Friday Night Notes

workin' overtime...

It had been a long time since I last went more than 3 hours on a Friday night evangelistic effort. I was in the marketplace from 6pm to 10:30pm preaching the Gospel, handing out Gospel literature, and holding forth a Bible sign for all to see. I'm pretty beat now.

To kick off my night of evangelism, I once again parked myself in front of a busy shopping mall entrance near the marketplace, and, Bible sign in one hand, Gospel tracts in the other, I gave out a fair number of tracts and had a few short conversations with sinners and saints. I'm really liking this spot for evangelism. One can't preach there because the ambient noise level is too high, and I'm pretty sure that if I tried to preach there, the mall security force would get on my case. Still though, even without actual preaching, I really think the evangelism I get away with there is profitable. Lots and lots of people walk in and out of that mall... surely some of God's lost sheep are mixed into that crowd.

After about an hour of evangelism there, I met up with pastor Tim in the marketplace where we both took turns at preaching the Gospel of Jesus. We again got our fair share of insults and mockeries, but we did have a number of one-on-one conversations. Pastor Tim dealt with a Muslim who declared that Jesus was but a prophet; I have to say watching pastor Tim preach the Truth to that man was quite entertaining (lol).

I too had a couple of one-on-one conversations with souls that were either lost, or really messed up. The first one that comes to mind was a young lady named Megan. This young woman had a problem with our evangelism because she perceived that we were "turning people off" with our preaching. I did my best to impress on Megan that these "people were already off", that there was no "turning them off". I asked her to consider what the apostles message was in the book of Acts and by what method they delivered their message, and then, using that standard, I asked her to judge how biblical our evangelism was. I got a "yes, but..." answer; that is, "I know that's what the Bible says, but I think I know a better way...". Oh dear...

I then spoke to two young men who were obviously lost. They told me they were Romanists but even by that standard, they were in real bad shape. They both confessed to me that they were living in continual fornication and that they feared condemnation. I gave them some Gospel literature and encouraged them to come to church. I also warned them to get busy seeking God, while they still could. They took it all rather well, they were quite earnest. Please pray for these men, their names were Neal and Richard.

There was another Romanist that came by to speak to me. I was able to share the Gospel with him and encouraged him to study the Bible. I told him that after careful Bible study, I couldn't remain in Romanism; I was surprised to see just how well he took that statement. I hope the Lord will use my words to get this man to seek out Truth in God's Word.

Finally, I spoke with a man named Peter. Peter is from Denmark and he is in my city only for a short time. He professed to be a Christian so I was curious to get his impressions on the state of the church in his part of the world. Well, we didn't have to talk to long before I noticed that Peter probably wasn't really a Christian, and if he was, his understanding of Scripture is poor to say the very least. Peter definitely rejected the doctrine of Total Depravity and didn't even understand how repentance fit into the salvation of the Lord. I don't know if I got anywhere with Peter...

Shortly after this conversation, pastor Tim and I made our way back to his place after a very long night of evangelism. We were just beginning to leave the marketplace when a woman ran after us. She had been watching us through the window of a nearby pub, and thought that what we were doing was "sweet and good"; she said that "we really touched her". She hugged both pastor Tim and I and thanked us for our faithfulness. I don't know how genuine all that was, but we took it! LOL! It's not like we get a whole lot of hugs on our Friday night endeavours!

Okay... I'm falling asleep now. I need to get to bed.

God bless you, dear readers.


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism