scripture, alone my authority? Is it God’s Word and…
• The truth of Scripture: Am I trustng in that alone? Not in new revelation or light, not in extra books or councils, not in man—but what God said.
• The sufficiency of Christ alone: Is His sacrifice more than sufficient to pay for all my past, present, and future sin on the cross? Is His sacrifice enough to cleanse it all? Is His righteousness imputed to my account—perfect?

One might think that I am picking on Catholics because I am an ex-Catholic. But the truth is I could create a card demonstration like this with any other religion other than true, biblical Christianity. Imagine how many cards I would need to demonstrate to an LDS Mormon using the following chart as a guide:

Anything short trusting in the Five Solas—salvation by: grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, for the glory of God alone—is calling God, the One who gave you life, breath, and everything you have—a liar. I cannot stress how serious that is. After my conversation with Hayes, I asked my friend, Brandon, who witnessed the conversation, if I went too hard on him. He said, “I would have been harder.”