Friday Night Notes

finally back...



It had been a while, but I finally back out preaching the Gospel tonight.  I missed a few weeks due to house renovations, rain, and vacationing.  It's been a wild month... and June promises to be equally hectic.  Posts may be sporadic.  Sorry.

The market was real busy tonight.  After a long, cold winter, I'm always surprised at how busy, and loud the market gets.  The Lord had a people out there tonight, but by my estimation, they were few and far between.  I'm not complaining.  I'm quite at ease with being used of the Lord for a single soul whenever He wills, but I'd be lying if I didn't point out that watching so many choose death... well... it's pretty depressing.

I did have wonderful conversations with young believers early in our evangelistic endeavor.  I spoke with a young man from Iran, who fled his native country, due to the lack of freedom and the scourge of Islam.  He escaped to Turkey where a saint shared the Gospel with him, and the Lord saved him.  He's been in Canada for a little more than a year now, and the Lord seems to have blessed him.  I invited him to visit our assembly and he seemed favourable to the idea.

I also spoke with another young man named Nick.  He's a new believer, and has been attending a Pentecostal church (a poor one at that...).  He realizes that there are depths of knowledge, important doctrines that he isn't seeing or understanding yet, but he claimed he wanted to learn.  I suggested some quality time in Bible study, and a few resources that could help him.  I gave him one of our tracts and suggested he contact us if he ever needed, or wanted our help.

I met a few saints tonight who offered me kind words or encouragement.  The Lord bless them for their support.  Another item of praise: not one of our Bible signs was kicked to the ground tonight.  Three hours of street preaching, and no one kicked our signs.  That hadn't happened in a long time! Should I be this happy about that?

Got a lot to do this weekend... I'm signing off.  God bless you, dear readers.

Rand

No Notes

rain and trolls...

Rain and work kept me from going out street preaching last night. 

I also got some unwelcome news from Getty Images.  Our church website was built from a template which we purchased online.  Within this template were a number of images we assumed were part of the cost of the template, but alas, the images were copyrighted by Getty.

This is obviously a scam, as there was NO WAY we could ascertain the images where copyrighted, and the company from which we bought our template is still using and selling the website templates that contain copyrighted images.  Unfortunately for us, this scam works; by law, the end user is ultimately responsible, even if he/she have no way of determining the status of an image.

We can thank the Lord that the fine isn't terribly high, but I still hate paying it... it's pure extortion.  Dear readers, if you have a website that contains images of unknown origins, you might want to audit all of that.  I've read horror stories last night: poor souls being fined $1000 for a tiny image owned by Getty.

The Lord reward Getty Images for its wicked practices.


Rand

Friday Night Notes

just me and the Lord...



With Pastor Tim away visiting family tonight, I went out all by my little lonesome to preach the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in the marketplace of my city.  Well, I really wasn't alone... the Lord was with me:

"... lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." (Matthew 28:20b)

It was kind of chilly tonight, with the occasional light rain fall.  I wondered if the weather was going make this a quiet night of evangelism, but the market was busy enough.  I ministered the Gospel to a constant flow of people.  I handed out a good number of the Gospel tracts and hundreds, if not thousands of souls read the Bible sign I was carrying around with me (John 3:16 on one side, 1 Timothy 1:15a on the other).

I didn't have much by way of one-on-one conversations, just a couple of quick ones with souls who were just curious about my activities.  One young woman interrupted my preaching to ask me if I would give her a few Gospel tracts that she could share with her family.  I was more than happy to oblige.  I remember that conversation well because the young lady called me "sweetie".  For the record, I've never heard anyone call Pastor Tim "sweetie"... I'm just sayin'... ;-)

A few Christian came by to encourage me throughout the night, and I was quite happy to see Brother Layton and the Open-Air Campaigners out preaching the Gospel a few blocks away from where Pastor Tim and I typically evangelize.  It's always encouraging to see that the Lord still has a people in my city; a people zealous for good works, and who walk in obedience.  I pray that the Lord of the harvest would bless Brother Layton and his crew, and would send forth more labourers!

There really wasn't much by way of hardship tonight.  A little mockery, but that was about it.  The one sad thing was that much of the mockery I got tonight didn't come from drunk, foolish, young people, but rather, older folks.  Experience should, and typically works wisdom and people.  It always makes me sad when I meet or see an older soul who is as foolish as immature and foolish youths.  As the old expression goes: "there is no fool, like an old fool."

The Lord be magnified by my efforts tonight.  To Him, and only to Him be all honour and glory.

Remember me in your prayers, dear saints... Lord-willing I will be ministering the Word on the Lord's Day (both morning and evening).

God bless you, dear readers.

Rand

Friday Night Notes

some welcome reinforcements...

It was a pretty chilly night, with a frigid wind blowing through town.  Nowhere near as bad as some of the freezing weather we got over the winter, but still pretty cold for spring time.  Good thing I packed an extra sweater before leaving home this morning!

A nice surprise awaited me when I got to Pastor Tim's house tonight: Dale Parkes, an American brother-in-the-Lord who I got to know through this blog years ago, was in town on a work assignment.  He wanted to join Pastor Tim and I on our street preaching endeavor before having to head out to Philadelphia the very next morning.  It was nice to have another worker with us tonight, sharing in preaching duties.  I did however feel a little sorry for Dale... I'm not sure if he was quite prepared for the spiritual reality of Canada: mostly dead.

Despite the cold weather, a good number of souls were out in the market.  Between us three preachers, we ministered the Gospel to thousands of souls.  Not many tracts were handed out, and I didn't have much of anything by way of one-on-one conversations.  Pastor Tim and Dale did a bit better than me tonight: both men had profitable conversations with sinners, and I think they had more success in tract distribution.

Funny moment of the night: a police cruiser drove by and stopped in front of the spot where Pastor Tim was preaching.  The officer lowered his window and said: "Hey! Put it down a little.  You're so loud I can hear you a block away!"  To which Pastor Tim replied, with a big smirk on his face: "Well, that's really good that people can hear the Gospel a block away!"  Amused, the police officer laughed and drove off.

Not much else to report.  There was a lot of mockery tonight, lots of sin.  Our Bible signs were knocked down a number of times, and all three of us were scorned by a number of sinners.  Still, the Lord was glorified, and that's all that matters.

Have a blessed weekend, dear saints... especially the Lord's Day!

Rand

Friday Night Notes

Good Friday...

A whole three hours of street preaching and not one of our Bible signs were knocked down by those who hate the Gospel.  That's a first in a long time.  It probably helped that the number of souls in the market tonight was rather low; but hey, I'll take it!

It just dawned on me, just now as I wrote the above paragraph, that it's a truly sad state of affairs when "good news" of our evangelism is that "no one trampled the Word under foot".  It really shows the demise of faith, genuine and otherwise, and the rise of religious intolerance.  The fact that our preaching was done on "Good Friday" didn't even register with most of the people we ministered to; the "Christian" holiday has become just another cultural/historical day-off-work that no one really cares to know anything about.  From the perspective of a Christian fundamentalist like myself, there something really disappointing about that, but I think even on a purely cultural and historical context, there's something sad about this new reality.

Despite the low numbers of people in the market, Pastor Tim and I handed out a fair number of Gospel tracts, and had a few conversations with the lost.  I'm not sure how well Pastor Tim's one-on-one conversation went with a young man, but it looked profitable.  I on the other hand had one of those silly conversations with a young Muslim man.  If I had a dime for every instance where a Muslim has tried to convince me that his/her faith was superior because...

1- The Qu'ran is pure, never changed, and isn't messed up by translations.
2- Muslims believe in Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed.
3- Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world.

The first two statements are ludicrous, and any careful study of Islam proves their idiocy.  The Qu'ran is a wretched book, with a number of sections that are unintelligible.  The Moses and Jesus described in the Qu'ran, the Moses and Jesus Muslims believe in are nothing like the Moses and Jesus described in the Bible.  They are entirely different people.  As far as the third statement is concerned, I'm way passed the age where I feel the need to believe in something, just because a large portion of the population think it's a great thing.

Still, the young man tried his pitch, and I shot him down every step of the way.  No doubt the young man was a devout Muslim, but it was clear that he was an ignorant one, since he couldn't answer simple questions on the teachings of the Qu'ran.  Either that, or he wouldn't answer my questions, fearing they would make my arguments for me.  I ended the conversation and the young man wasn't too pleased with that, giving me warnings of hellfire if I rejected "the-prophet-mohammed-glory-and-honour-to-his-name".  "Consider me warned... and I'll take my chances..." I said, unable to keep from smiling.

Not much more to report I'm afraid.  Like I said, it was a quiet night.  It was good to finally be able to make it out after being prevented of three weeks.  I trust the Lord was glorified.

Have a blessed weekend, dear saints.

Rand

No Notes

technical difficulties...

I had the absolute worse day at work today.  I was in the lab 'till 10:30pm, trying to get an HPLC to behave.

I know Pastor Tim went out to preach the Gospel.  I hope things went well for him.

Rand

No Notes

rained out again...

Pastor Tim and I didn't go out street preaching last night due to rain.  Silver lining: April showers bring May flowers.

Rand