Friday Night Notes

an up-and-down night...


Friday night has truly become synonymous with street preaching for me now. I've been at this for over seven years now, so I'm well settled in this routine; and that's a good thing. The Lord has truly blessed me through this ministry and has shaped me into a half-descent evangelist. That said, there is plenty of room for improvement... I assure you of that!!!

Street evangelism was a bit weird tonight. A number of things were good about it, but there were a number of things that I was most displeased with. Here are two lists of the bad, and the good that came out of our time of open-air Bible preaching:

The Bad (I always start with the bad news):

-My voice is significantly weaker than before the Holidays. I blame it primarily and that nasty cough I had last week. The cough is all but gone now, but for the second week in a row now, I barely have any voice left by the end of 30 minutes of preaching.

-A group of young ladies (8-10 of them) came by to speak to me during my second round of preaching. They said they wanted to hear me preach. I explained what it was I was preaching and why I was preaching it. They were very favorable to my ministry. A number of the young ladies (not all of them) claimed to be born-again. Shortly after the declaration of faith, I was told that many of these ladies attended a "non-denominational church" just outside of town. This got alarm bells going in my head. "Non-denominational" in my country, usually means a group of people who have no time to study the Bible; a group of people who pretend to be believers. Still though, I gave them the benefit of the doubt, which I probably shouldn't have done. Then one of the ladies asked me if I believed that the Lord Jesus gave His people victory over sin. The question perplexed me for a moment. I mean, Christians are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus, and positionally, we are holy and without blame in Christ... but there seemed to be more to the question posed. It didn't take long for the truth to come out that some of these ladies believed in the attaining unto sinless perfection in this life. Oh dear. I made it clear that I didn't believe in the teaching, and that pretty much wrapped up our time together.

-I spent too much time tonight second guessing myself. For example, after dealing with the ladies I mentioned above, I was irritated with myself for not confronting their claims of being born-again whilst being part of what I was pretty sure was a flaky church. I was also slow at engaging people, who seemed to show some interest in what I was doing, into conversations. This was and is pretty aggravating to me; and I know full well why things were like this for me tonight. I was looking to the flesh, and not to my God in prayer.

The Good:

-Remember Amélie? Well, she's been coming to Sunday morning service for a number of weeks now, and tonight, she came out with us to distribute Bible tracts. She even took a Bible sign with her! She has great zeal and I believe, an honest love for the Lord Jesus Christ. She does carry with her a baggage of false doctrines (arminianism, easy-believism, new evangelicalism), but she has shown herself willing to learn and do right. The Lord make us a blessing to her, and may he make her a blessing to us.

-Praise God! I finally had a straight, honest discussion with Collin, the parking garage attendant who has actually been coming to church these last few weeks. I've been wanting to deal with him for months now over his spiritual situation. It has been quite clear to me, these last few months, that Collin liked and still likes the Faith, but there had to be some sin in his life that he just absolutely loved and continues to love. Well, it all came out tonight, and my suspicions were proven right. To his credit, he fessed up with remarkable honesty; he told me that he had no interest in being a phony. I encouraged to continue seeking God and to pray for His mighty salvation. I asked him to consider whether his sin was worth an eternity in Hell. I hope that Collin will learn to fear the Lord. It is his only hope.

-Amélie and I had the opportunity to speak of the Gospel to two young men at a bus stop. What was remarkable about these conversations? One of the men was a Muslim, the other, a homosexual, and we all talked and everything remained civil and respectful. They listened and asked a few questions about the Scriptures, and we did our best to present the Gospel of Jesus to them. The Lord use our words as He sees fit.


That's the notes for tonight. I'm going to bed now. Have a great weekend, dear readers. I appreciate your continued prayers, dear saints of God.

God bless you all,

Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism