Friday Night Notes

soldiering on...


Another Friday, another night of evangelism for pastor Tim and I. It was pretty cold out there, a bitter wind blew through the streets of the market, making our ministry that much more difficult; I had to warm myself a number of times by (you guessed it) running up and down those parking garage stairs. That said, many souls heard something of the Gospel tonight. The Lord use the foolishness of our preaching as He sees fit.

Pastor Tim and I were barely out of his driveway when a couple of young men saw our Bible signs. One the men asked me what we were all about, and when I answered that we were going to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he mockingly said:

"Did you say Bejus Thrist?"

I just shook my head and walked away while the lads had a good laugh at my expense. As we walked toward the market, I said to pastor Tim:

"The Bible says not to cast our pearls before..."

"Swine," pastor Tim completed.

We reached our preaching spot at around 8pm, and I hadn't even begun preaching when a man took exception to my John 3:36 Bible sign. After reading the Bible verse, he began to curse at me, and blasphemed the Name of the Lord. He literally stood in front of me and yelled out obscenities for 5-8 minutes (I'm not kidding, it was about that long). I decided that the best way to deal with the situation was to put Matthew 5:39 in practice: he cursed, I took it. After the third or fourth minute, pastor Tim made his way towards me to help me, but I gestured for him to leave me be. While enduring mockery and scorn isn't my favorite activity, I didn't want things to degenerate any further.

Then something kind of cool happened. A woman across the street got a glimpse of the blasphemer and my response to his antics. She came over to my side of the street to shake my hand and to tell me that I was doing a good thing and that she appreciated my efforts. All this right in front of the man who was still cursing me loudly. Soon after this event, the man realized that he wasn't getting anywhere with me, and that he had seriously lost the PR war. He then walked way, still mumbling cursings and blasphemies. The Lord have mercy on his troubled soul.

After this unfortunate incident, my night went fairly well. I had a number of one-on-one conversations with souls who wanted to know more about what I was preaching, and why I was preaching the Gospel. The old question "do you get paid for this?" came up a number of times. For the most part, the people I spoke to tonight saw me as having admirable motives; though I'm sure all of them thought I was kind of crazy/dim-witted. Humbling business this street preaching thing.

On my last half hour of preaching, a young couple walked up to me and politely asked me:

"Why did that man give you such a hard time?"

For a moment, I didn't know what they were talking about. It had already been over two hours since the incident involving the man who yelled at me. Apparently, these two souls had witnessed the event and had been wondering what the fuss was about. I told them that I didn't know what specifically set the man off.

"Some people just have a real bad day, and some people just REALLY hate God and His Word," I added.

I then explained what it was I was doing and why I was doing it. Like the others I dealt with tonight, the young couple thought that my preaching was praise worthy. The man insisted on shaking my hand. He left with a Bible tract. The Lord be gracious to them.

A few minutes later, I watched as a young lady read 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 off one of our sandwich-board signs. After reading, she looked to her left, then to her right, and grabbed the sign. She hadn't lifted it an inch off the ground when I called out:

"Excuse me, young lady."

Suffice it to say that I startled to wicked soul. She then lifted her nose at me and claimed that I was "brainwashed". Yeah, that's right, I thought, TV-generation-jane here is in a great position to judge what consists "brainwashing". Again, the Lord have mercy on her lost soul.


With that... oh dear me... it's 2am... I have got to go to sleep. Dear readers, I again thank you all for keeping up with my Friday night activities, and I especially thank all you prayer warriors out there who are praying for me and pastor Tim.

Dear saints, have a blessed Lord's Day.


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism