Battle Log
Friday 2 November 2018
Posted 5 November 2018, 7:32 PM by Matthew Andersen. Permalink.jpg)
On Friday night in Cavill Mall on the Gold Coast the team were able to engage many people in conversations and able to share God's Good News.
One early and exciting conversation was had with Sydney. He had a Catholic background and was a native french speaker. Through the discourse of the conversation Sydney heard what God declares about Himself, that He is holy, righteous and good and therefore cannot let the guilty go unpunished. He acknowledged that this made sense and then was shown the problem with Catholicism. It can never hold God as holy, righteous or good, if God lets people into Heaven based in any part on their actions, because all actions that originate from humans are polluted in some part by sin. Only the righteousness that God gives to humans is pleasing to Himself.
Then the idea of imputation and justification were explained so that Sydney came to understand "The Great Exchange", that Christ takes our sin, suffering the Hell punishment we deserve and gives us His righteousness, that we can be made right before God! This is the heart of the Gospel and the greatest news a sinner can hear, that God has done everything required for us to be with Him eternally.
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Sydney said it all made sense and agreed that God probably bought him all the way to Australia just to hear the Gospel. He said he would have a read of his Bible as well.
An extremely sad conversation was had with Ali. At first Ali's friends did not want him to speak to the team but Ali stopped. He shared that he is a Muslim and then over the course of the next ninety minutes Ali proceeded to do what seemed like willful misunderstanding. Ali had been taught things about Christianity by his local Muslim leaders and was not really listening to what was being said.
Eight times, using different analogies and examples, it was explain why God, if He really is God, must do everything for His own glory and why He, if He is good and loving, must create humanity to find their greatest satisfaction in Him. Sadly despite the explanations Ali was adamant that if God created us to worship Him, "He must be needy". This was a conversation, if there ever was one that confirmed that spiritual blindness.
Often conversations are with people that can understand the Gospel and Christianity and yet are just willfully rebellious. In Ali's case it seemed rather that he was just so blind and unwilling to understand what was being said.
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In finale, even after hearing the Gospel and God's offer of salvation Ali declared, "The only reason we do anything good and worship God is so that He will give us what we desire". Ali had fundamentally misunderstood God's holiness, authority and purpose. It was ultimately in acknowledgement of God's sovereign plan choosing to save some and not others, that Ali was left with a Gospel tract, encouraged to read the Bible and the team has and will continue to pray that God would bring a hard-hearted, spiritually blind man, Ali, to salvation so that He may be glorified.
Please be praying that God is merciful to this man, despite his desperate idolatry and pride.
Finally though as the team headed over for a quick meal before heading home, a man named Peter was engaged. He had some JW beliefs but for the first time in his life heard the Gospel! He said it made sense and wrote down Romans 3-5 so that he would spend some time reading it in the next few days. Praise God that some are open and willing to hear the truth, whilst others are hard and unwilling.
Please pray that Peter would be lead to salvation through the reading of Romans, that he would understand that we are justified by faith in Christ's work alone!
View previous Gold Coast (QLD) report (26 October 2018)
Gold Coast Team (QLD)
Meets 7:15-10pm Friday nights at Surfers Paradise on Cavill Avenue.
Contact Ryan Hemelaar for more information.