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Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 1:13)

Canada Day Notes

Monday, July 02, 2012
what a day...

Wow... that was a busy day!  I'm absolutely exhausted.  Two church services, the Lord's Table, four-plus hours of street evangelism, and I capped off the night by taking my kids to a nearby park to watch July 1st fireworks being shot-off.

For those of you reading this outside of Canada, July 1st is Canada Day... our version of the American Independance Day or "4th of July".  On this day, in the nation's capital (where we live), all the downtown streets are blocked off, and people are free to walk up and down the streets to, well, party.  Every year, a number of Christian groups from various churches head downtown on this day to proclaim the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Canada Day is a great opportunity to reach tens of thousands of souls with the Gospel without much effort at all; one just has to stand anywhere along a downtown street with a Gospel tract or a Bible sign, and just like that, the Christian is a mass-evangelist!

Due to the fact that Canada Day landed on the Lord's Day, Pastor Tim was unable to come out for evangelism.  So it was me, Brother Rod and a group of youngsters from our church who took the Gospel to the masses.  The young people performed quite admirably.  For over four hours, they kept up Bible signs despite nasty gusts of winds, they put up with terrible blasphemies and mockeries, and worked hard at presenting the glorious Gospel of Christ to thousands and thousands.

Overall, the afternoon of evangelism was bittersweet.  Sweet because we weren't hassled by anyone.  The by-law officers left us alone, and those who opposed themselves to our work didn't stick around long enough to be a real problem.  I had a few mockers come by, but I was able to answer them well. Those who just wanted to insult or demean us took their shot and quickly ran off.  I recall one woman coming by pretending to be a lesbian with "an honest" question: "I'm a homosexual, is there a place for me in Heaven?"  When I answered that there wasn't and that she needed to repent, she ripped one of our Bible tracts (I have no idea if she thought that would hurt my feelings or something), and walked away.

Bitter because very few tracts were handed out, and not many one-on-one conversations were had.  Pastor Tim and Brother Rod reported a similar experience at last year's Canada Day.  We seem to have a sad, ungodly trend.  We need to pray, dear saints.

Anyway, we quit ourselves as men, and laboured hard for the Lord.  I trust he was magnified and glorified by our efforts.

Remember us evangelists in your prayers, dear saints.


Rand

Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. (1 Corinthians 16:13)