Friday Night Notes

another one bites the dust...


Our night of street preaching started out real well. Before we even got to our usual preaching spot, we spoke to a young man named David who asked us where our church was and said he would like to visit us on the Lord's Day. A short time later, I took the picture you see here of pastor Tim helping a quadriplegic man who needed some help with whipping sweat off his brow. For roughly half an hour, good things were happening and both pastor Tim and I felt we were making a difference. Sadly, things degenerated quickly after that half hour.

There are times when I swear I can feel the principalities and powers of darkness moving the people against us. My brother-in-the-Lord, Alex, a fellow street evangelist, dropped by to see me and he concurred with me that the people were getting aggressive, and that the night would undoubtedly be an exceeding evil night.

I was just finishing up my turn at preaching the Gospel when I saw an Asian man kicking one of our Bible signs. I walked up to him and told him that he was damaging my sign and asked to stop. The man would not listen so I had to physically get in his way to keep him from further damaging my Romans 6:23 sign. I could see the hatred in his eyes. He clenched his fists and gnashed his teeth in furious anger, and things really looked like they were going to get violent, but then a total stranger told the man to leave me and my sign alone. Seeing that he was outnumbered the man walked away fuming with anger.

With that nasty situation gone, we continued with our evangelistic work. A few souls who claimed to be Christians encouraged us, but the overwhelming response to our preaching was hatred, threats, and scornful mockeries...

"Jesus is dead!" one yelled repeatedly.

"I'm god!" another exclaimed.

We were treated to all sorts of signs of disgust... one man who was driving by our preaching spot blew his horn for several seconds in an effort to drown out pastor Tim's preaching. It was really a difficult test for us tonight. As if all the obscenities directed at us wasn't enough, we had to endure the sinful and absolute base conversation of the wicked; their dress, their despicable words, their drug use, their drunkenness, their lewdness... what a mess.

After two hours of enduring all this nonsense, the Asian man was back, more fierce and aggressive than before. In seconds he broke our Romans 6:23 sign and by the time I got to him, he had taken what was left of the signs and began to run off with them. I still can't believe what I did next...

I ran after him.

I chased him through a parking garage, I chased him down a couple of blocks. When I finally caught up to him, I laid my hands on one of the two pieces of my sign and forced it out of his hand. I had to chase him a bit further in order to get my hands on the second piece of the broken sign. When I grabbed the second piece, the man decided to give me a fight, so I hung on to the signs while he pulled and shoved. Just a few seconds of that and a crowd started forming, which made the man nervous, so he ran off.

Satisfied that I had saved what remained of my sign, I walked back to our preaching spot. On my way back a couple of police officers met up with me and asked me if I was alright (someone probably called them when they witnessed what was going on). Back at the preaching spot, I told pastor Tim what had happened. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

I tried hard to collect myself after this intense chase and went back to preaching the Gospel. A man named Mohamed (a nominal Muslim) came up to me and told me I was doing a good thing, and that he admired my courage. I told him that it was by God's grace and enabling power alone that I stood. He tried to convince me that we were brothers and that in the end, we were both serving the same god, but I would have nothing to do with that nonsense. I explained to him that my faith was based on the Word of God, and that nothing else would do. I told him that I appreciated his kind sentiments towards me, but I could not and would not deny the plain teachings of Scripture to make some sort of ecumenical bridge between us. I think he understood what I was saying. He shook my hand and wished me a good and safe night.

A short time after that, pastor Tim and I called it quits and headed back home. On our way home, we met up with the same two police officers I had spoken to earlier. We got a sympathy smile when they saw what was left of our Bible sign.


That's the notes for tonight, dear readers. To be honest, I'm glad this edition is done... I really want to go to sleep now, and do my best to forget tonight ever happened.

Please continue to pray for us, dear saints.


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism