Friday Night Notes

a smooth night of preaching...


I felt somewhat heavy before I even went out for the traditional night of street preaching. It wasn't fear. It wasn't any health problem. It wasn't because I was, once again, by myself for the Friday evangelistic effort. I felt heavy because the Lord was, and is continuing to deal with me on an important issue: ministering unto Him. More precisely, I am only now realizing that, despite my work in the ministry, despite my evangelism, despite all the "spiritual" work I am involved in, ultimately, I am hardly spending any time attending unto the Lord.

I don't know if any of this is making any sense to you, dear readers, but I assure you, I am NOT just dreaming up a problem here. I guess the best way for me to effectively share where I am at right now, and the conviction I am feeling, is to give you access to the following sermons:

Paul Washer: Glory of God in Marriage
Paul Washer: Glory of God in Ministering to the Lord
Paul Washer: Glory of God in Missions
Paul Washer: Glory of God in Moral Purity
Paul Washer: Glory of God in Motivation

Once you've listened to the sermons on "ministering to the Lord", "missions", and "motivation" I think you'll understand why I am feeling heavy ('cause you'll probably start feeling heavy yourself). The concepts and practices Paul Washer speaks about are so lacking in North American churches that I think for many a Christian, these sermons are real shockers.

If you don't have time to listen to these sermons, but would still like to understand what I'm talking about, consider this quote by Andrew Murray taken from his book, Absolute Surrender:

"God has a plan for His Church upon earth. But alas! we too often make our plan, and we think that we know what ought to be done. We ask God first to bless our feeble efforts, instead of absolutely refusing to go unless God go before us. God has planned for the work and the extension of His kingdom. The Holy Ghost has had that work given in charge to Him. "The work whereunto I have called them" (Acts 13:2). May God, therefore, help us all to be afraid of touching "the ark of God" except as we are led by the Holy Ghost."

O wretched, foolish man that I am! I am so guilty of making my own plans, doing things my way, and only after, asking God to bless. O Lord, help me! I need to be weary doing things in the power of my own flesh. I need to look to God to show me what to do, when to do it, and to do it by His strength.

All these thoughts were swirling around in my brain hours before making my way downtown to preach the Gospel. On a number of occasions, I wondered whether I should forget about going out; I thought perhaps it would be better for me to just put my face down to the ground and pray. I'm not sure if I made the right decision yet, but I opted to go out street preaching. The Lord said: "go out and preach the Gospel", I thought, "so go out and preach!"

It was a pretty smooth night of street preaching. I saw and spoke to several saints of God who were either evangelizing in the market, or simply on their way home from work. I spoke to a man named Colombia, a brother-in-the-Lord who was really encouraged and happy to see me doing the work of an evangelist in the marketplace. I also had a number of conversations with some brothers who were labouring with the Open-Air Campaigners. All these were a real encouragement to me.

There was some nonsense however. I was grievously mocked by a very wicked woman at one point as I was preaching the Gospel, and as I made my way home after three hours of evangelism, I was forced to endure the antics of a drunken fool who gave everyone around him a hard time. All this said, the ungodly weren't too aggravating tonight. I distributed a fair number of Bible tracts, and most of the exchanges I had were quite civil and kind. Praise God.

The Lord use the work I did tonight as He sees fit... and may He be glorified now, and forever. Amen.

Please continue to pray for me, dear saints of God.

God bless you all, dear readers...


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism