a cold, evil night...

When the temperature drops down to -15C (3 degrees Fahrenheit), -25C (-17 Fahrenheit) with the windchill, street preaching requires a much higher level of determination and resolve. Praise be to God who gave us the ability and will to labour in the cold for the Truth's sake tonight, and that for over 3 hours.

It was another evil old night out in the marketplace again; complete with blasphemy, drunkenness, immorality, wrath and other forms of ungodliness. Pastor Tim and I, with our Bible signs, didn't go unnoticed by the devil's people. We were despised and mocked by the overwhelming majority... only a small handful accepted some Bible literature, and fewer still listened to our preaching. It was and is somewhat disheartening, but our souls look to our God, for our hope is from and in him.

The bitter cold wind kept me from distributing Gospel tracts near the shopping mall, so I walked around downtown with my Bible sign in an effort to keep warm while presenting God's Word to sinners. I got only one vocal response:

"Are you in a cult or something?" a woman asked.

"I'm a Christian," I replied.

"Well, I don't believe in 'sin'," the woman said pointing to my Bible sign.

"You will," I replied. "When God judges you, you'll believe in the concept, and when God condemns you for your sin, you'll understand the gravity of your error."

"Whatever happened to God being love," the woman replied with a few curses afterwards.

"He is love," I said, "and He is holy, true and just."

The woman, at this point, was beside herself and just yelled obscenities at me. I shrugged and moved along. The Lord be merciful to her.

Another woman walked up to me as I was quoting John 3:16-18 in my preaching, and said:

"Instead of just preaching Scripture, why don't you just help people?"

"I am helping people, miss." I replied. "I'm helping them by preaching the one thing that can give them spiritual life."

"But I don't even listen to you, I care nothing for your words," the woman said.

"That's because you're dead, miss, spiritually dead in sin," I replied.

"Hey!" she snapped, "I have Roman Catholic ancestry!"

"I couldn't care less about that, miss," I said.

I tried to explain to her that the two sons of the prophet Samuel had "godly ancestry" (not saying there is anything godly about Romanism), but they were still wretches before both man and God. I say "I tried" because the woman would hear nothing of it. She left with her bottle of wine under her arm, satisfied with her opinions and self-justifications. How sad.

Shortly after this, two sodomites decided to smoke marijuana right behind our street preaching spot in an attempt to aggravate us. We continued with our preaching, all the while being watchful against any other mischief from these wicked souls. They eventually left us, without making much of a fuss. Thank you, Lord.

It was right after the homosexuals left that I noticed four young ladies standing around our 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Bible sign: three of them were pointing out specific sins in the list, laughing over the fact that they were guilty of these, while the fourth Jezebel took a picture of her friends and the sign. I just had to shake my head. It did remind me of how Romans 1 ends:

"Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." (Romans 1:32)

As our night of preaching drew to a close, a young woman came out of one of the pubs and asked pastor Tim and I if we had seen any suspicious persons or activities on the strip of road where we were preaching. She explained that she and another young lady had had their purses stolen and was hoping that we had seen something that could help her recover her lost belongings; sadly, neither pastor Tim or I had seen anything. This whole incident made my sad night of preaching even sadder. Think about it: two weeks before Christmas, this young lady probably lost a fair amount of money, her credit cards, her health card, driver's license and probably a few more important documents/objects, and the person who stole these from her is probably laughing right now, being quite pleased with his/her score.

What an evil world.

"And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness." (1 John 5:19)


With that, I close the notes, dear readers. It's been a pretty sad night of preaching... the experience somewhat wearisome... I think a good night of rest will do me good.

Have a blessed weekend, dear saints of God, and enjoy the Lord's Day.


Rand

"Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." (2 Timothy 2:3)