Battle Log

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Saturday, 3 July, 2010

We met a cafe nero Brentwood High st, for a quick revision of what the Gospel was and how we ought preach it.  The team consisted of Ruth, Nina and myself (Andrew).  After a brief chat and prayer we headed to the main pedestrian areas to try converse with people.

We all found people rather unresponsive but still managed to hand many tracts out.  I happened to run into a hare krishna who was also handing out books and chatting to folk.  Initially he didn't want to talk to me but after I offered to by a copy of the bhagavad gita he opened up a little. 

His name was Prima and he was born into a hare krishna family. 

It was evident that Prima didnt like discussing the nature of truth or whether hare krishna beliefs were objectively valid, so I took the conversation very carefully so as not to challenge him with too much too quickly.  Surprisingly to me, he use certain Christian terms like "sin" and "repentance" and they appeared to carry the same definitions.

The major differences arose when the Moral Law was discussed and how one atones for their law breaking.  Prima felt that God was going to turn a blind eye to his sin and I gently tried to explain from Isa 64.6 and Mark 7.20-23 that both he and I are more wicked than he is concluding.  He felt that chanting his krishna lines dissolved his sin and he would get to a higher consciousness. 

Prima took a tract and I left him with a number of things to consider, but I'm quite certain he is very closed to the Gospel at this moment.  Only the Holy Spirit can do this impossible work!! Lord grant Prima repentance!!!  Amen.

Saturday, 19 June, 2010

This saturday I was reluctant to go up the street and witness.  I was tired and I had things to do, the weather was patchy rain and I figured I was the only person going up the high st to evangelize.  Well, I was the only person on the high st evangelizing but I had one of the best afternoons sharing the gospel yet...

I began with handing tracts out and eventually two young teenagers both called Tom stopped and chatted.  They really seemed to be listening to my words and clearly perceive the weightiness of the matter.  They both took more tracts and I encouraged them to read their Bibles and seriously consider the problem of sin and eternal punishment vs repentance and faith. 

I next encountered a young man named Mark who was hanging with his emo friends.  He got a concise Gospel message and when his friends came over to see what I was talking to him about, they all got tracts and a brief Gospel message too.  Next a young man named Adam stopped to see if He was a "Good Person".

It turns out he use to go to church but since moving out of his parents house, he seemed to have fallen away from fellowship.  (I am guessing he may have been a false convert or just never submitted to Christ in the first place) The Law and the Gospel was discussed and he had much to think about afterwards. 

I also met another local pastor who was very keen to hook up and chat regarding evangelism.  I am always keen to see local churches unite to continue the Great Commission of our Lord.

Before I went to leave, I saw a lady from my church that I had recently met.  Her is Jane Robb and she is 62.  She suffers from arthritis but still spends 3 days a week evangelizing the people who sit on the benches in the high st.  A further 3 days in the week she stays at home and studies the Bible and Sundays are for Church!  She has been doing this bench evangelism for 10 years. I felt very humbled and encouraged to see someone so passionate to share Christ in their later years.

Even though I was sharing Christ solo, I was blessed by having some of the best and most enjoyable conversations with many locals in my town.  May God grant repentance, Amen.

Friday, 25 June, 2010

Tonight was the first time we have had the Gold Coast team on a Friday night. We made the change because more people seem to be available on Friday nights than on Saturday afternoons.

The car was packed as we made our way to Surfers Paradise for a 7pm outreach start. When we were trying to find a park, we noticed that there were a lot more cars, so once we finally found a spot, we had to walk quite a bit further to get to Cavill Ave.

Once Josh, Jeremy, Bekk and I arrived, we met up with Rick, Joel, Kyosti, Oliver and Blake. We firstly sought out the best place to preach. For our usual spot is not good at night, as it is not lit up, so not many people hang around that part. We chose a spot in the middle of Cavill, but then a busker decided to start setting up right next to us before we started preaching.

So we decided to go down to the bottom of the mall outside Hard Rock Cafe, and this seemed like a perfect location. For there was enough room for a crowd to gather, and there was lots of people flowing through.

After a time in prayer, Jeremy was the first man up to preach. He did a great job proclaiming loudly the message of the gospel. During this time, the same busker who had started setting up while we were at the other area came over and started setting up next to us here! So Josh went over to him to let him know that we got to this spot first and it wouldn't really work with both of us being here. He agreed, and then went to another spot.

I then got up to preach and a bunch of young girls began to heckle. I asked them whether they thought they'd go to Heaven and they thought they would because they are good people. After going through the commandments with them, they realised that they didn't deserve Heaven and that wasn't good news to their ears. So some of them wanted to leave, but I was able to quickly get the gospel in before they left. Some of the girls returned later however.

After I finished preaching, another busker came and was starting to set up his amps. I went over to him and said that it wouldn't really work having both of us here at the same time. We told him that we'd be here till 10pm. He was only allowed to busk till 10pm, so we made an agreement that we'd stop preaching at 9:30pm, and he'd get a good solid half hour after that to play without us preaching nearby.

By this time, Josh had already started preaching. After not too long, Josh had a vocal heckler that was asking questions like, "If God is loving, why did He make Hell?" and saying things like "Since we've all sinned, we all deserve Hell, so why are you preaching?" Josh was able to repond to his questions and then start going through the commandments with him. But as he was getting to the gospel, two police officers came over and had a chat to Josh. They were wondering whether the hecklers were giving him grief. Josh said no. They said they had received a few complaints, but then said that there was nothing wrong with us preaching here. They mentioned that they could hear Josh preaching all the way down the street. Josh took that as a great complement. They then suggested to Josh to maybe lower his voice level down just a touch.

Thank you to the Gold Coast Police for giving us permission to preach.

Here is a video of the events that took place:

As the police were leaving, Josh started preaching again. However, the busker then just started playing his music, way before our agreed time. So Josh had to preach at his loud voice level again to try and compete with the amp that the busker had. It was very hard to compete with him. And once Jeremy preached after Josh, it was very difficult to hear the preacher. So we decided to just hand out tracts and have one2one conversations until the busker left.

After the busker left, Blake then got up a preached the message of the gospel faithfully, even while having a few hecklers asking him questions.

It was a great night overall! Praise God for His faithfulness. Friday nights 7pm-10pm is the perfect time to have this team.

Sunday, 27 June, 2010

Some lovely weather in PLymouth in the past couple of weeks has enabled me to be able to go out with the new Living waters million Euro World Cup tract which people have enjoyed taking as a souvenier which has been great, especially young people- even though England and Australia are out of the world cup :( .

One weekday afternoon I only had one million pound tract left, and so wanted to give it to someone, and saw someone whom again I wrongly thought may not be interested as he was listening to headphones by himself. Levi was 21 and was sat outside the Apple Iphone store on lunch break. I offered him a tract and we got into conversation- he turned out to be agnostic and was very open to talking and said he hadnt really thought much about where he would go when he died. He understood through the use of the Law that he would deserve hell, but then I went on to share the gospel with him and reason with him about the need to get right with God today as again showing the scars from my accident, explained that no one is invincible and 3 people a second die everyday around the world. He seemed greatful and gave me a great joy that God had set our conversation in place that day.

I went to help with a church youth group, and decided to take 3 of the lads on a drive to the seafront in my van, and we saw a group of kids 'tombstoning', that is jumping off a very high wall into the sea below which is extremly perilous and people have been seriously injured there before. I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk about what woulod they think may happen to them if they died, which could happen if they carried on doing this?

 A curly haired kid said he had to rescue a girl who jumped and landed in the water wrongly, and so knew how dangerous it was. I again showed them the 'sharkbite' scars on my leg and went on to go through the 10 commandmnets, judgment and hell, and then asking them what thewy learnt about Christmas and Easter at school and shared the gospel with them. The curly haired kid said he was 'getting it' and said it mader sense what was said. There were about 8 13-16yr olds there and so was hard to get them to talk in front of their mates, but they all took a tract and said they would go home and read it again which was great.

One Saturday afternoon in town I bumped into 4 Muslims in the city centre who spoke arabic and broken english- they were students/ in the navy from what I could gather, and again the million euro notes were a good ice breaker to start talking. Again, they believed they had to be good people to get to heaven, but they believed that people who were bad would go to hell, bad muslims included, and so gave me an opportunity to use the law to show how we cant keep it, it was there to send us to Christ, not to try and make us morally righteous, explaining that breaking it just once means were guilty of breaking all of it (James 2 v 10). As is other conversations people may have had with Muslims, they didnt believe Jesus died on a cross as the Koran told them so, but I tried to reason how the Koran was written at least 350yrs after Jesus was crucified and so their information was not true. It was quite hard to get across what I was trying to say because of the language barrier, and unfortunatly the new GM28 Living waters evangelism application for the iphone does not yet have arabic, but I gave them tracts to take to read.

One sunday afternoon I went to a pub with friends from Church, and I left a million Euro tract with the lady behind the bar. A few minutes later she came out, obviously looking rather stressed, asking me what this was. I explained to her it was a gospel tract, and she said why I thought she needed it. I said that I was a Christian and that if she weas not a Christian, then if she died in her sins she would end up in hell, and becuase I cared for her thats why I wanted her to read it. She then said that she was a Christian, and was most distressed that it was pretending to be money, but was actually something else (even though it has a characature of David Beckham on the front and there is no such thing as a million euro note).

She then went on to say she had read the tract, but said she believed everyone went to heaven when they died (even Hitler I said?), andf that her God was a God of love. I then asked why she thinks she should go to heaven, and she said because God is her heavenly father anhd loves everyone. Then in the conversation she went on to say she thinks Jehovas witnesses will be in heaven, just bgecause they believe in God, and so I tried to reason with her about what Jesus said about there being only one way, and you having to understand who Jesus is rightly, which Jehovas witnesses dont. I then asked her if she was born again? This made her even more annoyed, and she splurted out no way was she born again, she knew some people who were and she would never associate herself with them. So I then said to her straight, that because I cared about her and wanted her to klnow the truth, she was not a Christian and was not saved- referring to John 3 v 3. In more of the converasation she said she thought the Bible was just guidelines and not to be taken literally. In the end she went back inside, but I asked what church she went to, and if weveryone there belived the same as she did, and she said yes, and that she attended an Anglican Church down the road, so I said one day I would come down and visit!

On saturday 26th August, I drove Shirley and her friend called Pat to Glastonbury festival, where we hoped it would be busy and could give out loads of tracts to people etc. We ended up just staying in the town centre and set up our table by a memorial where we had free tracts, ESV BIbles etc to hand out and people to take.

Throughout the day we all had some very interesting conversations with people- a group of 7 lads all the way from Liverpool , tracts given to every other shop which sold crystals, charms, offered healing, pyschic readings etc which gave us the creeps, and a group of locals who were getting drunk and laying in the flower beds, playing guitars and smoking weed. They were quite open to talking though, and took some tracts as we sat by them. It was a very interesting day, extremly hot, but we were an encouragement to a couple of people who walked past who were Christians in the area. 

I went to  get anot h e r ticket on my parking, and saw a lady reading the stickers on my van. I asked her if she thought they made sense, and she said yes, so we chatted about things and she revealed she no longer went to Church as she used to attend a Roman Catholic school when a child, and some horrible things were done to her there by one of the Roman Catholic priests. I felt saddened, and tried to explain that Roman Catholicism and Christianity were different, but she would not take a tract and left.

There is a lot of darkness up there, and so hopefully we were some spiritual light to them that day. Next weekend were in Truro for a Noel Richards concery where we are part of the prayer team afterwards and giving out tracts and information so should be an interesting report next week.

May Jesus be praised and save some of the people who we spoke to that day!

Saturday, 19 June, 2010

 Saturday, 12th June, 2010 

I was running late for the city tonight, but Ryan was able to cover me. Upon arrival, I found that we had a serious preaching problem. Normally we need three preachers to get us through the night, but this night we only had two. Blake had lost his voice so was unable to preach. But by God’s grace Ryan and I would be able to preach through the night.

After a bit of a discussion Ryan got up first and began to preach. Following the usual outline, Ryan preached and Wayne heckled.

For over an hour Ryan preached and dealt with a few hecklers. Wayne had some good arguments tonight on does the bible contradict itself, and he even produced arguments I have never heard of before. But a quick study of the texts showed that there was no contradiction, but full points to Wayne for effort.

During Ryan’s open air, I was able to have a discussion with a man who has study the Bible with Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons and other cults. He was telling me about his Hebrew and Greek studies, but it soon became clear that his understanding of the original languages wasn’t very good. He, like Wayne, wanted to show the Bible is full of contradiction, but each one he produced showed the Scripture had no internal errors.

At about 11:15pm Ryan finished preaching and during this time there were some great one to ones occurring. If you looked around our section of the Queen Street mall you couldn’t help but notice that the team was locked in many spiritual conversations.

At 11:30pm I stood to preach and nearly straight away Wayne began to heckle. He used the same old arguments, so I answered and presented the Gospel. Then about five older hecklers arrived, all of who were drunk out of their skull. They began to slur and heckle, I couldn’t understand what they were on about, but they were convinced of something.

Monday, 14th June, 2010

“God save our gracious Queen, Long live our noble Queen, God save the Queen! Send her victorious, Happy and glorious, Long to reign over us, God save the Queen!”

The Queen’s birthday public holiday was here, many people were off work and going to the city for the day, so we decided to head in and talk about the King of Kings.

Jeremy, Blake (with voice back) and I caught the train into Central. Shortly after getting on the train we noticed a couple of men hop on also. One of them had the biggest crucifix you have ever seen and he was reading Augustine. We picked them as being from the local Catholic seminary so we got a Catholic tract out ready for them. A few stations later when they got off Blake handed it to them. They have read it and since sent an angry email. Please pray for them.

As we were coming into central station I thought it would be a good idea to preach for about 90 seconds between stations. So I stood up and began to share the gospel. At the mention of Jesus one man stormed out of the carriage into another, but the rest of the people listened and many took tracts afterwards. One man even walked up and shook my hand at the end of the preaching.

By now we were at central station, so we made our way into the city centre. As we approached King George Square we ran across a lady (we think) sitting on a chair with a sign sprouting how we aren’t to think but feel (I wonder if she used thought to write the sign). I questioned her a bit on her belief, she didn’t have many answers and in the end she promised to read a tract. Please keep her in prayer.

After this we went and preached on Elizabeth street. Jeremy was the preacher and he did some good preaching. It was good to see him get up and preach again. He is quite a gifted speaker, may God use him for His glory.

Saturday, 12 June, 2010

The Gold Coast team usually meets from 12pm-3pm each Saturday, but today we decided to push the start and finish times one hour earlier. The reason for this was that two people who join us on the streets occasionally at the Gold Coast were getting married today - Dan & Simonie. Congratulations to them both!

So at the earlier start time, we had Blake, Bekk and I who met together. After a time of prayer, we read from Ephesians 1. Since it was earlier in the day, there were not as many people about. However, soon after starting to hand out tracts, two performers decided to do some antics in our usual preaching area. This drew a small crowd of onlookers, and so we were able to hand tracts out to the crowd.

I thought I would take the opportunity of the gathered crowd to preach, so once the performers were gone, I stood up to preach. I started off by talking about the soccer World Cup that was coming up. Many people have been counting down to it for years. Some have bought flags, their team's fan gear, plane tickets to see the matches and so on. The broadcaster who won the rights to show the Wolrd Cup on US TV screens had to pay 400 million dollars for it. Yet while the World Cup is a massively-popular event, there are some people in the world who haven't been looking forward to it. And some may not even know that there is such an event. But there is an event coming up that no one will miss. A day bigger than the World Cup, that every one will know about it when it arrives. And that is the return of Jesus. I then went on to speaking about the Judgement that will occur at Jesus' return, the fact that we have all sinned and deserve Hell, and that Jesus died on the cross for all those who would repent and believe.

At about miiday, Rick and Glenda arrived, along with Emma. This was Emma's first time out on the streets after only becoming a Christian not too many months ago. She did a great job for a first timer.

One conversation that Bekk and I was with two young ladies. When I asked them that if they were to die tonight would they go to Heaven, one responded by saying, "No, our souls will sleep until the return of Jesus. Then we'll go to Heaven." By their answer I could tell that they would either be Jehovah's Witnesses or 7th Day Adventists. They were 7th Day Adventists. They had no qualms in admitting that they live in sin and have no interest in turning from that sin. For they said that God does not mind them living that way, for God will let them into Heaven anyway.

So I warned them that Jesus said a person must repent to be saved. They responded by saying that even though they are 7th Day Adventists, they are not born again. They said they plan on doing that later in life, and the way that happens is by water baptism. We pointed to them John 3 where Jesus says that unless a person is born again, they will not enter the kingdom of God. Being born again is not an optional extra, it is required. We then corrected their misunderstanding about what they think being born again is. It is not water baptism, it is something spiritual - where a person dies to their old self and comes to be alive in Christ and they receive the Holy Spirit.

But they wouldn't have a bar of it. They expressed clearly that they had no intention of turning from their sin, and yet thought they would still enter Heaven. All we could do is warn them again about what the Bible teaches - that a person must repent and trust not in their baptism to enter Heaven or any other good work, but only the death of Jesus for their forgiveness.

Blake at this point in time was talking to two Jewish guys, and as the conversation progressed, the amount of people listening to his conversation increased. So he eventually had a crowd of people surrounding him listening in. Blake mentioned that some of them after hearing the gospel were very convicted.

Since I preached earlier in the day, there hadn't been a preacher up for a little bit. So Rick decided to get up on the block and doing some preaching. He did a great job in proclaming the awesome truth about Christ paying for the sins of His people.

During this time, Glenda got in a great witnessing encounter with a man who was riding a bike. She said the conversation went for about an hour and the man was very challenged and was soaking in everything she said. Praise God!

To God be the glory!

Friday, 4 June, 2010

Friday night saw a great team turn-out, which was really encouraging. Along with myself the team comprised of Barney, Beth, Laurence, Rebekka, Sohail, Michael Prendergast, Michael Powell, and Philip and Suzanne – totalling 10 evangelists. Both Michael’s, and Philip and Suzanne, met us when we arrived in the Square.

I decided to preach first and began by commenting on how great a day it had been weather wise. I encouraged people to agree with me that the day had indeed been a fabulous day. I then appealed to people’s world-views and asked them what they thought of the world. To what do they attribute the beauty that we see? Do they put it down to the handiwork of an awesome Creator, or is the beauty we see simply the result of a cosmic accident? I laid a solid case for a Creator and then went straight to the Scriptures and pointed out how the Bible provides us with a framework from which we can understand and make sense of the world. The Bible is a book that makes perfect sense in light of all we see and experience in the world, and although the heart of man is closed to it, God’s Word brings hope and redemption for all who receive its message, but condemnation and judgement for all who reject it.

After I finished a number of conversations began through the aid of the preaching. Barney in particular has become quite good at spotting those who stop to listen and then engaging in conversation with them. It is a sure testament to the importance and value of open-air preaching. As I was getting ready to approach some people a chap I have spoken to a number of times before came up to speak to me. He believes strongly in the theory of evolution and has concluded that there is no God and that science is able to explain our existence and all of human experience. We became locked in conversation and began to debate at quite a pace. While it was good that I did speak to him I have realised that I made a number of mistakes in this conversation. Firstly, I spent far too much time with him. He had an “arsenal” of objections and “facts” that he believed proved evolution and no sooner would I tackle one that he would bring up another. Had I left the conversation earlier I could have spoken with a number of other people that were more open to hearing the Gospel and the Word of God. It was a lesson learnt and a mistake I hope not to repeat again. I do believe the enemy had an arm in this and that being distracted in this way is a tactic he uses often! We must be on our guard and recognise when we are in situations like these.

While I was engaged in conversation Andrew stood up to preach. I was not able to hear all that he said but it was clear and he preached faithfully the Gospel and he declared to all who would hear the full counsel of God.

The following was written by Laurence and describes the conversations that he had: “Last night I ended up talking to two sets of Catholics; the first two were two young ladies the other two were a couple. I found myself led on both occasions to ask them whether they have ever fully repented.  Both times two people honestly declared that they hadn't; once I explained what genuine repentance was. Especially one of the young ladies seemed incredibly honest about her struggles in understanding God and accepting that Jesus can forgive her of her sins; she said she understood that Grace is a gift, and that we cannot please God by 'good' works. Although she said she knew God she didn't suggest that she ever really submitted her life to God in repentance, she could see what was missing in own her confession of knowing God. There's one thing knowing the Gospel and what the Bible says, and even believing it is true. It is another to respond by faith and repentance in full submission to the Master of heaven and earth.”

Praise the Lord for using once again to declare His message to the people of London.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Saturday, 5 June, 2010

There was not a cloud in the sky as Bekk and I made our way to the coast. Due to people having weddings and exams being on, it was only us two on the team today. Even so, the gospel still needs to go out and that's why we still do it. And the Lord had provided perfect weather for us to do it today.

All throughout Summer, members on the team had mentioned that it would be so good if there was some sort of shade structure built to cover the area where we usually witness. For last year the council took out lots of trees around the area because of the road work they have been doing, and so there was no longer any shade. But what has been happening for about a month now is one of the new buildings going up in Surfers Paradise actually blocks the sun completely from shining on the area where we usually witness for about an hour during the hottest part of the day. Talk about God being good! :)

After praying together, we started handing out tracts and getting into witnessing encounters. One of the conversations we got into was with three ladies. The most vocal of them was non-religious, one of them was a non-practicing Catholic and the other was just a Catholic. I was speaking mainly to the vocal one, answering her questions and explaining the gospel to her. She, after all that, said "I can get my Catholic friend to explain it me later when I want to think about this God stuff."

It is rare to have someone who is a Catholic who actually understands the Biblical gospel. So when I heard that her friend was Catholic, I asked her friend, "If God was to ask you why you should be let into Heaven, what would you say?" That question does really get to the heart of the issue as to what a person is trusting in to get to Heaven.  And to my surprise, she answered the question by explaining that it is only Christ's death on the cross that can forgive her sins. It surprised me that she answered that way, because that would indicate she doesn't actually hold to the Catholic Church's teachings. So I then focused my attention on the other two again, making sure they understood the gospel too.

I then got up to preach and spoke about the upcoming Queensland Day. I started off by talking about even though there are so many reasons to celebrate our great state, it is not without its problems. Even in Queensland, we hear on the news each night about people being murdered, things being stolen, people dying in car crashes, and so on. Death even happens to us Queenslanders. So we should all therefore think about what happens to us after we die. I then spoke about the judgement to come and how we have all fallen short of God's perfect standard. This makes us all deserving of Hell. But the good news is that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So that if someone would repent and trust in Christ alone for their forgiveness, they would be saved.

Even though we were few in number today, the gospel went out. So to God be the glory!

Monday, 14 June, 2010

My apologies for such late post updates- find it hard with 2 other housemates to spend time by myself writing this up, but some good outreaches to report on. A couple of weekends ago, myself and Shirley went down to Cornwall for a few hours to a beautiful seaside town hoping to catch some holiday makers out enjoying the sunshine and for hopefully some good witnessing opportunities. The weather was not as good as first hoped and so we had to keep making quick darts to shelter with the basket of tracts and Bibles, but eventually the weather held off enough to witness to people and hand out tracts.

My first conversation was with a gentleman called Patrick who was by himself sitting on a wall. At first |I was very nervous about handing him a tract as at first glances he appeared to be someone who I would (wrongly) judge to be opposed to it. How wrong I was! I prayed about speaking with him, and offered him a MPN, and found out he was actually very open about talking about God and the afterlife. He was a sailor and was waiting for a haircut, and used to attend Church with his wife, but before they met, she got divorced because her now x-husband had abused their daughter, which is why she wanted a divorce.

Apparently the Church had not been very encouraging or understanding and said she should forgive the man and try to make a fresh start, which she could not do, and so this stopped them both attending Church. He did say he sometimes opened up the Bible and would read it, and still believed in God, but didnt like attending Church. So I chatted with him for a bit and gave him 3 different tracts to read and encouraged him to read the gospel of John all the way through again, and it turned out to be a great witnessing opportunity in the end, even though at first I put up my own barriers as to whom I think will respond- God put me straight!

Another 2 teenagers I bumped into were called Max and David. They were just moping around the streets as there is not much to do for teenagers there apart from drink, but these 2 seemed pretty coherent. They liked the MPN and the intelligence test questions, and ere again pretty open to talk about life after death and if there was a heaven, who would deserve to go there. Things were going well, when I was speaking about the cross etc, when one of them started saying he had a funny head and was feeling dizzy and was seeing flashing colours.

I immediately thought this may have been to do with drugs/ alcohol, but his mate seemed pretty concerned for him, and he said it was because as a small child, his father had accidently dropped him when his sister ran past, and he landed on his head and so had these funny spells sometimes. So Shirley asked to pray for him and he said yes, and so we prayed for him, and he appeared to recover pretty quickly. They were very thankful and were able to chat some more, and gladly took some tracts and a Bible each, and so we prayed they would actually think about what we had discussed. We have a basket with a sign saying 'free Bibles- please take generously' on, and we were surprised how many were being taken- they are the ESV new testaments, and we like to bookmark them in the gospel of John with a tract, and many of different ages wanted them which was great.

In Plymouth I went out to the University again to witness, and was not there for very long, but prayed for a divine appointment with someone, and yet again God allowed a young lad to miss his bus while I was eating some food before starting. I could see how annoyed he was the bus didnt stop, and so managed to be able to point him to the bus I was going to get home in 20 minutes time. He was greatful, and so this allowed me to chat with him and to give him a gospel tract and start speaking about spiritual things with him. He was 19 and worked in a bar, and said that he hadnt really thought much about what happens after death. I went through the law with them, then explained sin, judgment and hell, before going onto the cross and how someone is saved. Our conversation carried on the bus together and we both got off at the same stop, and he took some tracts, and acknowledged if he became a Christian how important it would be for him to tell his Mum and family etc, so prayed a seed was sown that would maybe grow at a later date.

On Friday 4th June I went to Belfast in Ireland with my friends family for a youth conference at Forestside Christian centre, which is a solid Bible believing Evangelical church. I was really looking forward to hearing the teaching and to helping with some of the youth ministry with the young people who would be coming from the local estates. On the Friday I went to Belfast city centre to visit the Evangelical Christian book shop where theyt have a treasure trove of books, particularly at the second hand section in the back and managed to get some Tozer, J.C.Ryle, A.W Pink and Spurgeon books, 17 in all.

I saw 2 Mormons out in the centre speaking with people, and so started to talk with them and got into conversation about how someone is saved, the book of Mormon being scripturally wrong, using John 1, Hebrews 1 and Colossians 1 in their Bible (after discussing what the difference between a version and a translation of the Bible were) to show the divinity of Christ, and how he had to be fully man and fully God to be the perfect sacrifice for sins. I also tried to show them that by their4 teaching, I would still have another chance to hear and respond to the gospel once I died and at least enter either the Terrestial, Telestial or Celestial heaven, where as by there Bibles teaching, if they died in their sins believing in another Jesus or gospel, according to Galatians 1 v 7, they were accursed and would end up in hell. They had some differing views than other Mormons I had met, as they believed in Hell more, and gave me a book of Mormon and said to pray to God to reveal the truth through it (Its now on my stinkers book shelf next to Rob Bell and The Shack), but they took some tracts to read.

Many people gladly took the MPN's, they were a lot more respondent than in Plymouth, and there were lots more Christians out on the streets witnessing to people and preaching. I overheard one conversation an American man was having with a man and woman, and listened in while they were talking, and could see the lady crying and being convicted about what was being said. The man prayed for them, and just as they were leaving |i was able to give them some tracts. When speaking to the man, he was called Donnoly and was from the states and had been here in Belfast for almost 2 years on mission and was returning home the following week. We had a great chat and I found out he used Answers in Genesis/ Living waters gospel material, and that he was also heading to the youth conference where I was staying, and offered to drive me back.

So we decided to do some more witnessing together before heading back, and there was a load of kids hanging outside the town hall every Saturday, even more so because of a pro-Palestinian march being held. We both started handing out tracts to the teenagers, and I got into another good discussion with the teenagers about the doctrine of hell and what would happen there and for how long it would be. They understood about Jesus, as a lot of the Irish do, but managed to go into why he had to die and who Jesus actually was, not just the Son of God, but God the Son.

I then moved back to where Donnoly was, and saw he was debating with an Irate Muslim gentleman who claimed he believed in the same Jesus as Christians do and that Muslims have a lot of respect for who Jesus is. So Donnoly tried to explain that we didnt believe in the same Jesus because he didnt think Jesus was God. This then led the man to start claiming for evidence in the Bible where Jesus directly said that he was God. Of course Jesus never directly came out and said that, but in so many instances like Matthew 9 when he healed the leper, the Jews saying he is blaspheming claiming equality with God, doubting Thomas- my Lord and my God, Jesus accepting worship from people as God, Jesus making the 7 I AM statements etc, all showed he was the Messiah. However this man was adamant that unless he had the proof by his own claims, he would not believe.

The debate got a bit heated at times with the Police looking after the protest event walking over a couple of times, but the man left in the end after another Christian took his email and said he would discuss it with him in more depth.

The weekend was great and the young people heard a clear gospel message and took lots of tracts over the weekend, and I was able to speak to them a couple of times as well which was great so will hear back from the Church how they are getting on. God really opened my eyes to how it must be him that does the saving and drawing people close to him, as again the same gospel was preached to all, but many responded in different ways to it.

I will be praying more for the Friday outreach to advertise at Churches and for more Christians to support whether financially with money for tracts, prayer, or learning the WOTM techniques in conversing with someone on the streets, but again know God can use just a small number of people like Gideon and his army if we acknowledge him and give him glory for the efforts, and not ourselves, great things can be achieved for Gods kingdom, him using our small efforts in the process.

Saturday, 5 June, 2010

Saturday, 29th May 2010

David Gee and I shared a good time of fellowship as we made our way into Brisbane city for the night of witnessing. Unfortunately we missed the team prayer and bible reading due to delays, but we were able to meet with the team at 9pm.

We were aware that once again the Brisbane Atheists were planning to visit us, it was just interesting to see that they have dwindled in numbers over the past few months. There was a time when there were many of them swamping us at once, now there only seems to be about four joining for the heckle-fest. I was disappointed to see that Steve their leader was not present and neither was the former “Christian” both of whom have shown themselves to be very close minded when claiming to be open. I am looking forward to talking to them again to see why Steve hasn’t contacted me in order to examine evidence for God (as he said he would) and to see why the former “Christian” destroyed a DVD when he promised to view it. One would almost think they are not interested in being free-thinkers.

So here is the scene. We are setting up and getting ready to preach, and then strolling up towards us was Alex and his merry men. They were looking for a heckle and we were willing to try and answer their questions.

The first preacher up was Blake, he started by presenting Christ and what He did on the cross for sinners. Before long some Muslims (two of which were homosexual) began to heckle, but as usual, when challenged they left.

Now it was time for Alex to enter the fray.

As usual he led in with his denouncing of all things related to God, although I am yet to see how by just asserting that we are lying and that there is no God actually proves his case. He began his usual tirade claiming that 1 plus negative 1 equals nothing, and that somehow proves there is no God. I for one am confused, that if we have to add something to get nothing, then surely there was something to begin with.

Alex then began to misrepresent Christianity by claiming that we believe the world was created by magic by some cosmic magician. To this comment his atheist mates laughed. But, I didn’t hear a rebuttal to what Ryan Hemelaar called out. Ryan called out to Alex, “At least we have a first cause, you have the world coming about by magic, but with no magician.”

Alex once again turned his attention to Blake and began to heckle more. Normally involving much insult and very little intellect. Alex then pulled out his argument against Blake, “You haven’t study science so you cannot argue science.” To which we asked Alex if he has study science, he replied by saying, “A scientist is one who uses scientific method to reach a conclusion.” That was his argument to justify his ability to use science, when asked if that same definition extended to Christians he refused to answer. And just for the records. The atheists claim that I used this argument on Alex, saying that since he isn’t a scientist he can’t argue science. I never would use such an argument. He was the one which entered that line of reasoning into the discussion not us. And if you atheists still don’t believe me, I am sure the audio recording of the open air will show testimony to the fact that it was Alex who argues that way.

Somehow Alex ended up in a discussion with Ryan, Bekk and I. Once again he was arguing his 1 plus negative 1 equals nothing. But he is never fully able to explain it. He then changed arguments to include monkeys. He then went on about seeing evidence for and against monkeys in a crate and then concluding by subtract the anti-monkey from the monkey we can say there were no monkeys. At this point I was just stuck on the absurdity of the anti-monkey.

Alex during this time made a boast that within 100 years Christianity would be wiped out. And later in the night he hinted that violent force may be used by the atheists to achieve that end. That should make for interesting listening if and when we make available the audio for download.

It was around this time that the atheists decided it was beer o’clock, so they headed off to get some grog.

Blake finished up his preaching then it was time for Ryan to preach. He did a fairly short stint tonight and in his 30 minute preach he didn’t seem to get any really decent hecklers. But he did do a great job of preaching the Gospel.

After Ryan finished preaching, it was my turn to preach. So I stood up and began to proclaim the gospel. As I did from up the mall came Alex and his merry men again (this time even more merry as they had just boozed up).

Alex and another atheist (I believe his name was Steve, if not sorry) began to heckle. Steve asked a good question to which I answered and asked him a question, but before he could answer, Alex came running in to think for him. I had to keep Alex from answering for Steve. It must be that Alex doesn’t think Steve is capable for thinking for himself.

Some of the questions thrown at Steve he couldn’t answer, so once again Alex would jump in and begin to speak. Then he asked a question which he claims knocks out the Bible (he has even made a YouTube video about it), the question he puts forward is, “If the Bible is true, why are there only marsupials here in Australia and not anywhere else in the world? How did they get here?”

My answer first was, “How do you know they are only in Australia? And, they could have gotten here by two means, first migration or they could have gotten here the same way the cane toad did. And that is by people bringing them.”

To my answer Alex just laughed and mocked. I knew Australia was not the only place marsupials were found, so decided to call out David Gee, who is a veterinarian doctor and asked him where else they are found. Dave told the crowd and Alex that marsupials are found also in Papua New Guinea and South America. Plus just because we don’t see them in other parts of the world doesn’t prove they weren’t there before (for instance lions in some parts of middle east and Europe etc).

Dave produced evidence, but would Alex concede? NO! He changed arguments but wouldn’t admit he was wrong. His whole argument, and his whole premise for attacking Christianity was built upon a misunderstanding, if he had done a little bit of research he would have found out he was mistaken. But an atheist isn’t interested in fact, they are interested in suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. They are interested in hiding behind any false argument in order so that they don’t have to acknowledge the Sovereign God who rules over them.

It was approaching midnight at this stage so I wrapped up the open air by preaching the Gospel once again. The atheists need to hear this message as does anyone else. Christ Jesus died in the place of sinners, He suffered the death that we deserve, then three days later He arose again from the dead, and now He can offer forgiveness of sin to all those who would seek Christ with a repentant heart and trust in His finished work on the cross.

Praise God for the Gospel and Praise God for the honour of being able to proclaim it.

Saturday, 5th June 2010

Another great night and yet another chance to make Christ known. The team rallied as per usual in King George Square for a time of prayer, Bible reading and fellowship. At 9pm we made out way up to the Queen Street Mall where we began to get ready for the night of preaching. We were a bit delayed in setting up the Bible table etc tonight, so we didn’t start preaching until 9:30pm.

Andre was the first preacher up and he did a great job in proclaiming Christ. Soon in to his open air he had a large crowd and a few good hecklers. The heckling centred around the biblical teaching of wives submitting to their husbands and women preaching in the church.

Andre tried to answer their questions but the hecklers wouldn’t listen. By now two very vocal feminists were going nuts claiming the Bible supported treating women as second class citizens and that it supports the rape of a parents daughter.

By now Andre’s voice was going so he tagged me in. I immediately called out the most vocal feminist and insisted she bring some support to her claims. She couldn’t and even admitted to not knowing the Bible. So I asked her, how do you know the Bible says these things if you don’t know the book?

I then swung it around and explained how the Bible commands men to treat their wives. And I used (as Paul does) the example of Christ laying down His life for His bride. Well they didn’t like that, they got even angrier and maintained that we treated women as sub-human. Yet, whenever I would show them from the Scripture their error they would just move to another ill-informed argument.

By now one Asian feminist was screaming hate at me, and saying, “Give me a bible, it supports rape of daughters!” So we gave her a Bible and asked her to show us. She was referencing Lot and his daughters in Genesis, but she couldn’t find it. One of the team came over and helped her find the verse. She then started to claim victory so I asked her to read it to the crowd. As she did the crowd erupted saying, “See, rape is OK according to the Bible, men rape women!” The problem is they didn’t know the text very well.

I replied by saying, just because something is in the Bible doesn’t mean it is allowed. For instance God records David committing adultery, it records the sin and failings of people. Just because it does that doesn’t give one permission to do it.

Then I asked a question to a really vocal feminist who was trying to whip the crowd into a frenzy. “Let me put a scenario to you. If someone goes to a pub and gets another person drunk and makes it so they are out of it. Then that person has sex with the person who is drunk and not with it, are they guilty of rape?” The woman yelled the person who does that is a rapist! So I asked, “Should the victim be called a rapist and blamed for it?” She yelled NO! Then I pointed to the text to show that Lot wasn’t the one raping, but rather it was the daughters that got him drunk and then slept with him. I asked her who was the rapist in that situation? She stormed off.

Another man took up the heckling maintain that we were in error. This time he argued that the Bible is full of contradictions, to which I asked him to show me just one. He couldn’t, but maintained that he had been informed that there were errors, but he had never read the Bible. I asked him to show proof for his claims, but he just said, “Educated people said it, so I believe it.” I pointed out that educated people would disagree, so would he believe them, he said he wouldn’t as those that believe the Bible have a bias. To which I answered, so do those that don’t believe. He was fairly silent after that, but I wouldn’t let him go.

I kept targeting his central argument and used that as a springboard to preach the gospel. By the end the man looked like he was wanting to get out of there. But, I think it was clearly demonstrated that Christianity has the answers to the questions people ask.

I’d been preaching for about 90 minutes when I decided to wrap it up and hand it over to Blake. Blake then proceeded to preach for a further thirty minutes and mopped up the last hecklers. It must be said that Blake is becoming a brilliant preacher, he is growing in confidence and he deals very well with hecklers.

Praise God for an awesome evening.

Soli Deo Gloria!

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