Friday Night Notes

it's CHRISTmas time...


Pastor Tim and I were downtown again tonight, preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The marketplace was quiet again, but when I walked to a nearby shopping mall to distribute Bible literature, I found the crowds! A lot of people read the Bible sign I was holding, and a good number accepted Bible tracts. Praise God!

I definitely raised a number of eyebrows at the exit of the shopping mall. Most, I suppose were shocked by the boldness of my Gospel presentation; others, no doubt, just thought I was an idiot. I did however receive, on more than one occasion, kind words from people who were pleased I was bringing Jesus into what has sadly become, in my country anyway, a Christless Christmas. One young man in particular came by to see me to express just how happy he was to see me presenting the Gospel outside of the mall.

The kind words were great and quite refreshing. The vile words of those who simply thought I was an idiot, were quite grievous to hear. One man yelled obscenities at me for a good, solid, two minutes. He used the f-bomb as a noun, adjective, verb AND adverb. His basic message to me was that Christians were responsible for just about every historical abomination as well as every current problem in the world. When he paused from his diatribe, I simply answered:

"Merry Christmas, sir, and have a good night."

I then went back to preaching which really, really drove him nuts. After another few minutes of being described as the devil himself, he left just as twisted and angry as ever. As for me, I had, and continue to have the peace of the Lord.

"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7)

A positive event I should mention is my new relationship with one of the street beggars. This man used to mock me to scorn every time he saw me. He was crude and generally unpleasant, so I had grown accustomed to just ignoring him whenever I saw him downtown. Well! how things have changed! For two straight weeks now, the man has been extremely kind and courteous to me. I have no idea what has brought on this change of attitude, but I hope and pray that this is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Lord be merciful to this poor soul.

Final observation: with Christmas so close, I really expected to see joy and kindness out of the people who walked by me. I was sadly disappointed. What I saw were hard faces, and most of the souls that walked by me tonight were gripping about something to someone. They were and are blessed beyond measure, but they aren't happy, nor thankful. How sad the life of the wicked. How empty.

"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." (Romans 1:21)

With that, I'm going to close the notes for tonight. There are still plenty of preparations to be done before my family and I go into Christmas mode, so I need to get to bed now to get rested up. Goodnight dear readers, and have a blessed and safe Christmas season.


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism