Friday Night Notes

another visit to the zoo...


It was an up and down night of street preaching tonight. Like last week, pastor Tim and I were confronted with mockery and hatred by many of the souls we looked to minister to, but unlike last week, we were treated to some kindness and respect by some of the souls walking the streets of the marketplace. I wouldn't say tonight was a good night of preaching (not by a long shot), but there were a few conversations, a few events that gave both pastor Tim and I hope that we had done some good for our fellow man.

It was freezing cold today. With the windchill, it felt like -20 C (that's -4 F), so I seriously geared up for tonight's evangelistic effort. Once in the marketplace though, it started snowing and the temperature got milder; so we didn't freeze in less than 20 minutes. Praise God.

I got a chance to speak to Collin, the parking garage attendant, again tonight. Collin has actually been dropping by our Lord's Day morning services of late. It is extremely doubtful that he is born-again, but so long as he is reading the Scriptures and attending church services, who knows what the Lord will do. After a short conversation tonight, Collin said he would see me on Sunday, so please, dear brothers and sisters-in-the-Lord, pray that Collin would receive Christ this weekend.

The following half hour of preaching was pretty grim. Sodomites responded to my preaching by acting out lewdness in front of where I was preaching, ungodly women yelled out that they were going out to sin and would enjoy it, and foolish young men blasphemed and uttered obscenities in an attempt to drown out my preaching. After all this, I must admit, I was pretty down; and that's when an elderly man walked up to me, put down shopping bags he was carrying, took one of my Bible tracts and said:

"It's good, what you are doing. This is important. It's the most important thing ever. I want you to keep holding up the Truth. Don't get discouraged, don't get down."

He repeated that last bit three times until I acknowledged him with a "I won't". I didn't even get the man's name, but I thank the Lord for his kindness toward me. The Lord bless him.

Moments after, a young man walked by me, read the 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Bible sign I was carrying, and then took off. I could tell that reading this verse had affected him, so I wasn't at all surprised when he turned around and came back to speak to me. He asked me what I was doing and I explained that I was sharing the Gospel of Jesus with anyone who would hear me.

"Oh! alright, I'm a Christian," the young man affirmed.

"Where do you go to church," I asked.

"Well, my church is near where I live," the young man began, "I can't remember what it is called... it's been awhile since I have been there."

"Listen, my friend, I know what you mean when you call yourself a Christian," I said. "It's this common idea that if you are born in a family that occasionally goes to church, then that makes you a Christian, but listen, that isn't what Christianity is all about. A Christian follows Christ, my friend. A Christian reads his Bible. A Christian goes to church to worship."

The young man agreed with what I was saying, and thanked me for my words to him. I hope the Lord will save this young man from the error he was living in, and will grant him eternal life. I pray that he will start, even tonight, to seek the Lord with all his heart.

It would have been nice if that would have been the end of our night of preaching. Ending on a good, positive note would have been great, but it wasn't what the Lord had for us. Instead, pastor Tim and I were threatened with violence by an unstable man (drunk, drugged, or just out of his mind). Things could have gone terribly wrong for us in those last few minutes of our evangelistic effort, but the Lord protected us from harm yet again. The police showed up minutes after our dealings with the man and they arrested him about a block away from where we were preaching.

Do I ever hate violence...

With that, I close the notes. Goodnight, dear readers. Have a safe and good weekend, and a God-centered Lord's Day.


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism