Friday Night Notes

The Lord controls the weather... no doubt!

I had to wait a while before beginning to write this post. There are times when I come back from our evangelistic effort with a very downcast attitude. Judge me all you want, but I have alot of trouble imagining how a saint could watch thousands of people cursing God and pursuing all manner of ungodliness and come out of the experience feeling "chipper". Believe me, I know EXACTLY what Peter meant when he said this of Lot:

"And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds)." (2 Peter 2:7-8)

Let me tell you, my soul may not be terribly righteous, but it sure gets vexed.

Now here are some echoes from our three hours of street preaching tonight:


The rain and the garbageman:


These are two things I am thankful to the Lord for tonight. First, the rain, or lack thereof during our street preaching. It rained cats and dogs just prior to our evangelistic effort, and it started raining heavily minutes after we had called it a night. The Lord indeed wanted us out preaching tonight!

Second was a city worker who was cleaning out the public garbage cans in the marketplace. As he wheeled a large, wheeled container past me, he had a look at my Gospel sign and briefly listened to my preaching. After just a few seconds, he spoke up, and with such heart, said:

"You are truly doing a great thing here, man! Keep it up."

Looking at this dirty, though hard-working garbageman, the following verse came to mind, and I glorified God and thanked him for this dear souls encouragement:

"For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence." (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)


The Romanist/Church of God/I-don't-have-a-clue Man:


A man claiming to be a born-again Christian came by to have a conversation with me tonight. He told me he was an American, who was spending the week in Canada for work. He started to share his testimony with me, here are some of the highlights:

-he was a nominal Romanist.
-his life became a huge mess.
-he started asking "the Lord" to help him by praying the Rosary.
-he claimed that he heard (audibly) the Holy Spirit tell him that everything with him was going to be okay.

Right at this point I said: "No." I explained to him that there was ZERO chance I could ever believe his testimony because it contradicted Scripture. To be honest, I thought the man would just puff up with pride and leave, but to my surprise, he stuck around, wanting to know why I rejected his account. So I continued:

"Sir, you did not hear the Holy Spirit speak to you audibly for all prophecies are complete. In 1 Corinthians 13, it is made clear that when the Bible would be completed, personal prophecies would end; and Revelation 22 also gives dire warning against adding to prophecy."

Again, at this point, I was certain he'd leave, preferring to cling to his fables than the Word of God, but he again surprised me, so I just kept at it:

"Also, Sir, I know you didn't hear the Holy Spirit or anyone holy because you weren't worshipping God when this experience took place, you were committing idolatry. The Bible says: "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me", and you sir were committing a great sin before God, so I know that whoever spoke to you wasn't of God. Remember sir, "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light."

Considering I had completely refuted his salvation account, he took it all pretty well, in that he heard me out. He didn't get excited or irritated, he just paid close attention to what I had to say. As he left, I wasn't at all convinced that the Lord was doing anything in this man, but one thing is for sure, he heard the Truth, and I certainly gave him quite a bit to think about. Let us pray that he'll be doing a lot of thinking this week-end.


They cut me to the heart:


While I or my pastor were preaching:

-a barely dressed, young lady yelled: "F**k God!"
-a sodomite put a filthy, immoral magazine up to his face.
-a man violently smacked my hand to cause me to drop my Gospel tracts.
-a woman made all manner of signs of disgust at the sound of the Bible preaching.
-two sodomites kissed each other in front of us.
-a group of young people mocked us and yelled, repeatedly: "Go home! we don't want you here!"


And that's the notes for tonight. Friday's are such long days, it's time for me to get some rest. May God bless your week-end, dear readers, and give you a refreshing Lord's Day.


Rand