Friday Night Notes

the cold cooled things down...

Just got back from our customary Friday night of street evangelism. It was a c-c-c-cold one! The winter jacket and the boots were back on for this night of preaching (it dipped down to -7 Celsius), but all and all, I don't mind the colder weather. Frigid nights have a tendency of calming the marketplace down. Not so many people are inclined to "bar-hop" when the weather is cold, which makes our night of preaching far calmer and easy going.

We preached the Gospel, passed out Bible tracts and carried our Gospel signs around from 8 to 11 pm; the reception was, like the weather, kind of cold. We did distribute a good number of tracts, but we had very few one-on-one conversations tonight. The only one I recall at the moment involved two young ladies who wore too much make-up, had dyed their hair once too many and one of them had piercings all over her face. Considering their physical appearance, their charge against our preaching was kind of hilarious:

"We don't think what you are doing is right," they said. "Jesus didn't yell at people, He just loved people. We don't think you are being very loving. Do you think you are being loving?"

My pastor had ZERO time for their nonsense, so he just walked away. I couldn't let their foolishness go unanswered:

"I could be on a warm couch at home right now, instead of bringing the Gospel to you," I sternly responded.

I then went right back to my preaching. To indulge their nonsense any longer would have been a waste of time, and an aggravation.

"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ." (1 Peter 3:15-16)

Other than that, we got the old "we love Satan", "Jesus is dead", "you're stupid"... etc... etc... the usual insults that drunken or drugged fools come up with when exposed to the Truth. I was also branded "a nobody" by a man who, I take it, didn't like our ministry one bit. All this being said, the Lord blessed me and kept me from discouragement tonight for, despite some pretty harsh words and reactions, I stayed on message and didn't let anyone get to me.

Thank you Lord.

With that, dear readers, I'm turning in for the night. It's been a long week, and these last few hours finished off whatever energy I had left. Have a great weekend, and especially, a blessed Lord's Day.


Rand