Friday Night Notes

up and down night...

Another Friday night of street preaching in the books. Three hours of pure Gospel preaching by the Lord Jesus Christ's three soldiers: Rand, Rand's pastor and brother Laz. It was another unusually warm night so there was plenty of people out in the marketplace. There was a lot of good tonight, and quite a bit of bad; but the Lord protected us from much of the bad.

The Good:

1- A young woman walked by me and read the John 3:16 sign I was holding up. I overheard her say to her friend: "You know, I've never a passage of the Bible, but I know John 3:16 by heart!" Praise God for the work of his preachers!!!

2- I had a good conversation with a young French couple who wanted to know why we were preaching in the marketplace. I explained to them that the Lord Jesus Christ commanded all His saints to "go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15), and that' s why we were preaching. I told them that the Lord saves His people through the preaching of His Bible. The young man said: "wow! that takes courage man!" They gladly accepted a Gospel tract. Please pray that this would be the beginning of spiritual life for these two souls.

3- I was under threat, so I was keeping an eye on my back, when, out of the blue, Dan and his wife walked right up to me! Dan is a fellow I often work with in the lab. Apparently, Dan hadn't heard that old Rand was a street preacher. With wide eyes and a lot of emotion (which is quite a rare site... Dan is usually super-mellow) he said: "Rand! I can't believe your doing this! This is soooo good!" I have, on numerous occasions seen co-workers in the marketplace during our Friday night evangelism, and most of them have ignored me, pretending not to see me(I believe that, in total, only 3 co-workers came by to say hello). So I was pleased that not only did Dan stop to talk to me, but that he actually encouraged me and spoke well of what I was doing. Unfortunately... things didn't go so well after that...

The Bad:

1- I don't know if this is really bad, but I'm certainly not pleased with how things went. You see, Dan revealed that he and his wife were Romanists (and I can assure you, they are SERIOUS Romanists). Dan's wife then started to tell me a story about how "today, Romanist or Anglican or Baptist, it doesn't matter, we are all Christians after all." I wanted to express an objection to this but I couldn't find the words; I was probably nervous of insulting Dan. Before I could think of something to say, Dan's wife says:

"Dan, let's pray for Rand!"

"Oh! no!" I thought.

But again, before I could say anything, they were in full prayer. For the record, the prayer was pretty respectful (it's not like the said the Hail Mary or anything), but they did end it with the reciting of the Lord's Prayer. Totally messed up, I thanked Dan to have had come talk to me, and they were on their way.

I'm not pleased with this situation because I feel like they may have taken my awkward silence as a sign that their philosophy was unimpeachable. I'm also angry that I probably let my fear of offending Dan get in the way of preaching Truth. I spoke to my pastor about my choking and he comforted me by saying: "Rand, there's a time to keep your mouth shut, maybe that's what the Lord wanted tonight." Hope he's right.

Please pray that the Lord will open a door at my workplace, that I truly may share my faith with Dan. For the record: I did give them a Bible tract, so it wasn't all messed.

2- That "under threat" I mentioned in "the good", well, that was our drunk friend again. Just like last summer, he commanded us to stop preaching or he was going to take us down. Well this time, he didn't get violent. He eventually walked away, but he made sure to curse us with every possible curse word he could think of. Oh! that problem with violence... still a problem I'm afraid.

3- A lesbian walked by me as I was distributing Gospel tracts. She got right in my face and hissed:

"I'm a devil's child!"

"Okay," I calmly replied.

It's hard on the pride sometimes, to be disrespected, mocked and scorned and having to just take it. But hey! my Lord has gone through far worse.

"God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." (James 4:6b)

"For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously." (1 Peter 2: 21-23)


Well, it's been a long night... time for some rest. Good night, dear readers.


Rand