Battle Log
Tuesday 3 April 2018
Posted 9 April 2018, 3:35 PM by David Gee. Permalink
Praise God for His great mercies, we are able to preach the gospel here in Hobart still and despite recent difficulties and ongoing slanders against me particularly. This last couple of weeks have been a mixed bag of responses and circumstances, but God is the same yesterday today and forever.
This Tuesday it was a warm afternoon and there were many school kids in the mall looking for something to do. This lead to many opportunities over the course of the afternoon and the gospel was preached!
Shortly after I set up for the afternoon two young guys wandered up to read the “Marriage Facts” sign I have on the table. I then asked them what they though of the sign and one responded that he attended an Anglican school so he was familiar with the ideas. This lead to a fantastic set of exchanges and discussions that ranged over many different topics but repeatedly coming back to the claims of Christ and the gospel. They seemed interested and surprisingly appeared to enjoy my “dad humor” though I suspect they were just humoring me! Our discussion went for almost 45 minutes and after we finished they stayed to listen to the preaching and chat again afterwards. Praise God they were so open and willing to listen and discuss!
Coming into and out of this discussion was Mr K. a Greek orthodox young man who has been coming by in the afternoons for some time with his mates. They are an interesting bunch and I quite enjoy the good-humored bantering they enter into whenever they come.
The preaching today focused on anger, cursing, hatred, abortion, gossip, and murder. I spoke from Matthew chapter five verses 21-26. This is the part of the sermon on the mount where Jesus defines what murder truly looks like in the eyes of God and clarifies what kind of righteousness is required to get into heaven (hint: it’s the kind we can only get from one place…). This requirement is echoing the verse before:
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Mat 5:20)
Jesus explicitly links anger and all its horrid children to the crime of murder in the Old Testament law code and its corresponding punishment. This passage bother’s the conscience of many non-Christians because it is so plain speaking about things we all are guilty of. Everyone falls foul of selfish anger and the various ways we express that anger. Shrugging off the wrong doing by saying we don’t care or there is no-one else hurt will not get rid of the accusation of the conscience. Claiming that it doesn’t matter because God is not there only underlines the lie we have swallowed, that God is absent and we are master’s of our own fate. God is our creator, He is present and will judge, the longer we deny and run from this the longer we are divorced from the reality that is plain to our eyes. Not only that but those who choose to suppress the knowledge of God in their unrighteousness will never find the rest, joy and meaning that we all long for. It is found in God alone and repentant faith in Jesus is the only way to God the Father.
As I preached about this a young guy came up and began to engage with me in a joking way. I began to ask him how he would do if God judged him by the eternal standard rather than his own or his mates. It was a good exchange and we spoke for a while but ultimately, he was not interested in hearing too much and went to leave. I urged him to stay and talk some more and listen a while. Praise God he did, and his friends with him.
Three others heckled whilst I preached.
· One older man on a mobility scooter packing a foul mouth repeatedly came to accuse God of wrong doing for allowing suffering in the world. Not only that but apparently “He’s never done anything for me!”, this coming from an obviously well fed and well clothed man riding on a technological marvel. All things he did not labour to create from nothing. I pointed him to the justice and law of God that makes meaningful our upset at suffering, as apposed to the puerile subjective atheistic objection to suffering which amounts to “I don’t like it, in my opinion it is not right”. If we are to appose evil as evil, we need an absolute standard as our foundation.
· The second was an older lady that wanted to know about the other religions in the world? I pointed to sin leading to death and then urged her (and the crowd that had gathered) to consider the founders of the various world religions. Where were they now? All in a grave, bar Jesus. All the other religions of the world were no help to prevent the death of all their founders. Why should we believe they can destroy our greatest enemy?
· The last heckler wanted to know something straight from the bible. What would happen to him if he just would not believe? I gave him the straight answer of scripture: All those who will not believe will not be saved but are condemned already.
From each of these I urged the crowd to turn to Jesus and trust in Him. Only humble repentant faith in Jesus’s work on the cross will save us from the condemnation that we all deserve because of our many sins.
After the preaching I had a chat with one of Mr K.’s mates who is a Muslim and we discussed some of the similarities and differences between Islam and Christianity. We chatted for a period about the prophets and I am going to get him a copy of the writings of the prophets of God.
Despite the prating of blatherskites in the background, there were a number of other great conversations which followed for quite some time praise God. I then spent a good period handing out gospel tracts on a nearby corner and giving short messages and reading portions of scripture.
What a great day! Praise God.
View previous Hobart (TAS) report (8 March 2018)
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