Friday Night Notes

lonely soldier boy...

Yep, it was just me again tonight (in the physical sense anyway). My pastor was away all week at a Bible camp in Pennsylvania with a group of young people from our home church. So I held the fort in his absence.

Right after work, I stopped by my pastor's house, picked up a Gospel sign, grabbed a bunch of Bible tracts, and made my way to the market. I laboured for a good 3.5 hours; lots of preaching, a number of one-on-one conversations, walked all over downtown with the Gospel sign in one hand, and tracts on the other. The reception was quite varied tonight, from words of encouragement and thanks to vilest curses, but I thank the Lord my God for His faithfulness in keeping me physically safe and sound.

Here are a few highlights of my night of street evangelism:

The Good:

I have had at least two one-on-one conversations with men who had honest questions and were quite open what I had to say. On one occasion, I dealt with a man named Greg, who is a nominal Romanist. He was wise enough to see the wickedness and foolishness of Romanism, but not quite wise enough to cling to God's Word. I encouraged him to seek God by both reading the Bible and coming to church. He took one of my Bible tracts, so let us pray the Lord will draw Greg to the Truth, and perhaps to church on the Lord's Day.


The Bad:

I dealt with a group of four teenagers who had some questions for me:

"Why are you preaching here, man?" one of them inquired.

I explained that the Bible gave the church a Great Commission to fulfill, and that's why I was preaching. He accepted the answer and continued to ask a few more questions which I answered to the best of my ability. Things seemed very profitable. He took a pocket sized Gospel of John I was carrying and told me he would consider the matters we had discussed.

Then, things degenerated. Minutes later, the same group shows up and the lad who questioned me decided it would be fun to heckle me while I preached. He wasn't terribly vulgar, but he was disruptive and disrespectful. His nonsense went on for about 15 minutes and then grew tired of me, and moved on.

What a let down...


The Ignoramus:

I dropped by another small group of street evangelists which were labouring a few blocks away from our customary spot. We don't associate with these men in matters of evangelism because they are quite Arminian. That being said, I know for a fact many of these souls are genuinely saved and are earnest in matters of faith. So, I like to stop by and say "hello" from time to time and offer them a kind word of encouragement.

Well tonight, one of the men in the group just couldn't be gracious and decided to take a swipe at my pastor. It is not the first time this individual has tried to undermine my pastor's ministry; the Lord be merciful to him. You see, this soul really, REALLY detests the Doctrines of Grace. Any chance he gets to try and discredit these doctrines, he pounces.

"Tell your pastor about this book on hyper-calvinism creeping in the church, will you?" he hypocritically said.

"You know," I replied, "all this talk of hyper-calvisnists and I have yet to have met one."

"Huh?" the man said, perplexed. "You know, TULIP-five pointers..."

"Tulip-five pointers are CALVINISTS, not hyper-Calvinists!" I answered.

With that, I walked away. He was up to no good and I had a Gospel to preach. I do pray however that this poor soul will soon realize how foolish and sinful his behaviour is. Lord have mercy.


The Truly Disgusting:

Well, it finally happened. I had seen it happen a couple of times to my pastor, but in 6 years of street evangelism, tonight was my first time. It's not like it hasn't come close to happening to me, but I had so far managed to avoid it. Well, no longer.

I was walking down a street with the Gospel sign and some tracts. I walked past a group of teenaged boys who mocked and reviled me. One of the boys, who was in a wheelchair, quickly got in my way and yelled an obscenity at me and then... yep... he spat right in my face.

Very pleasant indeed.


And with that, dear friends, I'm off to bed. It's been quite a day. Good night, dear readers, and have a blessed weekend.


Rand

"Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine." (2 Timothy 4:2)