Battle Log

Thursday 8 January 2009

Posted by Posted 16 January 2009, 10:59 PM by David Gee. Permalink

In the cold and dark of the post Christmas and new years period there often few people around of an evening. At the same time there are some that are out and I believe God puts them in our path to bring them to know the truth. This has been born out again and again in my experience of work in Sheffield's streets.

I was joined but John who had been witnessing for 4 hours when I arrived from work at 7.15pm. He was mid discussion with a couple that were obviously drunk and the lady of the two was busy justifying her sin when I arrived. I briefly tried to speak with the man but the conversation did not get far as he was very drunk.

After they left (praise God with tracts in their pockets) a regular heckler as such arrived and Momen and I began to discuss what a Muslim would do with the words of Jesus when He claims to be God in flesh. In particular we addressed the passage of John 5:21ff, and in typical Muslim style Momen began by taking one small part of the passage and saying that that obviously means that Jesus was not claiming to be God. We struggled back and forth on this for some time, I tried very hard to make clear to him the doctrine of the Trinity but I fear that much I said was lost on him due probably to my poor explanation. An athiest friend of Momen's arrived and they left together.

While I had been discussing with Momen, John had began discussing with a pair of young men and they were taking in turns to shout at him their objections to God and Jesus Christ. I jumped in to engage one of them and John continued to have a discussion with the young man that appeared more willing to listen. Both of these blokes were very angry but this one was very angry and full of curses and blasphemes against God. The reason why was that they had buried their friend of 18 that day and nothing was going to stop the pain and angery that they felt. Arguments were not working in reasoning with him but compassion stopped him and I hope made him think twice about what we stand for. While I didn't get to speak with him much about Christ I pray that God would graciously open his heart to the tract he left with and that in repentant faith he would be healed and saved.

Around this time Jim, Carl and Jemma all arrived and we had a time of prayer together. Interestingly Momen arrived while we prayed and hung around close by, so Jim bless him "preached" while praying so that Momen heard the gospel one more time. Afterwards a rather cold John headed off to warm up and we stayed to hand out tracts and speak to people. Jim and Momen began to discuss and debate again and after a while they went to look at a manuscript at Momen's house.

The remaining three of us handed out many more tracts and after a long period of this prayed together and then headed home.

View previous Sheffield report (12 December 2008)