Fasting, praying... and a whole lot of preaching!

smoothest Canada Day yet...

With all the terrible sin going on in Canada, and the terribly weak testimony of the church, my pastor opted to get REAL SERIOUS in petitioning God for His favour: he has called a "solemn assembly."

For those of you unaware of what a solemn assembly is, check out Joel 2:15-17:

"Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?"

So a fast was declared for all of Friday and it would be capped by a prayer meeting in which we would ask the Lord for a revival of grace and truth. I have to admit, I was concerned. I'm not exactly a big, tough guy who can go days without food, so the prospect of doing open-air evangelism for 7 hours in the sweltering heat with only a bottle of gatorade to sustain me, was a bit of a test of faith. Anyway, the test was passed: we completed our day of preaching, and had a marvelous time of prayer afterwards.

Now, let me say a BIG THANK YOU to all you who have supported me through prayer, it's been a good day of preaching and I credit it to God's grace, through your petitions. This Canada Day was by far the smoothest one I preached through. No one harassed us (not overly anyway), no one tried to keep us from preaching, no violence whatsoever, and for the most part, we had favour with the people and with the authorities.

The Lord gave us a great spot from which to preach, and thousands heard and the read the Gospel. I can't say a spiritual awakening happened (I'm afraid Canada is as ungodly as ever), but who knows what marvelous things the Lord may yet work through our evangelism.

I did receive a lot of praise and blessing from Christians and even a couple of Romanists who were out celebrating, which I must say, I'm not really use to. I have gotten so accustomed to being reviled, all these good and comfortable words today had me muddled. While I don't want to sound unappreciative of their kindness, I must say, these people were somewhat of a disappointment to me. Why? because rather than weeping for the wickedness of the land and offering up prayers for it's healing, they were out partying with the ungodly. They were wise enough to see that what we were doing was right and godly, but they themselves, well, THEY WERE OUT PARTYING.

My final impression: I realized Canada most likely has a lot more Christians in it than I originally thought, the unfortunate thing is that most of them, quite simply, just aren't "moving". They are spiritual sluggards and the love of the world has made them of hardly any profit to God or His cause. But here is the hope: what if God grants us our revival...


Rand