Friday Night Notes

finally back at it...


After a multi-week absence, it was good to finally be back at it! It just doesn't feel right anymore... to go weeks without going downtown to preach the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I wonder when that change happened?

It was a fairly good night of street preaching; not to say that there wasn't a few "challenges" along the way, but I did go through the night without being harmed or threatened with harm. Even the amount of mockery was exceptionally low towards me tonight. A welcome change. I was by myself out there tonight (Pastor Tim is away visiting family and friends), so not having to face a mob of angry sinners wanting to humiliate or harm me was something I thanked, and continue to thank the Lord for!

The first half hour I spent in the marketplace was really good for Bible Tract distribution. I gave out lots of Bible literature. Some people even walked up to me from across the street in order to receive a tract. I hope those little Bible messages will be used of the Lord to save lost men and women.

For about an hour after that, I was faced with a few challenges:

- One man claimed that there was no such thing as sin. "That concept has died long ago," he claimed. My answer to the sad soul: "So, you have no sin, huh?" The man didn't answer and walked away.

- I spoke with a complete lunatic for about 15 minutes. Actually, he spoke for about 14 minutes. Non-stop. Agitated speech. He sometimes yelled. Other times he whispered. He misquoted and downright butchered Scripture on several occasions. It became clear after the first five minutes of our conversation that the man was under the influence of alcohol, or narcotics, or both. Anyway, in his 14 minute diatribe, the man attempted to convince me that President Obama is the Antichrist, that he (the man speaking to me) was "the advocate" spoken of in 1 John 2:1, and that Paul teaching in Romans 13 about submitting to our civil leaders was one of three outright lies the apostle Paul slipped in to the Word of God. There was more... a lot more... all of it pure nonsense; the vain and wicked imaginations of a drugged up fool. I took a minute (one minute) to make it clear to the man that I thought he lost, and that he had no genuine knowledge of Scripture. He didn't take it to well. I let him rant and rave for a couple of minutes, and then I walked away. The Lord have mercy.

- Some time later, I apparently was visited by a modern day "prophet". A young man who obviously was living on the streets came up to me with a "message from God". His message was as vague as a fortune cookie and contained a number of questionable prescriptions. I think I'll stick with my Book of Prophecy of the Lord.

My final hour of evangelism was pretty good. I spoke at length with a man named Jerome, who claimed to know Jesus, but admitted that he didn't know Jesus. It was clear through our conversation that Jerome had made, and probably still is making a real mess of his life; there is probably some substance abuse, immorality, and other forms of ungodliness that are ruining him. I didn't write him off however, because he was asking me genuine questions, and he was honest and transparent with me. We spoke for about 20 minutes and when I had answered all his questions concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he shook my hand and thanked me for taking the time to help him. I promised him that if he came to church service on Sunday, I would give him a Bible, for him to get to know Jesus better. I hope he takes me up on my offer. Please pray.

Finally, a rather unusual and "kind-of-fun" thing happened just before I left the market to head back home. Two ladies came up to me and said:

"Hi, we just wanted to say 'hello', we spoke with you three years ago on this very street corner, and we didn't want to just walk by without saying 'hi'!"

"What are your names?" I inquired.

"I'm Harriett," said one of them.

"I'm Tia," the other said.

"Those names rings a bell, but I'm sorry, I don't remember our last conversation for the life of me!" I replied clumsily.

"That's okay," they replied. "We understand that you meet lots of people when your doing this work. Anyway, all the best and hope to see you around again in the future!"

So, when I got back home tonight, I looked through my posts from three years ago, and found this:

"I had a nice long Q&A session with two ladies tonight. They really wanted no part of the Gospel, they assured me of that much, but they did want to know more about what I was doing and why I was doing it. We had a pretty good conversation and I pray that the Lord will use our discussion to either save these ladies, or deal with someone else through their "Christian education" tonight." (Friday Night Notes, September 15th, 2007)

And this:

"Tia and Harriett were back tonight. These are two ladies I mentioned in my last post who really had no interest in repentance and faith in Christ, but who did want to know more about why I was preaching the Gospel. Again, these two ladies showed alot of respect for me and again asked me a few questions about the Gospel. They even brought in a couple of their friends to join in the conversation. I truly hope the Lord will ruin their sinful night in the marketplace tonight, and will give them eyes to see, and ears to hear the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Matthew 13:10-17)." (Friday Night Notes, September 22nd, 2007)

Not only did both these young ladies remember me, they really cared enough about me to not walk by without greeting me. Praise God! And now for the kind of freaky observation: check out the time stamps on the above two block quotes. Tia and Harriett said they had spoken to me roughly three years ago; a rather accurate approximation... wouldn't you say?


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism