Battle Log

• Battle Log
• Page 194

The gospel went out again in Brisbane city on Saturday night. We started with two of us, but not long after praying we had a team of about 15. Praise the Lord!

There were plenty of gospel conversations that were had with people, with some conversations lasting well over an hour. One person in particular had his mates waiting for him as he was interested in finding out more about Christianity and talking with someone on the team.

So I started chatting to his mates - one was an atheist, one who hadn't given any thought to eternal matters, and one who was a professing Christian who appeared to be living life his own way.

After speaking with the atheist and the professing Christian for a while, they went and sat down on a seat while I continued to talk with the man who hadn't thought much about eternal things. His name was Tony.

He came to grasp the message of forgiveness through what Jesus has done for us on the cross and not our works. He had some good questions and wanted a Bible, so we gave him one. Please pray for him as he counts the cost of coming to faith in Christ, and please also pray for the others who heard the gospel throughout the night.

To God be the glory!

---

A cooler day today but so too seemed to be the general response to God's only Way of sinners becoming reconciled to Him. 

However, God has His own way of presenting the claims of Christ, e.g. a young girl who had previously been given a tract and had had the gospel explained to her, had time to be briefly challenged before her bus came.

There was also another young lass who was very unclear initially but was taken through to the point where she knew she deserved eternal condemnation. As we walked the 10 steps or so to her bus, I was able to point her to the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ and have to be content to pray for others to meet her and complete the gospel message and challenge.

Dave, trained in a Roman Catholic institution, was told that this was the Biblical message that Protestants proclaimed. At the end, he was pleased to be prayed for.

Our pleasure is to serve the only One worth serving and that through the Mediator He has given us  Thank God that He saves a people for Himself, e.g. Rom. 9:25,26. Let us pray that God will be merciful to many at this time in this land He owns (as well as the whole created order).

---

The Melbourne Team has now been meeting on Friday nights for around 4-5 months and though we have not kept up with our reports, there has been some great stuff happening. The team averages 6-8 people each week with a committed pool of around 10 workers. We meet to pray around 7pm and then head out to preach for 2 hours, usually as pairs doing "walk up" type witnessing. Here are some highlights from the past couple of weeks (apologies for the very long post):

Friday 27th January

As many of you know, On Friday 20th January, a deranged man drove his car into Burke St mall and struck and killed a number of innocent people. As a result, the mood the following week was very different. Usually Burke St Mall is dominated by the sounds of very talented musicians busking and groups of people having fun, but this week things were very subdued. There was an astonishing collection of flowers left outside the GPO building as an impromptu memorial. We set out to preach and at first we were a little gun shy because of the mood, however we found the events of the previous week caused many to think about mortality.

Simon spoke to John and Tracey (pictured). John had a Catholic background and so Simon spoke to him about the relationship between works and grace. The Mall is very multi-cultural and we meet people from all over the world. Andrew spoke to a couple of different French groups and to a couple of Nepalese guys whose girlfriends got bored and walked away! He also spoke to a group of pastors from New Zealand who tragically could not between them articulate the gospel.

The best conversations of the night happened near the Memorial. Andrew and Elise spoke to Luke and his friend Naomi who were reading cards left with the flowers. They were both very open about eternal matters and Luke was really keen to read the Bible for himself. Andrew gave him a Bible and pointed him to the Gospel of John as a starting place.

Friday 3rd February

The best conversation of the night was with Raj, a Sihk guy who works security for a shopping complex on the Mall. The team has now spoken to him a few times and given him a Bible. He regularly asks great questions but at the same time he seems to be grasping for objections and trying to find reasons not to believe. 

Friday 10th February

There were many great conversations this week. Canaan and Amanda were able to share with Milee, a young lady who had been put off Christianity by her family and with John a catholic and his Mormon wife, Anne. Simon and Troy talked with Louis a spiritualist, and Arkash who was from a Hindu background. Andrew chatted with James, a Navy guy with an Anglican background who was employed in some sort of confidential role!

Friday 17th February

This was Simon's last night with us before he flew out to serve with MAF as a missionary pilot in Arnhem Land. We were sad to lose him but encouraged that he will be preaching the gospel wherever he goes.

Canaan chatted with a young man name Finn who was raised Catholic. He was very agreeable so it was a little difficult to see if he really held certain beliefs or was merely being polite. He had a right view of God's justice in punishing sinners and the need for forgiveness, even to the point of saying that he would be deserving of Gods wrath if he died. Unfortunately, he just seemed a little apathetic about it all.

There were huge numbers of tracts handed out that night (compared to normal for our small team) but comparatively few conversations.

Friday 24th February

The night started with a group of Mormon missionaries and a group of people giving out free hugs. The free hugs were nice enough, but the givers could not come up with a consistent motive for why they felt this was important. ​Andrew was able to share with one of them about the Gospel.

The Mormons were interesting. Canaan and Amanda spoke to 3 and Andrew and Elise spoke to 3. Andrew was able to speak to them about the integrity of the holy books as a reason to trust the Bible but reject the book of Mormon. He then transitioned to the differences in our respective understanding of atonement and about how Jesus had completed the payment for our sins, not just contributed to it. The young Mormon missionaries were intrigued by Ephesians 2:8-9 but then the leader of the group (from Canaan's conversation) burst in and declared that they all needed to head back now and that this conversation was pointless. Andrew declared that it was anything but pointless because one of us was clearly wrong and our souls were at stake. This angered the leader who left while the young Mormons lingered to read Ephesians 2:8-9 from their own preferred translation.

Andrew, Nick and Elise met Sergio (middle of photo) from Brazil who knew the right answers but seemed to lack a lot of fruit. Andrew challenged him about what true repentance looks like.

Canaan and Amanda finished the night chatting with this young couple who were quite friendly and reasonable. The guy was taking things in and seemed to be thinking through the Gospel rightly. The lady had a lot more objections, but it was nice for her to question back and forth and give her answers on things.

 

There are many wonderful things happening on the Melbourne team and we promise to write updates more often! Please continue to pray for us!

Soli Deo Gloria!

---

God gave us a steady flow of people to converse with including:

• Joel & Jonah, later Zaab, all needing prayer now to seriously consider their need to commit fully to Christ knowing that there is no looking back, Lk. 9:62.
   
• Some older ladies as they walked by, who were not willing to discuss the gospel, said that that the riches and corruption of the church in Rome made them disinterested. I suggested that they get into their Bibles (did they have one?) but Ryan said it would have been better to point them to Jesus. I agree with him.
   
• A young Christian man, Stuart, who needed some serious discipling including whom to 'date'.
   
• Some teenagers who turned out to be associated with the JWs. They were told that was a cult. They asked "Why did I call the JWs a cult?" Answer: The Jesus they talk about does not have the capacity to pay for our sins. They had to leave after I said that Jesus is God. We pray that God will keep stirring up their memories and give them no peace in this matter . 

The tracts seemed to go out more quickly than at other times but it was not from the Pokemon players whose eyes were fixed to their screens as they trudged by. By God's grace, maybe one day they will be doing the Heb.12:2 gaze in adoration.

---

On the way to the bus stop where we evangelise, Ryan had a conversation with a J.W. bus driver. I saw this and began praying for him while he tried to get a gospel conversation going, and it prepared me for what lay ahead. However the J.W. was more concerned that it was the last days (which means they believe they have to put in more hours than usual), than wanting to discuss about matters of eternity.

We were then able to pray for God's work and went forth to the few people there - as many as our sovereign Lord had arranged to receive tracts and/or engage in 1:1s, e.g.

     Jamie, a young Christian lady who could not defend the faith. If someone were to ask her ,"Why should God let you into His heaven?", she could not explain her faith. Going through the law and gospel, she responded most joyously. She received a sample of tracts, and was referred to our website, Jamie said that she would teach her friends how to defend the faith. Pray they respond in like enthusiastic manner.

     Lorraine, an expert in creating a 'god' she could handle including Jesus as Mediator, karma and every other belief that she liked from various religions! Pray she reads the tract and God deals savingly with her.

     Dana, a teenager who seemed to grasp the message and Ryan challenged her to count the cost. Jesus has told us what a lukewarm 'Christian' can expect - Rev. 3:16.

As always, what God did but did not reveal to us, is to the praise of His glorious grace. We are thankful that He enables us to serve Him in this manner and we are quick to give Him all the glory and praise.

---

We were lower in team number's yesterday for our outreach in Brisbane city, but we knew God was with us. And He also saw fit to bring along a new labourer who hasn't done much evangelism before, praise the Lord.

Across the afternoon several hundred gospel tracts went out to people and dozens of evangelistic conversations had.

One such conversation was with Doug. He said he was an atheist, but after hearing that since the universe had a beginning therefore logically it must have had a creator, he backed down on his atheism and said that he was happy to believe in a creator that is outside of space and time, but as long as it's not God. 

He said, "You will never guess why I don't want to believe in God." I replied, "It's because you don't want him to tell you how to live, right?" He looked shocked and said, "How did you guess that? I just don't want a God to tell me what I can and can't do." What he said reminded me of Romans 1:18-20 how by nature we suppress the truth that we know about God in unrighteousness.

We chatted further, and I asked him, "What good is enjoying the momentary pleasures of sin if you end up in a place of pain and suffering forever later on? It's like having a cup of pleasure in exchange for an ocean of pain. Definitely not worth it." At the end, he thanked me for the conversation and said he would think about it.

No matter the response, it is always a success when God's word goes out. To God be the glory!

For times and locations of our evangelism teams, see: www.operation513.com/street-evangelism-teams

---

At the end of our outreach at Woodridge yesterday we were rejoicing that God's word never returns void, but accomplishes everything He wants it to. We had a team of five of us and God brought along dozens of people across our path throughout the afternoon who were open to talking about spiritual things.

It is interesting to see three examples yesterday of people coming from different stages of belief - Firstly, Troy, he was a man who said that he knew God existed but said that he loves sinning. After he heard the gospel yesterday, he said he would count the cost of coming to faith in Jesus.

We also talked to a young man named George who thought he was already saved, but turns out he was trusting in being a good person to get him to heaven. By the end he realised that he needed to trust in Christ alone for his salvation.

And later on, we talked with a man named Elijah who hadn't really given much thought to the things of God, but was quite open. He said he would really think about what he heard.

We sow the seed, but God gives the growth. We are nothing, but God is worthy of all praise. So to God be the glory!

---

The Lord be praised for enabling us to witness for His glory this warmish day.  He provided a rich variety of people, including these people who claimed to be Christians:

- Shaun from PNG background recently moved here and  not attending a local church. He had difficulty explaining his faith but as we went through the law and gospel, he had a sound knowledge of sin and the need for him to repent and trust Christ alone. After going through the law and gospel, he seemed to grasp how justice was satisfied by Jesus and a sinner now trusting in the Son could ask for mercy and receive forgiveness of all his sins from a righteous and merciful Father.  We prayed as his bus arrived to take him home rejoicing. He also was recommended a local church.

- Tanya from a local church. Now seems to understand the doctrine of justification by faith and taking her need to trust Christ alone as a matter for serious thought today.

- James was struggling to express his reason that God would let him into heaven. He seemed to agree with the gospel but further questioning showed his confused ideas of sin and his own worthiness. This was repeated  a few times before his bus arrived.

Pray that churches would shepherd their sheep with life-giving fodder and nurture. Pray also that Christians would be more concerned to do all things to the glory of God, 1 Cor. 10:21; including outreach activities. Lord! Grant us grace to be better servants giving you all thanks and praise. 

---

It is wonderful to see God work on a person's heart and that was again evident last night during our outreach at the Gold Coast.

After praying together as a team, we set up our free Bibles table in English and Arabic, and then started getting into conversations with people and handing out gospel tracts.

There was a man named Alan who I noticed was listening to the preacher for the entire duration of the time he was speaking. Then later on, he sat down on a bench which happened to be right next to where a team member was sitting and so they got chatting.

Alan expressed how he is from the UK on a working visa but is leaving Australia in only a matter of days. He said that a few months ago in Perth a person shared the gospel with him. He has been thinking about what he heard, but hasn't done anything about it.

So last night, the team member was able to further explain the gospel to him and answer his questions. Alan said that he can't keep putting it off; he realised that he needs to actually heed the message. The conversation continued for over an hour and a half.

In fact, later in the night he returned and said that after the conversation he had just had, he called up the person who had witnessed to him in Perth and said that he wants to trust in Christ.

To God be the glory!

---

We had a great outreach yesterday in King George Square (Brisbane). It always amazes me that quite often the typical Aussie hasn't really considered much about what comes after or about God, they've just heard the odd negative thing here or there about God and they've been taught evolution in school and therefore assume that God doesn't exist.

That was evident in a conversation we had yesterday with a man in his mid-thirties named Michael. After being asked whether he thought he would go to Heaven, he replied, "I don't believe in things that don't exist."

I pointed him to the building in front of him and said, "You know that had a builder, don't you?" He agreed. I continued, "Even though you've never set eyes on the builder or shaken his hand, you still know that there must have been a builder. So in the same way, you look at the universe and you know that it had a beginning and therefore it must have had a creator for it. You've never seen Him or shaken His hand, but you still know that He exists."

He then asked, "But what about evolution?" I replied, "That is irrelevant, for evolution still requires that matter exists, where did that matter come from?" He said, "That's a good point, I haven't thought of that." He agreed it made sense that there must be a God and so then I explained how therefore it matters what we do on this earth in that God will judge us one day based on how we've lived.

After talking about how we have all sinned against God and therefore deserve Hell, he asked if there is anything that he can do to fix it. So he then listened intently as the news of Jesus death and resurrection were explained to him and how forgiveness is a free gift through repentance and faith in Jesus.

I encouraged him to count the cost of following Jesus, and he said, "I am going to have to think about this today. Who knows, today might be the beginning of a new chapter in my life."

---

« Prev | 1 | 2 ... 192 | 193 | 194 | 195 | 196 ... 282 | 283 | Next »

---