Battle Log

• Battle Log
• Page 213

Saturday night in Brisbane is always an interesting time. Each week the crowds are different, so it breaks the mold of 'normal' evangelism. 

In Australia many seem to be closed to talking about the read God. Even though around 80% of our population says they believe in some form of God, they really do not want it to be the God of the Bible. As a result people are happy to talk about general conepts in relation to deity, but the moment it gets the Trinitarian God of Scripture they sometimes close down. 

Yet, even though there are many who are closed to hearing, there are also many who are open to talking. Each Saturday night we have the privledge of being able to speak to people from a wide variety of backgrounds about the truth of Jesus. 

One member of the team, George, hasn't been with us for more than about six months but over the last three has been very keenly serving God, learning very quickly different ways to share the Gospel. He has been a great source of encouragement to us. It is always great to see new people coming along who are passionate about declaring the wonder of Jesus. 

In this picture, George is bodlly proclaiming the truth, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners!

Early in the evening we spoke to a couple of people who were Jewish. When they described to us why they will go to Heaven, it was like we were hearing the Apostle Paul list his former life in Philippians 3. They truested in who they wre, and what they had done. We tried to explain to them that they must be like Paul, in that they need to let go of all that, and embrace Christ. They didn't really like the idea of Jesus being the Messiah, so we encouraged them to read Isaiah 53 and to find out whom the Scripture spoke of. 

Another conversation was had with a man named Rhys, this young man was very talkative, in fact he wasn't scared about 'social norms' at all and gladly engaged in conversing about what he believed the way to Heaven was.

Rhys talked about all manner of things, and just like everyone else, he believed his goodness would get him over the line into Heaven.

Rhys was in a similar scenario to most of us, considered himself to be pretty good (judging by his own standard) but like the rest of us, when compared to the standard of God, he fell short.

He said that this was worrying; what could he possibly do to get to Heaven. Thankfully, God doesn't leave us in despair. He tells us of His amazing love through the Good News of Jesus! Jesus came into this world to do exaclty what we couldn't, be perfect so He could take the penalty for our sin, allowing us the free gift of eternal life, if we trust in Him! Rhys said this was great news and that he would consider what was shared with him. 

Please pray for the Queen St Mall outreach. Pray that God will bring along people who have had the soil of their hearts prepared for the seeds of the Gospel. Pray that God will allow them to be able to engage in the a Gospel conversation and hear the amazing news!

Soli Deo Gloria!

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On Thursday the 22 October it was a rainy day, this pushed us into the under cover area at the bus shelter, however, this causes more people to gather and give us some great to opportunities to witness one to one. 

We spoke to one man named Gordon; he has a vast range of beliefs, which included him being unsure of God's exists, yet he was adamant that he would go to Heaven. What he appeared to have done was mix various religious beliefs together. He had made a god that he was comfortable with; a god who doesn't judge sin. We able to speak to Gordon about the nature of truth, and how God reveals Himself. Gordon said this all sounded well and good but why would a 'loving' God let bad things happen to good people. We discussed the guilt of all men, that every single one of us has broken God's law, has disobeyed Him and therefore deserve the punishment for our sin.

Sadly he didn't want to admit that he was bad in the sight of God. We stressed the fact that all have sinned, and thus deserve judgement. We also explained clearly to him the good news, that Jesus Christ has come to rescue bad people. Please pray for Gordon. He uses a Gospel tract as a bookmark and he has talked with the team a few times before.

We also talked with Scott, a young man who professed to have done many drugs and sadly was speaking irrationally. Our discussion didn't really flow. He very adamantly denied God's existence based on his own enlightenment that a certain drug was the 'god'.

The conversation didn't go far and he directly rejected sin and the Gospel. Please keep Scott in your prayers; he is in need of the Saviour to come and rescue him. 

We also had the opportunity to briefly speak with Andy, he had grown up in a Christian home and said he went to church. Yet, he never really 'believed', he heard the stories but by age eleven he had all but rejected God. We asked him why and he didn't really give much of an answer, he said it didn't seem right. We discussed the evidence for the reliability of the Bible and a few other things but sadly he had to leave. Please pray for Andy that our encounter will cause him to begin to think about the things of eternity. 

Please pray for everyone we encountered today. 

Soli Deo Gloria!

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On Wednesday the 21st, 'Back to the Future Day', Queen St Mall, Brisbane was packed with people, many of whom had prepared for the day, knowing it was coming for 30 years, they organised some clothes to imitate 'Marty McFly' and had scheduled the time to watch the trilogy. Many people were happy to celebrate the time in the future where the characters 'returned to' but what about when Jesus Christ returns?

Will we be prepared for Christ's return? Are the people of Brisbane prepared for Christ's return? 

The answer to those questions for most people is a resounding NO. The vast majority of people are not prepared for Christ's return, many believe they are doing pretty good and the 'god' they believe in shall let them into Heaven. And many others just don't care, they are so apathetic that most will say it doesn't matter either way.

For that reason, that if Christ had returned on this day, there would have been hundreds of thousands who had never heard about their sin and their need for Christ as a Saviour so that they too could be prepared for the return of Christ.

We had a little bit of trouble setting up (as we forgot our table but by God's grace we were able to sort out a makeshift table and the afternoon got under way!

Out first conversation was with a lady named Anne, she told us that she knew she was going to Heaven because she was a very good person. When asked where she would rate herself on a scale of zero to one hundred she boldly proclaimed to be ninety-five!

We asked her what standard she was judging by and she said what she thought her motives were.

When we asked how she thought she compared to God's standard of perfection and goodness she said she didn't know. We discussed briefly whether or not a perfect God would have an objective standard of goodness. She admitted that He probably should and when tested by that standard Anne, just like the rest of us fell very short.
 

We continued talking a little more about ways to get to Heaven if we didn't deserve to get there and what we could do about it. Anne was sure there was a way to get to Heaven because she knew people who were certain of getting there. That provided the perfect opportunity to share with her the Amazing Love of Jesus, that He, the Lord of this world would come down, humble Himself and be the wrath-absorbing sacrifice for all those who trust in Him.

She said it is something she would have to consider.

Please pray for Anne, she now knows the way of salvation, the Good News of Jesus Christ, please pray that she will trust in Christ alone, submitting to His authority and therefore have her sin debt paid for!

Please commit to the Lord, the rest of the people with whom we talked, that they will also consider what happens after they die. Pray that they will have understood the Gospel message and would not have been able to sleep without getting right with God. Please pray that those who took literature, who asked questions, who listened to preaching and read the signs that they  will have this small amount of information about Christ and it will be the seed landing in good soil.

Please thank God for the opportunity we have, under little opposition to be able to openly preach the Gospel in the heart of Brisbane City!

Soli Deo Gloria!

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This week in Hobart the gospel went out again and the healing, saving and convicting words of our Lord went to work on the hearts of the people here. It has been a great day and there have been many encouragements.

The first of the day was a wonderful conversation with Andrea, a Christian man from Italy who was very excited to see the gospel being shared on the streets. He shared with me his walk with the Lord out of Catholicism to now worshiping in a methodist church. It was a privilege to hear what God has done in Andrea's life and how he was brought from despair to hope. He also encouraged me to continue in the work of sharing the gospel in Hobart.

The second encouragement for me came when we set up the bible table. Karl got up to speak from a collection of bible passages and did a fantastic job drawing people to seek Jesus and trust in Him. It is wonderful to look around at people nodding and smiling as my brother spoke. Afterwards I read the story of Jesus' birth in Luke, something I hope to do regularly as we approach Christmas.

After this we spent some time engaging with some skeptics who had gathered to chat with Mr S.. Karl, Jim and myself all had some good conversations. I particularly enjoyed discussing philosophy and faith with Mr E., one of Mr S.'s friends. The others all were having great discussions also from what I heard.

We set up the table again after an hour (council regulations...) and Taylor got up to speak. He spoke from the parable of the sower in Matthew's gospel and shared the gospel beginning with this telling story. And again I saw many people appreciative of my brother's words of hope.

I next got up to speak from Mat 5:4; about the Godly grief that we all should have for sin and the hardness of our hearts. Also I pointed to the wholeness, peace and healing that God offers in Jesus Christ for those who will repent of sin and trust in Him. Afterwards many gospel conversations were had and we left the mall praising the God of heaven for His grace.  

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This last couple of weeks in Hobart has been a mixed bag of responses and events. We now have five people in the team who will stand and speak! Both Karl and Mitch have stood to read the word of God and did a fantastic job. Taylor has continued to increase the amount he preaches and is now doing a great job of preaching the gospel from various texts. Nathan has been likewise improving but has had immense pressure from his work hours and so has been away for a couple of weeks. Please pray for those who preach, that they will be kept from both pride and fear.

The response of Hobart people has been the same as it always has been, a vocal minority of folk dislike our work and a large majority appreciate it and tell us so. The shopkeepers of the mall are not happy with our activities and both Jay Jays and Lowes continue to make complaints. This showed itself through a visit from the chamber of commerce and a couple more discussions with police officers, both of whom accuse us of being a public nuisance. It is not surprising when opposition arises but we need to respond in the right way, please pray that we will bless and pray for those who despise us and that we will not give into depression or antagonism. 

As the afternoon has now been divided between Mr S. and ourselves the team and I have taken advantage of the times we are not able to work in the mall to reach out on the surrounding streets. We have been handing out tracts and sharing the gospel where possible with people around the CBD. 

This week I preached from Mat 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". A moderate number of people gathered to hear the gospel preached and I was able to discuss the message and various biblical matters with a young busker afterwards. 

Karl read from God's word and Taylor preached from lamentations. Both of them were loud and clear with their speaking and were kind with those who heckled them. It is wonderful to see God's grace in action in their responses.
Praise God for His grace.

 

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Be Educated Outreach

On Tuesday morning we went into the University of Queensland to distribute 200 Bibles, that were donated to us by the Trinitarian Bible Society.

We headed in and first set up at the UQ Lakes bus stop, there we were for about an hour, it was relatively busy and we handed out about sixty five bibles while we were down there.

After forty minutes though a security officer made his way to us and had asked the team to no distribute Bibles, by God's grace while he was checking information about where we could go and things like that we were able to hand out another twenty or so bibles.

Then as we were leaving, we walked past a statue of 'St Vladimir', a statue donated to UQ in 1988, to celebrate Christianity making its way to Russia one thousand years earlier, this man was literally being honoured for distributing Christian literature to Russia.

After a little bit of discussion the team decided we would head to the other side of the campus, out to the council owned land, where we were dropped off and were able by God's sovereign Grace able to distribute the other one hundred and fifteen in a matter of less than thirty minutes at the front entrance to UQ.

Praise God that so many students were able to take Bibles and may be able to read the word of God!

Soli Deo Gloria!

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South-East England (UK) Team

Today the team consisted of Steven, Chuck, Jacob and Myself.  We found a spot on the High St in Romford and prayed that God would help us preach accurately and that He would bring those He wants to hear the Gospel.  

I have also begun to use a gorpro camera to record and take photos of the preaching.  This helps protect us if people accuse us of saying things we did not say and to critique our messages.

It is leading up to Halloween and Jacob came across a number of people dressed up for the occasion.  He gave them a tract and began to talk to them.

Jacob also preached later, while we were handing out tracts.

There were other Christians who were greatly encouraged by our activities today and mentioned that they would like to join us so we collected a few phone numbers from them.  SDG

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On Friday evening the team made their way to the Gold Coast to the share the Good News. Since this is a 'party district' many people were out seeking the pleasures of sin for a season. 

Tonight, the team was able to engage many people who had different beliefs about God, salvation and life. Yet, even though we spoke to people from many backgrounds the message of the Gospel remained the same. 

It doesn't matter where someone is from, or what they believe. They all need to hear the truth that we have sinned against God, yet, God in mercy sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for His people; to take the punishment we deserve. Then, three days later, the Lord Jesus rose again from the dead, and now He commands us to repent and believe in Christ. 

From the start of the night things were rather interesting. Early on a man came up to Ryan and was complaining about hearing the preaching and seeing the Scripture signs. Please pray that the Lord would soften this man's heart and bring him to faith. 

Matt had oppurtunity to talk to a man named Frank who was very angry. Frank claimed to be a Christian, yet he was swearing and yelling. Then he would say that he loved what the team was doing. 

After awhile he left, but returned a few hours later, this time with a sign he had stolen from a cafe. He then placed the sign right in front of us and left. We were able to return the sign later on. 

We also talked with Rodger, a man who was a Jehovah's Witness. He made claims about the Jesus he believes in not being divine and being created. We were able to talk with him about what the Bible states in Isaiah 9:6, John 1:1-3, Philippians 2, Matthew 16, Revelation 1 and a range of other places about Jesus being God. Upon hearing these verses he started to get a bit squirmy; with no defense from the Bible for his position he said he had to leave.

 

We were also able to speak to a young man named Jayden who is a Maori who had never heard the Gospel before. He didn't know the way to Heaven but had just assumed it was a default position that all who die go to Heaven. We asked him about Hitler and Stalin and others like them, do they go to Heaven?

Upon hearing this his position changed. He realised that not everyone will go to Heaven. From this point we were able to talk about God's standards and how not everyone will be in Heaven. 

After covering a lot of the basis for the need of the Gospel and understanding our sin, he said he was concerned that he wouldn't be going to Heaven. 

We were then able to share with him the Good News. That the way to Heaven is only through trusting in Jesus Christ and what He has done. 

Jayden said that was the first time he had heard this message and would have to consider it. Please pray for Jayden that he will consider the truth and put his trust in Jesus Christ!

 

 

Please pray that all whom we talked to will heed the warning message and trust Christ alone for salvation. Please pray that those who took tracts will read and consider the importance of the Eternity.

 

Soli Deo Gloria!

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SPECIAL HALLOWEEN OUTREACH!

Today, people all-around the world celebrated Halloween. Many set aside the night to dress up in scary outfits; others just used it as an excuse to spend the night drinking and partying.

However, there is something much more important than lollies, scary costumes and alcohol. No one would buy a car and not insure it, yet, many people go through life not thinking about the most important of issues, namely, where will we spend eternity? 

Today, we headed out to a Halloween festival in Manly in order to hand out 'Trick or Treat' tracts and to talk to people about the issues of life, death and eternity. By God's grace over five thousand people took tracts!

During the course of the day, Ryan had the oppurtunity to share the Gospel with the Lord Mayor of Brisbane. Like most people, the Mayor said he was trusting in his own goodness as the way to Heaven. Please pray that the Lord Mayor will think about what he has heard, and that he would come to faith. 

Also, please pray for all those who received the Gospel in written form. Pray that the Lord would use these simple tracts to bring many people out of the darkness and into the light. 


Soli Deo Gloria!

 

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At Woodridge on the 20th of October we had a rather eventful afternoon, before we had even started some young teens broke out into a fight with everything from hair pulling to punches. It was a sad display of the state of humanity but by God's grace it was broken up and dispersed and people were able to head off and calm down.

There was the normal busy rush of school children on the way home and around this time Josh started preaching out near the bus stop area; sadly there was some hostility from a few local drunks which got a few people stirred up, but amazingly it bought a massive crowd of school children who stood around and listened to the preaching, many of whom took literature or stayed around to talk afterwards.

There were also some other incidences where a late teens girl didn't want to hear the Gospel and yelled at Josh to stop and sadly she caused a big fuss, also getting her parents down who took a full fledged aggressive words war assault on the team members, making many false claims. 

Thankfully Queensland Police were diligent in sorting out the issues and the afternoon went on as normal, with many people hearing the Gospel.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Pray for the woman, her daughter and husband who are hostile to the Gospel, pray that God will drastically and dramatically change their hearts and minds that they will by God's grace be changed, surrendering their lives to Christ and desiring to come out and preach the way of salvation alongside us!

During the business of the shenanigans many young men wanted to stop and talk, we were able to share the Gospel with, we talked with a young man named Hikim, he had a little bit of Catholic exposure and was the normal stereotype, he thought he was a decently good person and would most likely get to Heaven.

We were able to discuss what God's standard is and that in reality because God is perfect we all fall short. Hikim said that this was a bit worrying, what would he do. He asked if he work hard could he regain God's favour and we talked about the implications of that.  "Do good deeds pay for wrong deeds?" we asked him and he had to conclude that they couldn't. He then asked if we thought we were going to Heaven, to which we responded "Yeah but not based on our own goodness".

We were able to discuss that God came into this world to lay down His life for sinners, just like us so that we could be counted as righteous and go to Heaven. Hikim said this was encouraging, we talked a little more but he had to leave, we gave him a Gospel of John.

Please be praying that God will use the conversation and His word (The Bible) to transform Hikim's life!

There was another group of young men, Michael, Jermaine and, Twong who were there for the shenanigans and started talking with us but our conversation was interrupted by some loud accussations and threats of violence from the lady and so we stopped talking but amazingly, after it had all died down they returned to continue the conversation!

We discussed, the Law, Sin, God's perfection and what that means to us, that we had all fallen short. We discussed what we can do to be saved but after the conclusion of the conversation all three said it makes sense and that they would have to consider eternity and where they would go when they died.

We gave them each a Bible and they left. Please pray for these young men that the truth of the Gospel would penetrate their hearts and minds and they will turn and trust in Christ and Him alone for their salvation!

Others we talked to included a young man Marcy, who professed to be good and wouldn't back down on that claim, even after hearing God's standard, also Harrison who original admitted he wasn't sure He would make it to Heaven and heard the Gospel. Also another young man Olivia who goes to a local church but does really understand the salvation of Jesus Christ so we talked about how he would get to Heaven and we strongly encouraged him to read the Bible. 

Pray for these young men, may God open their eyes to the truth of the Gospel and that they will come and join us to share the Gospel with others, starting a Gospel based trend in Woodridge!

Please pray that through the "persecution" we are receiving that many will see the light of Christ in us and that those who are currently against God and the preaching of the Gospel will be changed to the Glory of God and trust alone in His son becoming slaves to Christ and desiring all that He desires!

Please pray for labourers as well, that many more people will desire to join us on the streets, that many will take the time God has given them and honour him with it by preaching Christ and Him crucified!

Soli Deo Gloria!

 

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