(Short) Friday Night Notes

helping mass specs, and sinners...


I had my jacket, my boots, and my gloves on. I was on my way downtown straight from work for our night of evangelism. However, I just couldn't go without having one more look at the lab, to make sure everything was in order. I wasn't in the lab two seconds, and my gloves and jacket came off. The instruments in the picture to the left were not behaving at all. It took me two extra hours to get everything patched up.

Throughout that extra two hours, I regularly tried to reach Pastor Tim by phone, but there was no answer. Seems we got our signals crossed, he assumed I wasn't available for evangelism tonight, so he planned a couple of personal visits (which is why there was no answer at his house). It was 8:30pm when I finally left my work, and not wanting to go a whole two weeks without an evangelism report for you, dear readers, I made my way to the market. I always keep a stack of Bible tracts in my coat pocket, so I had some equipment with me for evangelism.

I found a street which had a steady flow of people and started offering tracts to those who walked by. I was surprised at how many tracts I gave out in an hour. The flow of people was pretty steady (there were a lot of hockey fans in the market tonight... my city is hosting the NHL All-Star Game this weekend). I even found myself offering a tract to François Gagnon, a sports writer and TV analyst for the Montreal Canadiens; sadly, he turned down my offer.

Nothing much else to report. I was glad that I was at least able to hand out some tracts and not have totally lost my Friday night of evangelism. Hopefully, next week, the good preacher and I will be at our post, proclaiming the Gospel of Peace to a very wicked, lost generation.

Remember us in your prayers, dear saints.

Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism

No Notes

sick...

A virus has gone through my house this week. I'm its latest victim, so there will be no Friday Night Notes tonight.

Have a good weekend!

Rand

Friday Night Notes

the pope is an antichrist!!!

We got a good shot of winter the last couple of days, with two solid days of snow as you can clearly see in the above picture. I thought the snowed-over roads would discourage many people from coming downtown... I thought Pastor Tim and I would be pretty lonely in the marketplace, but there were a fair number of souls walking the streets of the market tonight. We handed out a number of Gospel tracts and had a few one-on-one conversations. A better night of evangelism than I anticipated.

In my first half-hour of preaching, a young lady stood across the street, listening intently to my words. After a few minutes she came over with some questions about my evangelism and about the exact nature of the faith I was proclaiming. She was quite honest with me, telling me that she had no faith, but found people of faith interesting. I was able to give a short Gospel message to her and a friend who joined her moments later. She truly appreciated my words, and her friend concluded that I was: "the sanest preacher she ever spoke to!"

After completing our first hour of evangelism, the temperature starting dropping and the wind began to be a factor. The good preacher and I alternated warming ourselves in a nearby parking garage while the other carried on with the Gospel work. I prayed that the Lord would keep those who would harm us or our Bible signs away... the marketplace can be a dangerous place when unbelievers see that the preacher is alone. One man spat on our 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 sign and another tried to rip my Romans 6:23 sign from my hands, but I held on tight. A few short minutes after, the same man tried to do the same to Pastor Tim but even at well over 60 years of age, his grip is as good (if not better) than mine! Other than those three incidents, the rest of the night went pretty well.

During my round of preaching, a Muslim man came by to challenge me. It was pretty funny. He had all his anti-Christian arguments ready to go... he figured he was going to show me... poor soul, he left pretty confused. His problem was that in his mind, Christians were synonymous with Romanism. You should have seen his face when I said: "The pope is an antichrist! He is a really, really evil man!" All his "anti-Christian" arguments were actually "anti-Romanism" arguments, and when I pointed that out to him, and continued to point to the Bible as my sole authority for faith and practice, he was speechless. He walked away one confused man.

In our last hour of evangelism, Pastor Tim and I both dealt with a homeless man who had read one of our Bible tracts. He said that God would never judge or condemn him, no matter what! He said nothing could change his mind on that and quickly walked away, perceiving that Pastor Tim and I had an opposing point of view to present. We watched him go back to his panhandling, to his misery, and barring future grace, his condemnation. A sad sight.

Moments before leaving the market I had a quick word with a young mocker who pridefully exclaimed: "God's a fake!" I told him that he would regret those words on the judgment day. He stood in front of me, surprised that I had responded to his folly. I couldn't believe how effeminate he looked. I don't think he was a homosexual, but the Justin Bieber hair, the little cigarillo between his fingers, and his general disposition was, well, feminine. Kind of disturbing. His friends encouraged him to just walk away, which he eventually did after dishing out a bit more mockery. The Lord have mercy on his soul.

And that pretty much sums up our night of evangelism. I thank the Lord my God for His protection on us, and that we were able to preach the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ on yet another Friday night.

God bless you, dear readers. Have a blessed and safe weekend.


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism

Friday Night Notes

saved FROM our sins...

It was good to be back at our post tonight, for our customary night of evangelism in the downtown marketplace. Much quieter than in the summertime, but we still ministered the Gospel of Jesus to hundreds of souls with open-air preaching, tract distribution and holding forth our Bible signs. I trust the Lord was glorified.

Not much to report tonight. Pastor Tim had a couple of short one-on-one conversations with curious souls, I had but one, and it was of the unprofitable sort. I spent most of our last half-hour of evangelism enduring the ramblings, false charges and diatribes of an annoyed guitar playing pan-handler. The wicked soul was unimpressed with our Bible signs and berated Pastor Tim whilst he tried to preach the Gospel. So I suggested to Pastor Tim that he preach a little further down the street, while I offered myself as a target for the foolish persecutor. It was a long, long twenty minutes I have to say. At first I was called a hypocrite, then a hatemonger, a liar, and to cap things off, I was told that I was just looking to be a martyr to satisfy an ego trip (don't ask how that makes any sense... arguments against the Gospel get pretty wacky when sinners make things up as they go).

We gave out a good number of Gospel tracts tonight. Pastor Tim and I prayed that the Lord would use these throughout the weekend to save the lost.

I thank the Lord for a relatively soft winter night weather wise. It was about -9 Celsius (or 15 Fahrenheit) which is cold, but in Canada, not terrible. I thought I'd be able to make it through the night without heat-packs in my gloves and boots, but that was folly. After an hour in the cold breeze, I sought and found a dry spot in a nearby parking garage where I pulled out a couple of heat packs and threw them in my boots, and two others in my gloves. It did the trick.

Watching many souls walk by tonight, obviously unconverted, I thanked the Lord for saving me. Had it not been for His grace toward me, there would be no difference between the lost souls of the marketplace and myself. Praise God, Jesus died for me!

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)


Rand

Labels: Friday evangelism