Friday Night Notes

like preaching to the wall...

Well, I "Lone Rangered" it tonight. My pastor had a prior engagement, so I ended up going out for street evangelism all by my little lonesome. I'm not big on preaching by myself, I believe the Lord gave His people a principle when he sent his disciples "forth by two and two" (Mark 6:7). There is security in numbers. But what can you do, we are just a small church mission, and I felt it was important to have someone out there presenting the Gospel.

The response was much like the weather tonight; it was cold. It's kind of disappointing really, I think I would have gotten more spiritual interest if I had preached my 3 hours to the wall behind me rather than the people in the marketplace. I feel sorry for my fellow man, and I wish the Lord would use me as a mighty soul winner, but don't worry, I'm not whining: after all, the Lord was glorified in the market tonight.

I did have a few words with a REALLY DRUNK young man. He was one of those street kids, ran away from home in rebellion, panhandling for money, just wasting his life away. Anyway, he saw me walking down the street with my gospel sign (our brand new one!), so he staggered over to me and after telling me a bit about his life story he said:

-Hey man! I want to be right with God, can you help me?

Now I knew I wasn't going to go too far with this young fellow, he was terribly intoxicated, so I put it plainly to him:

-Ok, I'll help you. We'll go to Shepherd's (the local shelter), you'll get a night of sleep, sober up, and then you'll read this gospel tract and get to know God and how you should live before Him. You should also be making plans to swallow your pride and put away the rebellion and head back home to your parents, and HONOUR THEM.

Well, let me tell you, that wasn't the help he wanted! No, no. What he was looking for was an easy way out. A quick prayer, a "there...there...you've had it rough", maybe even a little bit of money. Anyway, when he rejected what I proposed, he then started yelling at me, calling me a hypocrite and saying "he didn't need my help after all". It was a pretty sad.

Oh! something did happen that I kind of liked. A young lady was outside a pub smoking a cigarette (it's illegal to smoke in pubs in my province now), and I was preaching across the street. She listened to my Gospel presentation from across the street for a few minutes and then walked over to me and asked me for one of my Gospel tracts. I gladly gave her one, she thanked me and was on her way. The beginning of a conversion story? I can only hope.

On that note, good night, and have a great weekend,