Friday Night Notes

nice to have some support...

It was a far busier night tonight.  Temperatures are beginning to climb, and my fellow Canadians are beginning to come out a bit more.  It was still a relatively chilly night, but the wind wasn't nearly as bitter as last week; won't be long now, and the snow will begin to melt away, and summer street preaching will begin.

Our night of evangelism started out pretty well; a man came out of a restaurant near our preaching spot, and quickly came by to speak with me.  He said he felt the need to come by and encourage me... that I was "doing a good thing".  What he added blew me away:

"I'm a father, and as a believer, I spend a lot of time teaching my kids about 'what not to do', but seeing you here tonight, I realized that I need to start teaching my kids about 'what they should be doing'."

He walked away shortly after saying this, then he stopped and asked me if I would accept a donation.  I declined.  When I do Gospel work, I like to follow the words of Christ literally:

"... freely ye have received, freely give." (Matthew 10:8b)

A number of other saints came by, from various local assemblies, to offer us words of encouragement.  One young man offered to get Pastor Tim and I some hot chocolate to warm us up.  The Lord bless these dear saints for their kindness and support.

Pastor Tim had a short conversation with a couple of Muslim women that proved somewhat unprofitable.  According to one of the women, Pastor Tim's understanding of "jihad" was erroneous (despite the fact the good preacher actually read the wretched Qu'ran, cover-to-cover).  According to her, "jihad" was about the inner-struggle in individual Muslims, not violent war on infidels.  Both Pastor Tim and I had a good laugh.  They were either insanely gullible, or they thought we were.

Our Bible signs almost made it through the night without once being kicked to the ground, but alas, our 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 sign (our most popular) got taken down with less than an hour left to our evangelistic effort.  Something interesting happened as I was about to walk over to pick the sign back up: a man I've seen regularly downtown (perhaps a homeless man, I'm not sure) told me to keep preaching, and that he'd fix my sign... and he did!  I wanted to thank the man for his assistance, but after fixing up our sign, he just walked away.  The Lord be merciful and gracious to him for his kindness toward us.

Around 11pm, it was definitely time for me to head home.  After hours of listening to the ungodly conversations of the wicked all around me, it got pretty wearying.  It truly is awful, the extent of the degeneration of our society, and that, in such a short period of time.  The Lord have mercy on Canada... for we are ripe for judgment... or are we already being judged?

Goodnight, dear readers.

Have a blessed weekend, and a glorious Lord's Day.


Rand