Friday Night Notes

you meet all sorts...

Winter street preaching is definitely here. Had all my winter gear on this evening, for the first time this year, to keep me warm for our customary three hours of open-air evangelism. The colder weather is probably to blame for the thinner crowds (compared to last week), but still, we easily preached to hundreds of lost souls tonight. The Lord use our work as He sees fit.

We dealt with all manner of people tonight, and by this I mean all sorts of wicked crazies (and I'm not using that word lightly). Consider:

- While I was preaching the Gospel, a couple of homeless drunkards decided to have a seat and enjoy a drink just a few feet from me. They professed to be believers and referred to their cheap booze as "holy water".

- A young lady walked by me while I was distributing Bible tracts and seeing my Bible sign said: "My friend stole one of your signs awhile back, took it while you weren't looking!" She said this with a "take-that" tone in voice, obviously pleased that her friend had defrauded us. Pastor Tim had had a sign stolen when he was out by himself a year or so back, so it is quite possible that this young lady was speaking the truth. What I found remarkable was the joy and contentment that crime brought her. I'm sure that in her mind, she honestly believes she is a "good person"... makes you wonder what makes a "bad person".

- Two French ladies walked by me and after reading my Bible sign they said to one another: "It's Friday night, not Sunday Mass!" ('cause God only exists for an hour on Sunday... apparently)

- Had a conversation with a couple of French guys who wanted to know if my evangelism was a mandatory practice of my faith. They weren't mocking, or being insulting so I told them that my Christian service wasn't mandatory; it was and is my "reasonable service". They asked me a few more questions and my answers seemed to surprise them, as in, they were surprised I was logical and reasonable. One of the guys, before leaving, hugged me.

- Tonight's street music was provided by a couple of young men with harmonicas. It was a welcome change from the vile guitar player we usually have to put up with. That is, until about 9:30pm when one of the men put away his harmonica and decided to "rap" for 40-45 minutes, a rap which made use of the f-bomb as noun, verb, adverb and adjective. Only two words could describe it: vulgar and annoying.

- On our way back home, Pastor Tim and I were approached by a very drunk young man. He asked us to speak to him about the Gospel. So we attempted to do so. I say we attempted to do so because the young man never let us get beyond "sin", or more specifically, "his sin". At first he seemed to reject the notion that he was a sinner. We pointed out his obvious drunkenness, and that for that one sin alone, he was guilty before a holy God. Well, that offended him to no end. He went off on an angry diatribe, and seeing no point in carrying on, Pastor Tim and I walked away as he continued to spew venom.

I believe I said this before... some Friday nights more than others (but all of them at varying degrees) are carnivals of demented wickedness. I often come back home on Friday and it takes me an hour or so to just get over the folly and evil I've witnessed. Before falling asleep however, I usually remember that without the salvation of the Lord, my plight would be no different than the lost souls I've endeavoured to help in the market. My closing prayer usually begins with...

Thank you, Lord...


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism