Friday Night Notes

an interesting night...


Our usual night of evangelism was under threat again. The weather man warned of a high probability of showers later in the evening. So I went to the Internet, checked out the "hourly" weather forecast and it claimed that it wouldn't rain until 11pm.

"Yeah, right!" I thought.

I don't know how many times we have gone out to the marketplace under such a weather forecast, only to find ourselves under a deluge a few minutes into our evangelistic endeavour. Still, we went out. We didn't go preaching last Friday due to rain, and neither of us (pastor Tim and I) wanted to go two weeks without some serious Gospel preaching. The longer a saint goes without proclaiming the Gospel, the more difficult it is to get back to it. That's a lesson I have learned all too well. Even after seven years of street preaching, no kidding, I was sweating out of fear and nervousness in my first 30 minutes of preaching the Gospel tonight; and I only missed one week!

The first hour of our endeavour was difficult. We were mocked to scorn by many, and our preaching only seemed to make the people of the market blaspheme and curse all the more. It was as if the principalities and powers of darkness were reminding us that they preferred it when we're not around.

Tough luck for them... for we, by the power and grace of God, pressed on.

The second hour was far more profitable. I had a chance to speak to a young lady named Amélie, who professed faith in Christ and was looking for a good church to go to on the Lord's Day. She was really impressed by our zeal to evangelize, so she was quite keen to find out where I attended church. I invited her to our Lord's Day meeting, and she said she'd surely come by. Praise God!

As I was talking with Amélie, I noticed a man standing to my left, listening to our conversation. I introduced myself and asked the man if he was interested in the Gospel of Christ. The man said he was, but all the while, not being really sure if he believed in the Gospel. He told me that he had been a nominal Romanist for a huge part of his life, and that he really didn't put much thought into the things of God until his mother passed away not too long ago. You see, after his mother's death, he found out that his mother had been faithfully attending a church group for some time. This got his wheels turning about his own spirituality, or lack thereof. I made it clear to this man that all the answers he needed were in the Bible, and that if God was to save him, it would happen through the power of the Scriptures (1 Peter 1:23). The man's name was Derek and he took a Gospel tract as he left. The Lord use our time together as He sees fit.

There was an added bonus to my conversation with Derek. Amélie had watched the whole conversation, and when Derek left, I said:

"You see, Amélie, had I stayed home and watched TV tonight, Derek would have gone without the Gospel of Jesus. The importance of working at the Great Commission cannot be understated."

She agreed.

I dealt with yet another Christian tonight; this one had some doctrinal questions for me. The young man was beginning to realize the danger of ecumenism in the church today, and he wanted to know what our position on "interdenominational endeavours" were. When I explained that we are completely separated ecclesiastically. That is, we do not have church fellowship or get involved in any ministries that aren't of our doctrinal persuasion.

"So, that's like 'come out from among them...', right?" the young man inquired, referring to 2 Corinthians 6:17.

"It's what the Book says," I replied.

The young man agreed with my position, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see him at one of our services soon. I'll be praying to that end anyway.

In our third hour of street evangelism, there were no Christians, or even people who desired to become Christians, but the Lord gave us some victories nonetheless. On several occasions, we were challenged by sinners with trick questions and vain philosophies, anything and everything to justify themselves, and make us look like idiots. The Lord would have nothing of it. He gave us utterance and wisdom from on High. On more than one occasion, our adversaries were left absolutely speechless, knowing full well that the Truth was with us, and all they had was confusion of face.

Praise and thanks be to God for His blessing and direction throughout our time of evangelism.

I'm going to leave it at that for tonight. I'm very tired and I still have some work to do in preparation for the Sunday evening service (I will be preaching this Lord's Day evening). Please remember me in your prayers dear saints. Don't take this rather positive account of our night of evangelism as a sign of spiritual ease. I had all sorts of difficulties keeping my attitude right when I was maligned by the wicked; I have trouble blocking out of my mind the images of the half-dressed women I saw all night long; and finally, I am struggling with keeping a half-decent prayer life going.

I'm in bad shape, and I NEED your prayers.

God bless you all, dear readers.


Rand

Ps: humorous moment of the night... as we were heading back home, we walked past a group of women giving out flyers for a dance club called "heaven" (oh! the blasphemy). As I watched some young men taking the flyers, I said: "Trust me guys, it ain't nothin' like Heaven."

Pss: at about midnight, it started raining... I guess being an hour off isn't too bad... here's to the Internet weather service!

Labels: Friday evangelism