Battle Log
Wednesday 12 June 2019
Posted 18 June 2019, 12:43 PM by Matthew Andersen. Permalink
On Wednesday afternoon in Brisbane City the team were out with a desire to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvellous light, so that others may become children of the King! That is exactly what happened over the course of the afternoon. With a focus on proclaiming the gospel God used this simple obedience of unworthy vessels to bring people to understand who He is and what He has done to save sinners!
An early conversation was with Breno. He was a deeply broken man, trying to hold his life together. He has been married for three months and is now in the throws of a messy divorce. He said that if the topic was raised only a few weeks earlier he'd never have wanted to talk but now he wanted to know. Over the course of a lengthy discussion he came to understand the good news of how Christ saves sinners and he seemed to grasp it.
It took a number of tries for him to understand as his Hindu background lead him to think that it was personal actions which contributed to our right standing before God. At the end of the discussion he said that he would open up the Bible he has at home and start reading tonight! Praise God for using the pain of divorce to open a mans ears to the gospel!
Another conversation took place with Silvester. It was a weird conversation, in that, he knew the gospel and a lot about Christianity. Sadly this meant nothing of his spiritual health as he was as dead as could be. He had no desire to attend Church or read his Bible, rather he just wanted to live however he saw fit. Because God "cramped his style" he was happy to ditch God for his own ends. He was warned and warned and warned. The conversation lasted almost forty minutes as Silvester was pleaded with, shown the foolishness and gravity of his decision and was encouraged to open up God's word today and to attend a local Church on Sunday.
He made no promises and at the end of it all was warned, that this may have been God's final opportunity for him to trust in Christ.
An exciting conversation happened with a Frenchman. Often European's are very liberal and quite proud of it and so their arguments basically range from, "I don't believe that to I don't want to believe that". But Irvin was different. He was similar in that being what he originally said but as the law and gospel was shown he was moved from apathy and rejection to intrigue. He wanted to know more. He came to comprehend the simple gospel and actually said, "That's beautiful" in response.
He was challenged with the serious call the gospel makes that although it is free, you will give up everything for the sake of Christ. He said he would have to count the cost, think about this and said he would start reading his Bible tonight! It was a privilege to be a part of his journey to comprehension!
There were a scattering of other conversations with "atheists" all five of whom preferred personal freedom over truth and despite not having arguments against God, all struggling to defend their declaration that there is no God when asked some simple questions they all ended up leaving quite quickly. Most were silenced by God's law but didn't want to know of the solution because that would require the acknowledgement of their guilt.
Over the afternoon there were many other people who heard of Christ, so please raise up those mentioned here and any others who came to understand the way to Heaven this afternoon to our gracious God that He would use this simple message to save many!
View previous Brisbane (QLD) report (9 June 2019)
Brisbane Team (Night) (QLD)
Meets Fridays (7-10pm) & Saturdays (6-9pm) & Sundays (7:30-9:30pm) in King George Square.
Contact Ryan Hemelaar for more information.