Friday Night Notes

winter's last hit???

It's crazy that last week, I was out for our night of evangelism in a spring jacket, and tonight it was right back with the winter jacket, toque, gloves and boots. It was freezing out there! It only took 20 minutes for my fingers to freeze, and I shivered the whole two and a half hours I was out. A fellow believer said of me tonight: "You're pretty dedicated!"

Despite the frigid conditions, all and all, it was a pretty laid back night of preaching. I was the only evangelist downtown tonight (pastor Tim is away visiting family), and I only preached for 20 minutes; I spent the rest of my time handing out Bible tracts. I kept preaching to minimum since I'm still on the mend from a nasty bronchitis... I really need to get my vocal chords back into top shape for Sunday, as I will be preaching both the morning and evening services this Lord's Day.

I gave out a good number of tracts and had a good conversation with a young man and his son. He professed faith in Christ, but it later came out that he was a Romanist. He didn't need any convincing that Romanism was dead religion, so I encouraged him to come worship and learn with us on Sunday. He took a pamphlet with our address on it, and wished me well. I hope the Lord will use the literature I gave him to save both him and his family.

I spent so much time tonight offering tracts to sinners... it was strange to have so much quiet time. It was good to have time to pray, carefully considering the task at hand, and how it all fit in my spiritual conversation. One prayer led to another, one spiritual thought to another... by the time I left the area where I was handing out tracts, I was filled with thankfulness and praise to God for everything He had done for me. My salvation in Christ, my precious wife, my beautiful children, my Christian family, my friends and colleagues, all the temporal blessings one can possibly imagine... etc... etc.

Don't get me wrong... it's good to preach the Gospel of Christ; but sometimes, a little quiet does the soul some good.

Shortly before leaving for the night, I had a truly sad conversation with one of the regular street musicians. The poor soul is a drug addict and an alcoholic, his life, like that of his peers, is a total mess. This man usually doesn't have much time for us preachers, but tonight he wanted to talk. What is in parenthesis were my thoughts, I never uttered a word:

Musician: "Hey man, I'm going through a rough time right now, you pray for me, okay?"

Rand: "Okay, I will. What's the problem, my friend."

Musician: "Well, you know Gerry, the short guy who usually pans near me out here? Well, he died last week."

Rand: "I'm really sorry to hear that, man. How old was he?

Musician: "He was only 48 years old. His liver just gave out. He had Lupus, you know? That's what killed him."

Rand: (Perhaps Lupus had a role in his death, but all those liters of alcohol and all those grams of drugs probably did more to finish off your poor friend.)

Musician: "But it's okay. I know that he was saved, and that he's doing good now."

Rand: (No, my poor friend. I don't think he was and I don't think he's doing to well right now either.)

Musician: "I guess I should be happy. At least he's not suffering anymore. It's just that it's tough for me, I have to go on without my buddy."

Rand: (Oh dear... how can I show you that your belief has no grounds in reality. I feel your pain, dear friend, but you are walking the same path, and are headed towards the exact destruction your friend faced and is facing.) "Tell me, my friend, how old a guy are you?"

Musician: "I'm 34 years old."

Rand: "My goodness, you're younger than me!"

Musician: "Yeah, well, I'll be seeing ya! Bye!"

The way our conversation ended doesn't translate too well into text; you kind of had to be there. You see, I asked him how old a guy he was because I wanted to convince him that if his friend died at 48, he might not have too much time left to make his life right with God. When he told me his age, I was shocked, because if you saw a picture of me, and then looked at a picture of him, you wouldn't guess for a second that I was older. Drugs have a nasty effect on a person's body. Anyway, he quickly ended our conversation because he knew where I was going, and he didn't want to hear it. He just wanted to hear me agree with his assessment, and comfort him in his sins. When he didn't get what he wanted, he left. What sad misery.

That's it for the Notes for tonight. Remember me in prayer, dear saints. It'll be a busy enough weekend for me. Remember pastor Tim also, for travel mercies as he is driving a long ways to visit family.

God bless you all, dear readers,


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism