Battle Log
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Friday, 21 October, 2011
On Friday evening we had much to thank God for! The Lord truly blessed us with a wonderful time of outreach. Early that morning I received an email from a photography student (Hollly) who mentioned she was doing a project on street preachers and would like to come out and photograph the team in action. I was surprised by her request but saw no reason to say no and so replied saying that it would be no problem.
By the time I reached the cafe later that evening I was encouraged to find Holly waiting for us. Shortly after the team began to arrive and before long we were a good 10 people plus. Holly had a few questions she wanted to ask, in particular what we do on the street and what we say to people. As it turns out Holly is not a Christian and so this was a wonderful opportunity to not only answer her question, but also share the gospel with her. I laid out the gospel as carefully as I could, not speaking to her directly as I might do when I normally witness to someone, but in such a way that she would have a firm grasp on what the gospel is. I was certainly praying for her as I did! I was so encouraged to see her taking notes, and although she was doing this for her project, I was in awe of how the Lord is able to use such diverse ways to bring people into a hearing of the gospel!
As Leicester Square is under some serious new development in preparation for the 2012 Olympics, we have moved to a new location. We are now very close to China Town, which is barely a ten minute walk from Leicester Square. It has proved to be a great location for witnessing and a wonderful spot for open-air preaching too! Although in the area of China Town, there are still plenty of English people about, and it is still typical London in that there are people from every nationality you can think of.
As we were setting up I was thrilled to see that we had a really large team out. We must have been at least 20 people in size. Not all made it to the cafe, but instead joined us at our new spot. I stood up to preach and before long a good size crowd had formed. This was helped by a passionate heckler who really went out of his way to make his voice heard. I do like it when a heckler speaks up as he helps to bring in a crowd. Unfortunately the heckler we had on Friday night, while bringing in a crowd, was also a real handful as it was clear he was determined to be a hindrance to me and the preaching of the gospel. He did this in quite an annoying way by parading in front of me as I addressed the crowd. I have to admit this is something I find difficult to overcome and probably the biggest frustration I have experienced while preaching open-air. Some hecklers stand within the crowd and heckle, that is fine, but when they intentionally come forward and parade in front of you it is very difficult. It was not all bad though. At one point he turned to the crowd and said, “I bet no one here wants to hear this guy,” pointing to me. To my delight a number of people in the crowd responded by saying, “We do!” (Unbeknown to us a party of roughly 15 Christians, on holiday from Wales, were in London and just happened to be passing through as I was preaching. You’d almost think God was somehow involved!) This was great in that it helped to disarm him, although he did not withdraw entirely.
Although he was a significant hindrance, I was able to speak past my heckler to the crowd and share the gospel. After I stepped down from preaching we all got involved in talking with people one-to-one. Holly was taking loads of snaps, we certainly kept her busy! I was so encouraged to see a number of the young girls on the team talking with her and quite a few shared their testimony with her as well, which was just brilliant. Do pray for her. The Lord certainly brought her to us and it really is so wonderful that she has been exposed to the gospel in such a clear way. In the picture below you can see Ymkje sharing the gospel with Holly.
While we continued to speak with people I noticed that our angry heckler was still circling, even though I had finished preaching. I discovered later that his girlfriend is a Catholic and they often have rows over the existence of God. It was clear that he was venting and is angry with God. When God’s Word is preached there often comes hostility, and it is precisely because the gospel is the truth that there is this hostility. Please pray for him.
Holly stayed for quite a while but left with much to think about, I’m sure! I told her we’d love to stay in touch and that she must let us see her project when it is finished!
At the end of the evening we came together in prayer and thanked the Lord for all He had done. It sure was a full evening!
Soli Deo Gloria!
Saturday, 8 October, 2011
This evening Charles, Dewi and myself met at McDonalds to share and chat, before heading over to the Plymouth University. Tonight we had an easil and the 5 intelligence test questions Living Waters use, and we set this up, prayed, then started to hand out our evolution tracts to the many students walking past on their way home or out to clubs. Over the night, many people stopped to ask what the questions were about, as well as us asking people what they were studying and if they thought they were clever enough to take the test.
We ended up chatting to 4 students, which went well, and at the end one of the girls was screwing her face up. It turned out she believed most people went to Heaven, and that God was not as angry at sin as we were making out. Wew tried to reason with her that Gods standards were so much higher than ours, and a good judge should punish a guilty criminal. 2 others of the group also chipped in, but one remained silent the whole conversation. The converation ended up amicable, and I think the silent lad maybe understood more than he was letting on to the others in the group.
3 French men who were in the Navy walked past who had had a bit to drink and were asking us where all the pubs and bars werer, and we ended up having a good chat in broken english, and had a real good discussion with one of them. The other was more interested in us take his photo next to a Police car. Another 2 lads walked past, one of whom had quite a lot to drink, but stopped to speak. The French sailor came back, and we thought there may have been a bit of a scuffle between them, and so I took the semi drunk english guy away from the group and managed to witness to him by himself.
This ended up being an eye opening discussion, with him seeming to open up the more he spoke, and he got quite broken when we reasoned about his sin and judgment day. He ended up crying on my shoulder and he let me pray for him, and I gave him a couple of tracts to read the next day when he sobered up, which he agreed to put in his wallet and read the next day.
It was a great night, and many people walking past said they believed in evolution and so took the tracts out of interest, and many people throughout the night were drawn in by the questions which led to good discussions and sharing the gospel with people.
Saturday 8th October
Today 5 of us met for outreach in the city centre again, and it seemed like another ordinary day, We prayed, and immediatly had some sixth formers who were atheists wanting to chat about the intelligence test questions and scriptures, but who were quite proud and not willing to be reasonable about their sins and the facts of creation, and so I decieded to leave them as they wanted to debate rather than listen.
An elderly gentleman came and did the intelligence test, and said that he was a Christian. So I asked him what he would say to me if I had a knife in my backa nd only 3 seconds to live- what could he share with me so I could know how to go to heaven. He didnt really know what to say, and so I gently went through the commandments in the 3rd person and shared the gospel with him. He said it made sense and thanked us for chatting.
I went to the toilet at Mcdonalds, and came back to find Russel standing on the cool box debating with a lively chareacter who I found out was called Paddy. He had been listening to us that afternoon from a distance, and had decieded to come and make his point of view known. He had also been watching the rugby that day and to him shouting out saying this earth was hell and there was no where you went after you died. He also started doing some dancing, and more and more people came to see what was going on. He had some bags of shopping, and so decieded to sarcasticly get out a loaf of bread and start breaking it up and pretending to feed the 5000 with it. More and more people gathered around to see what he was doing.
After a while Russ let me try and talk with him, and then another angry voice came from behind me, which was an angry young man and his girlfriend whoi were spitting out lots of foul language, saying there was no God, that we came from aliens, and that if there was a God he would not have let his 14yr old friend die a few months ago.
His shouting and anger led to more and more coming to listen, and a massive crowd had now gathered around, seeing the dancing drunk irish man, and the loud angry swearing atheist.
At a conservative guess, between 100-150 people had stretched out in a circle now listening to what was going on, and even some Christian students were standing up against the girl saying her language was so bad it was letting our country down with her foul mouth. I also asked Paddy when he thought he was going to die, and if anything bad had ever happened to him in his life. I managed to stand up and show the crowd the scars on my legs and then gave them something to think about how long they had left in this life before facing God.
Eventually a Police woman came along and politely asked if she could disperse the crowd once we had finished talking with the people, as cars were having to come through the crowd at times. In the end the crowd gave the Irish paddy an applause for his antics, and then lots of people came to talk to us, take tracts, and other Christians ask to find out what Church we were from etc.
Paddy actually turned out to be called Andy and was actually very reasonable once everyone went, and apologised if he caused offence to us, but appreciated what we did and said he would come back again next week if we wanted to help geta crowd. It was a fantastic day with many opportunities to witness to people who were sittting around afterwards and asking what they thought about what was said. Thank God for providing us with the heckler! We will see if he turns up next week :)
Saturday, 24 September, 2011
Tonight the team had about fifteen Christians, this larger than usual number came from God sending an extra sister and some brothers in Christ to join in proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ on Queen Street. I was encouraged to see more Christians out witnessing tonight, because every extra person makes a difference to the entire team.
The preaching line-up was Yarran, Lindsay, Josiah and Ryan. As usual, the authoritative message from God as revealed in the scriptures was proclaimed in the open-air, private conversations, and through the distribution of gospel tracts.
One of the preachers explains: the great and glorious God who has made the world and everything in it, who gives us our very life and being, has not been obeyed by humanity. All have broken God's commandments, including those proclaiming this message, by things such as lying, stealing, getting drunk, having sexual desires for others outside of marriage, by failing to worship God perfectly. God is good and hates and punishes evil, and when left to ourselves, we will receive this punishment in hell for eternity. However, God sent Jesus Christ – fully God and fully man, He lived perfectly in God's eyes, never breaking His commandments. Then He laid down His life willingly through allowing himself to be executed through crucifixion. Jesus did this to take the punishment for the evil of His people, and then rose again to life, giving life to His people. God commands all people everywhere to turn from their evil towards trusting in Jesus Christ for salvation from evil and the wrath of God.
During the gospel proclamation in the open air, a young lady and young man interacted with the preacher. “Have you ever told a lie?”, the preacher says. The young lady hesitates and the preacher asks the young man with her, “Has she told a lie?”, with him responding promptly as witness to her guiltiness. The preacher is quick to explain, “I also have told a lie”, and proceeds to ask further questions. The young man interjects with opposition to God's standard of perfection. Nevertheless, the conversation hastily reveals that like the preacher, the young lady has disobeyed God. A sight that could shock many, that the voices of both the preacher and the young lady reveal that they deserve to spend their eternity in hell under God's punishment for breaking His commands.
Following this, the preacher inquires of the young lady for her knowledge of Jesus, receiving a blank response. Jesus' identity and actions are explained with joy, “Jesus is God's son, fully divine and fully human, He lived perfectly 2000 years ago. He died on the cross in order to take the punishment for people like you and I, those who are His people. He paid the punishment for their evil in full, and rose again from the grave to give them life. Jesus commands you and I to turn away from our evil and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation from God's wrath” The preacher asks, “have you turned from your evil and trusted in Jesus?”
After her voice had responded, she was given a business-sized card that contained a summary of what her ears had already received. With haste the young man took the unknown card and threw it away, in a vain attempt to diminish the power of the message given by God Himself. Promptly, the preacher gave her another card that found rest in her pocket.
How have you responded to the Lord Jesus?
If you have turned from your evil and trusted in Jesus, please gather with the rest of your family in Him to share the message of God's full and complete salvation from sin and His wrath, if you live near Brisbane, please join us in serving our loving God on a Saturday night at 7:30pm in King George Square, Brisbane. If you have questions, please visit us outside Copenhagen/Myer Center on Queen St at 9pm.
Saturday, 17 September, 2011
Belfast- Ireland 17th September 2011
On the weekend I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to Belfast in Ireland to stay with a church we are affiliated with- Forestside Christian Centre, along with 5 others, for fellowship, ministry, evangelism, and invading the 2 Christian book stores for cheap second hand J.C.Ryle books!.
Charles and myself went to the city centre on Saturday, and managed to find about 50 young people all gathered outside the city hall at lunch time. Charles and I prayed, and then for the next hour and a half managed to give out loads of tracts, and witness to lots of the young people.
The young people here were really open to chatting, as most know about Roman Catholicism and Chrisatianity, and therefore have some views on what its all about. People were really polite, said thank you when taking tracts, and managed to give some good feedback.
Some of the young people included a girl who said she was a homosexual, and after a 20 minute discussion with her friends about the natrure of sin etc, her homosexuality didnt come up once, and her silence and friendly handshake afterwards seemed to imply she understood which was great.
The evolution tracts were so easy to give out, just going up to strangers and asking them if they believed that God made people, or if we evolved from a monkey or a missing link? People gave their view, suprisingly most said they thought it was God, and all took the tracts to give them something to think about, about 40 in total.
Charles and myself had a great time, were really encouraged by the openess of the people we chatted with, and hope to go again soon.
Saturday, 10 September, 2011
Exeter Evangelism outreach.
On Saturday I went to Shirley with her daughtrer Esther, and even though the weather wasnt great, we had a coffee, prayed, and then tried to find somewhere quiet to go.
The weather got worse, and together with other buskers, musicians and busses, we couldnt be heard. We moved to our usual spot, and Shirley started to preach, but then a balloon seller that we knew from Plymouth whom we had had some 'encounters' with in the past deceided to pitch right in front of us and block our sign with his balloons.
We knew this was from the enemy, and so deeided to scout around for another place. We then moved to the Cathedral, and found quite a lot of people sitting eating, outside restaurants and mingling at a fair.
I preached first about the story of a woman dreaming she had someone following her, and the more she tried to run through the woods away from him, the more he got closer. Another man was seemingly trying to help her get away from the man who was persuing her. The dream showed in the end that actually the man chasing her was Jesus, and the man trying to help her escape his persuit was actually the Devil.
I said that many people are like the woman in the dream, and are trying to run away from the very person who is trying to help them, and people are co-operating with the Devil, thinking that sin is ok and the Devil is their friend, when actually the roles are reversed.
A few people walked past and started to listen, including a woman with her 2 children. I then said said that many people thought that they were resting and off work that day, but actually according to the Bible if they were not Christians and trying to be good people getting to Heaven without Jesus, then they were actually working and therefore under Gods law and its requirements, along with the punishment for breaking them- death and Hell.
I tried to show from the book of Hebrews that Jesus was the great high Priest and when on the cross he said 'It is finished, he then sat down, signifying a rest for all those that are in him. I went through the commandments and explained that if we had broken them we were guilty, could not pay for our own sins like other religions tried to do, but only through Jesus could we be madfe right with God.
Afterwards the woman came up and explained she was a Christian and that she enjoyed what was said and encouraged us being out there. She said she had heard of Ray Comfort before and seen some of the DVDs etc, so we gavce them some tracts and encouraged them to go on the Livingwaters website to learn more.
Shirley then preached on the amp, and more people started to stop and listen in the background. 4 Older teenagers stopped to listen, and then proceeded to pull out a yellow toy bear, and wrote 'God is dead' in black pen, and stood there waving it around while Shirley spoke. I then wanted to challenge them to what they were saying, and so started to speak again with the microphone.
The teens managed to engage in cobversation and asked some usual questions about proving Gods existence and about poverty and sickness in the world showing there was no God etc.
I tried to reason with them about where thery though morality came from, and if they thought that rape was actually wrong. Sadly one of the girsl thought it may not always be wrong, andf then said that there was no such thing as absolute truth. She fell into the trap of agreeing with me that she was sure there was no such thing as absolute truth, which is obviously a contradiction in terms. This made me laugh and her mad when I stated this to everyone, which then led to them becoming more agitated, leading more p[eople to come alongside and listen. It turned out this included 2 lesbians, an older man that was bisexual, a man walking past saying the Catholic church had corrupted the Bible and that it didnt say what it used to say and had been chaged down through the years, an angry atheist walking past and shouting, a group of 5 teenagers, a teenage girl asking open and honest questions about her friend being homosexual but not wanting to be and so was that a sin, a woman whose 'Christian' x- boyfriend had gotten her pregnant, left her and now wanted her to have an abortion, as well as questions about the big bang, and 2 other elderly Christians listening and chatting to people.
This led to about 20-25 people gathering around, shouting out, and many questions, discussions and comments being made. It was great, and afterwards led to many tracts being handed out, witnessing, pointing people to the Bible and websites, as well as the 2 elderly Christians help witness to people about the Bible and Hell etc. The big Cathedral behind us was a great springboard to talk about design vs evolution and what was the more scientific, a Creator who is outside of time and all powerful creating things, or things happening by chance, randomly, from nothing, which gave a couple of the teenagers something to think about.
It was fantastic and really left us encouraged that moving to that spot had really opened things up compared to previouysly struggling that morning, and we now know it will be a great place to go again. God directed many people towards our path that day, and we pray people will understand their depth of sin and its consequences and see their need for a Saviour.
Saturday, 3 September, 2011
On Saturday3rd September, Rob and Andrew came down from London and Essex for the weekend for evangelism and fellowship to Plymouth.
We met up in the city centre with Tony, Russ, Shirley and Charles and prayed, before starting to distribute tracts around.
Shirley preached first on why Jesus was the only way to heaven, with a few people walking past making snyde comments. Russel has a big wooden cross which he brings and this gets people looking and commenting a lot. I then preached on why people seem to ignore the gospel call, and outlining the many reasons people may give for rejecting it, and how these do not make sense. I had also mentioned John 8 where Jesus said that those who think they can see are actually blind, but those that acknowledge their blindness will actually be given sight. Many people claim to know the truth and think they are good enough without God, but only those who have been humbled by Gods law and recognise thier own spiritual poverty and sin will actually be saved and will 'see the light'.
Several people walked past and commented, one such man usig some fruitful language. I tried to speak to him directly as he went past and we had a bit of a dialogue as he heckled, which got some peoples attention.
I had a good chat with a man and his son who walked past and read the easils we put up with scripture, who thought that we had come here through chance and society had made the rules of morality and whats right and wrong in life. I tried to reason with him that if the universe was random chaosa, that would mean his thoughts and logic would also be random and disordfered, and so could he actually trust his reasoning in that case? I also mentioned that morality and truth must have an objective origin, or else societies views would all be relevant to the individual involved, andno one could have things such as absolute truth. I used ther case of rape being wrong as an absolute statement, and we discussed why. I then tried to bring it back to his conscience,a nd upon going through some of the 1o commandments he acknowledged that if Gods word was true he would currently be going to Hell.
He seemed to weant to know the good news, and so I shared the gospelo with him and gave them a tract which he took, and was a good conversation.
Later on Charles preached on the megaphone, and a few more people showed their discust.
Everyone had good discussions with people, including 2 new medical students who had stopped to listen. AQfter a 15 minute conversation they seemed to understand and we went quite deep into the gospel and what it meant for the 2 of them if they responded or rejected Jesus' hand of salvation. They seemed to appreciate this and went away with tract6s and somethings to both think about. We had lunch, before Rob preached at the top of the city centre by the mall, which has great acoustics with people walking in and out.
A bit of a battle ensued with Rob and a Big issue seller, with him making some unhelpful comments while Rob was preachin, with him getting louder and louder, with a few people stopping in the distance and listening, again with tracts being given out. Andrew then managed to witness to him at the end and have a good conversation with him, and actually siad he was a pleasant man!
It was a great day of fellowship, conversations and lots of Op 513 million pound note tracts and Nigel Williams great thoughtful tracts and million euro notes went out, which concluded with prayer at the end.
WE felt the message was proclaimed lovingly, truthfully, but also with a message of urgency, which may look to people at times as religious fanatacism, but if people truly knew their plight, noting less would surely be expected.
In the words of Shai Linne, and 2 Corinthians 5 v 21, the gospel is amazing, as 'like a stuntmant, Jesus Christ stood in our place'
Saturday, 27 August, 2011
Never to disappoint, Saturday night again proved to be quite eventful! There were a few of us out tonight, which was good because it was football night and the fans were loud and proud.
I was the first one up to preach and I decided to open with Romans 6:23 ”For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. We live in a society that understands the concept of an owing wage, many people live for their weekly paycheck! Here we learn that the wage for our rebellious attitude towards God is death. Death is a punishment we deserve and is owed on the basis of our failure to worship and serve our Creator God. Earlier in the book of Romans we are told that “none is righteous, no, not one” and “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. Sin is universally participated in by humanity and therefore we are all deserving of death. Since we are all guilty of sinning against God, we all face this. But Romans 6:23 also points to a free gift of eternal life. How do you receive this? Through Jesus Christ. 2000 years ago Jesus came to earth for a purpose to “save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21) Jesus did this by living the perfect life we couldn’t live before laying his life down and dying on the Cross and rising from the dead 3 days later. He did this in order to take the hell- punishment for the sins of his people. God commands you to turn from your sin, repent and place your faith in Christ and his righteousness. Those who have done this show their heart has been changed and have been born again, assured of eternal life.
It wasn’t long before some hecklers arrived. First up was a lady who claimed to be a pagan. She did not want to listen or engage in conversation. Instead, she just wanted to protest. Despite her abuse, the plus side was that her protests attracted an audience which enabled more people to hear the Gospel. However, her friend was a lot more aggressive and began screaming for me to stop preaching. Lindsay and Yarran stepped in front of me to try and calm the guy down, which worked for a time. However, he would walk off and then come back again and scream his abuse. After a couple of rounds he became increasingly violent, grabbing my shirt and trying to pull me off the box. At this point the Police had been called and he made no further attempts to attack me.
As Lindsay stepped up to preach, he came back again. This time he was jumping in the garden behind Lindsay and looked like he might launch himself to knock Lindsay off the box. By this time, the Police had arrived and they were quick to remove the man from injuring himself or others around him. After giving testimonies to the Police, the man was removed and his lady friend also. This ended our initial opposition and the rest of the night went without a hitch.
I was able to spend a good majority of what was left of the night doing some one-to-ones and handing out tracts with Aaron. I was able to talk the Gospel through with a Samoan group who said they occasionally go to church. It was a fruitful conversation and they all took tracts and were given free Bibles. I also had a conversation with a fellow who trusted in Science, even though he wasn’t sure what answers Science actually gave him. It was good that he was willing to listen as I explained that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation…I think he took a tract as well.
It certainly is a challenging time as each week presents new struggles. Lately, we have had a pretty consistent team of preachers and people handing out tracts. However, with a recent increase in violence we have had to be extra cautious in dealing with aggressive hecklers. Again, we are fortunate to freely proclaim the Gospel and speak the message of Salvation. Praise God for His works!
Saturday, 13 August, 2011
Today Peter Ruck and I hit Brentwood town center. After prayer we both walked up to the main street and began to hand out many tracts. Peter had a few conversations with some people who were sitting on the seats near the ruins and I too, managed to speak to a number of people. Firstly it was a young girl named Taylor who said that during the last few weeks various people had been talking to her about Jesus and giving her Bibles etc. We discussed the Law of God and the need for Jesus death for forgiveness of sin. She appeared to be taking these truths seriously, perhaps God is drawing her to salvation! The second person I spoke to was a young guy named Grant. He just wanted to "live life while He's got it" and we discussed the notion of Divine Justice for law breakers. He agreed that people will be held accountable for their sins, but didn't want to think of the penalties he will incur at the moment. He did take a tract at the end, may God break his capricious spirit! The last gentleman I spoke to was a Dave. He was a Scotsman who had a Presbyterian up bringing. We discussed the Law, condemnation and Jesus' death for those who repent and believe. Dave didn't seem to take much interest. I reminded him that even if he didn't believe the Bible was true, it wasn't going to change the reality of Gods judgment on His and everyone's sin. I think he tuned into what we were talking about then and even thanked me for chatting to him. SDG
Saturday, 13 August, 2011
Atheists. Aggressive hecklers. Police: A fairly typical Saturday night at Queen st. mall. Nonetheless, a great opportunity for the message of Salvation to be proclaimed.
It was a full moon tonight. I was the first one to preach and it wasn’t long before a small group of our atheist friends arrived. Fortunately they weren’t as vocal this early in the evening and the Gospel was preached for a small time unhindered. One of them sarcastically made a comment, “What did Jesus actually on the Cross? Did he really do anything?” This was an excellent springboard for the Gospel so I was able to explain how humanity is under the just anger of God because of the evil we commit against him and therefore we are all deserving of punishment in hell. However, Jesus Christ lived a perfect life and was the perfect sacrifice when he lay his life down for the sins of his people, taking their punishment upon himself. Praise be to God who changes the hearts of sinful man, granting them to turn from their sin and trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection in order for them to stand blameless before God, on account of Christ, and receive eternal life! Unfortunately my voice gave way after a short time so I stepped down for Alex to preach.
Alex was the second preacher up and had the pleasure of dealing with hecklers for the majority of the time. The typical questions/assertions were employed by the Atheists as the basis for their arguments against the Truth. “Other than the Bible what proof do you have that God exists?”, “Prove that Jesus rose from the dead….no you can’t use eyewitness testimony, that is invalid”, “Can God make a burrito so hot that he cannot eat it?”. There were, however, some good questions that were asked. One of them, was to the effect of, “If one man in his whole life only stole a loaf of bread and another was a mass murderer, would they both go to hell?” Again, this provided the opportunity to explain the Gospel and warn of the coming judgment. James 2:10-11 tells us that “whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said “Do not commit adultery”, also said, “Do not murder”. If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the Law”. Likewise, the man who is not a murderer but is a thief is accountable as a person who is guilty of disobeying the commands of a holy God who demands justice. So then, we are all equally deserving of hell.
Our 3rd preacher for the evening was a new-comer to OP13, named John. Ryan spotted him preaching alone not far from where our usual spot is and invited him to join us. He eagerly jumped up on the box and preached for a small time, imploring people to repent and turn to Jesus.
Next up was Ryan, who also had a good crowd of hecklers whose questions Ryan was able to answer. As is often the case, the later it gets the more people there seems to be and while this is a great opportunity for the Gospel, it also carries the danger of drunken people getting aggressive. Unfortunately Ryan was the target of such aggression. It seems that a person in the crowd was offering money for someone to punch/kick Ryan. One of them obliged and made an attempt to kick Ryan but did not make full contact. The police were called but the guys responsible had fled. Bek managed to capture them on camera and fortunately Ryan was uninjured. This sort of opposition has become increasingly regular over the last few months. Praise God no serious harm has befallen any of us but it is a demonstration of peoples hatred towards this message and towards God.
By this time it was getting close to 12:00 so I finished up, preaching for 15 mins.
We are blessed to be able to proclaim this great message of Salvation each week, uniting together in the hope we share. There were some good one-on-one conversations over the course of the night and many tracts handed out. Despite the occurrence of events, the Gospel was proclaimed faithfully and many people heard it although we have no power to convert people but it is God who draws his sheep and it is He who is glorified! How unfathomable that God would use sinful men to proclaim the message of Salvation to sinful men?
Friday, 29 July, 2011
Friday evening was a truly blessed time for the team. We met in the cafe at 7pm and enjoyed a time of fellowship and Bible study before heading out to the Square. During our Bible study we looked at Romans 12:9-21, which is such a tremendous passage. It details the marks of a true Christian and is summed up with this verse: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” When we are out on the street we come across much evil, but the goodness of God will always triumph over evil, and in that we can rejoice.
Arriving in the square our team consisted of Andrew, James, Rhea, Roman and myself. After praying together I stood up to preach. You can see below a sort clip from my message. I emphasised our need to get right with God, that we are not an accident and have indeed been made by God, but tragically we have fallen in sin and so we stand condemned before a just and holy God. God, however, is also a God of love, and He offers forgiveness in Jesus Christ. He offers it to all and calls on everyone to repent of their sin and trust in His Son. Some did stop to listen and as a result a number of conversations began.
I had some really encouraging conversations. One in particular was with a young man from France. He was a delight to talk to and really showed some interest in what I was saying. He mentioned that he had looked into Christianity but was not convinced concerning the reliability and authority of the Bible, particularly when we see so many other religions in this world. He also believes that the Bible has been changed and modified over the years. 
I explained to him that this is not true. We do have many translations of the Bible, but each of these translations have come from the same collection of manuscripts (the same source), namely, manuscripts written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. We spoke at length about this but I realised that I would need to send him some information for him to look at, so I asked if I could email him later. He welcomed this, which was very encouraging. He also took some tracts before he left and so do pray that his heart would be open to the Gospel. I have since emailed him about the veracity of the Bible and I hope to hear back from soon.
A little later in the evening we were joined by Kofi, Kwabena and Kwadwo. I really love these guys, three brothers that love the Lord and come out each week to share the Gospel. They got stuck right into things and started talking with people andhanding out tracts. Below is a little snippet from Kwadwo regarding a conversation he had:
"On Friday I had a really long talk with one individual and both Rhea and Andrew came and joined in to talk to him. He was on a two day stay from Germany and claimed that he was a Christian but recently began to think that God does not exist and now at the age of 22 he was pretty set on thinking that there is not a God so he doesn't need to worry about judgement after he dies. So we emphasised that he should listen to his conscience and that deep down he knows that there really is a God.
When we showed him that he has sinned against a holy God he disputed certain matters such as lying as not sining because it doesn't hurt anybody, but eventually he did see how it is sin to God as it breaks God's law and then we gave him the Gospel before answering the many questions he had. Before we left him he said he would certainly think about what we have said but he continually insisted that we could not convince him with which we continually answered of course we can’t, only God can. That was the main conversation i got into and I believe that Thomas went away thinking about the questions that had played on his mind earlier on."
Everybody on the team was involved in a number of conversations throughout the evening, which was brilliant. At around 10:30pm we left the square and went and sat in Burger King, enjoying some hot food and giving feedback to one another from the time we’d had. We have been running with this format for a few weeks now and it’s really helpful for everyone.
It’s great to share those encouraging conversations we’ve all had and to talk about the challenges we faced and the objections we struggled to answer. Friday night is definitely great training ground for all of us and it helps to equip and prepare us for those conversations we are fortunate to have later in the week.
Do continue to pray for the work of Operation 513 London.
Soli Deo Gloria!
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