Friday Night Notes

work... work... work...

Did these signs ever have a bad night! (more on that later...)


I worked a 10-hour day today, which means right after I finally got the Mass Spectrometers up and running (if you don't know what in the world a mass spectrometer is... just shrug and move on... it really isn't that important), it was time for me to head downtown for 3 hours of street preaching. I have to say that those 3 hours were pretty grueling. I don't want to whine... so I won't (LOL... I just decided just now that I wouldn't start typing any complaints). All I will mention is that I still covet the prayers of all my brothers and sisters-in-the-Lord; my health situation is still a problem.


Tonight was quite a difficult night of preaching. The weather didn't cooperate (it rained), and the hearts of the people around us was hard against the Gospel; more so than usual. Pastor Tim even observed near the end of our night of preaching: "Man, are people ever loony tonight!" He was right. Amongst the crazies that we dealt with was a drunkard walking around with a super-sized can of beer, declaring that God told him it was okay for him to drink. Moments later, pastor Tim had to deal with a man who was going around downtown in women's lingerie; he claimed that God would accept him "just the way he was". Oh dear.


Then there was the tough drunk guy. This man walked up to me as I was preaching and violently punched the Bible sign I was holding. Thankfully, he was satisfied with just hitting the sign and didn't feel the need to start hitting the preacher holding the sign. What happened next was actually pretty hilarious. The tough guy made his way toward pastor Tim who was also holding a Bible sign and went about punching his sign too. Thing is, pastor Tim had seen what had just happened with me and was ready for the poor fool. As he swung with all his might, pastor Tim withdrew the sign quickly, causing the poor drunkard to go flying forward into air. The man then lost his balance and went crashing to the ground. My first reaction was pure laughter, but then fear came upon me as I realized that the man, now humiliated, might just go for pastor Tim; but the Lord was gracious to us. The man got up and simply walked away. Praise God.


In the midst of the carnival of cursings, mockery and scorn toward us, we were approached two or three times by gentle souls who blessed us with kind words. On one occasion, a young man approached me and said: "The Lord will bless you for what you are doing here." I told him that the Lord had, and was blessing me.


One of the blessings from the Lord to me tonight came in the form of a thought. As I beheld the wickedness all around pastor Tim and I, and considered just how little effect we seemed to be having, I thought: "The prophet Micaiah glorified God just as much as Ezra did." Now I sure wish I could be used like Ezra and be the catalyst to a great spiritual awakening and revival, but in the end, if the Lord will use me as a preacher unto judgment as He used Micaiah against evil king Ahab... well... glory to God!


"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)


Finally, I want to thank the Lord for His protection on us tonight, and the favour He gave us in the eyes of earthly authorities. A police cruiser actually drove up to where I was preaching and I was afraid the police officer would give me a hard time over my preaching, but the officer had one look at my Bible sign and started driving away. As he drove away, I saw him punching a key on his touch-screen computer in his vehicle... which made me wonder: do the police have some category in their software called "crazy-street-preacher-alert". Heh heh.


With that, I close tonight's notes, dear readers. Have a good weekend and blessed Lord's Day.




Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism