Battle Log

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Queen's Birthday Public Holiday Outreach

It was very busy in Queen Street Mall during our outreach in Brisbane city on Monday. We had a good sized team and had good gospel conversations with many people.

I preached using the Sketchboard a couple times throughout the afternoon. A crowd stopped to listen to the message each time. Then Jordan got up and preached, spring-boarding off of James 4:13-14.

Afterwards I got back up to preach and pretty much straight away there was a loud heckler. It is great having loud hecklers as they attract a crowd. He asked all sorts of questions from 'How do we know God exists?' to 'What about slavery in the Bible?'

This resulted in a large crowd forming, which then started asking their own questions too (like 'Why is there a Hell?', 'Why doesn't God like shellfish?', 'What about homosexuality?'). The crowd didn't disappear at all during the 1.5-2 hours of continuous preaching, with some people staying the entire time.

I made sure to explain the gospel again and again in amongst the questions that people were asking. because I knew that there were new people in the crowd all the time.

The team kept handing out tracts during this time and talking to people about Christ. We handed out about 20 Bibles during the outreach.

We were planning on finishing the outreach at 4:30pm, but because the crowd was sticking around asking more questions, with new people arriving all the time, I ended up finishing preaching after 5pm. We then packed up shortly after that.

Please pray for all who heard the gospel on Monday in Brisbane.

To God be the glory that He would use unworthy servants like us!

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It was a slower night in Brisbane due to rain and cooler weather; yet, the Lord was at work.

I preached using the sketchboard on the topic, "The Way to Heaven." At the start of the message a young man stopped to listen. His friends tried to entice him away, but he refused saying he wanted to listen to the preaching.

After the open-air one of the team members spoke to him. It turns out that he's been thinking about this topic and wanted to learn more. He took a Bible, and exchanged numbers with a team member. He was extremely open to hearing of Jesus.

A crowd of about twenty people listened to the preaching. We rejoice that the Lord brought them in to hear the Gospel.

Two other members also preached, and the group was able to hand out many tracts and have some great conversations.

Please pray for all those who heard.

 

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Wow. It was a surprising afternoon of outreach at Sunnybank today. One Chinese man that I was attempting to share the gospel with, couldn't speak much English at all, so I encouraged him to get someone else to translate for him the gospel tract that I gave him.

So after walking a few metres up the pedestrian overpass, he encountered some Mormon missionaries who he had obviously spoken with before. He asked them to translate the tract for him. One of the missionaries quickly grabbed the tract out of his hand and threw it over the edge of the railing.

We saw that these Mormon 'elders' had done that, so Col walked up to the Chinese man to give him another tract, which he gladly received. The Mormons then tried to convince the man to give back the tract. He was reluctant at first, but after their earnest pleadings, he gave the tract back to Col.

I then said to the Mormon missionaries, "Do you remember what Jesus said to the Pharisee's in Matthew 23 - you go across land and sea to make one convert and when you do you make him twice a son of Hell as yourselves."

I then said, "How bad will it be for you on the day of Judgement that you would prevent this man from coming to know the gospel." At this, one of the missionaries started swearing at us and was flaring up in anger. He said, "How can you say I'm going to Hell, you can't say that, only God knows that. You're going to Hell!"

We pointed out the hypocrisy in his statement there. He then angrily came right up very close to our faces, still swearing at us, and appeared as if he was going to throw a punch at us. He said, "I hope someone kicks you guys really hard."

Soon after, he walked away. You'll know them by their fruits. I think the Chinese man saw a difference today between Biblical Christianity and Mormonism.

There were also many open and receptive people whom we spoke with today, so please pray for them.

To God be the glory!

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On Sunday afternoon, we had our fortnightly outreach at Wellington Point (QLD). It was a overcast but there were still people around to witness to.

We had a few brief conversations before we had a close to two hour long conversation with a couple, Arthur and Lisa. It started off just talking to Lisa. She said that she would be going to Heaven because her soul is perfect. However, she did admit that she has sinned and she mentioned she believed in Jesus. I knew something wasn't right because of her answer about her soul being perfect.

After talking further with her, it turned out she didn't believe that God would punish anyone. She thought that two gods exist, one that is good and other not so good. She said that the Old Testament described one of the gods and the New Testament the other god.

So I asked her where she is getting her ideas from - she said from books that had supposedly been left out of the Bible. I knew straight away, she's into Gnosticism. It was an idea that was floating around soon after the time of Christ, claiming 'secret knowledge', and was responsible for a number of supposed 'other gospels' written (eg: Gospel of Thomas).

I pointed out to her that these 'gospels' were not written by the people they are ascribed to, but are later forgeries that came hundreds of years after the time of Christ. They are very different to the actual gospels, which were written not long after the time of Christ, by eyewitnesses of him.

Lisa wasn't comfortable with idea that Jesus bodily rose from the dead, for Gnostics say that matter is not good and ultimately our aim is to perfect our soul by ridding ourselves of anything physical. So we showed her Jesus' statement in Luke 24:39 where he says he has flesh and bones.

Soon after this, her husband Arthur came along and we continued to speak with both of them. We were showing them that there is a judgement Day to come and that God must punish sinners for their sin, unless they come faith in Christ - the only one who can take our punishment for us. We pleaded with them to leave their false beliefs and come to faith in Christ alone for their salvation.

I am very thankful that salvation is in God's hands and that even though they were very stubborn, they have heard the truth now and our prayer is that God would work on their hearts and draw them to Himself. Please pray for Arthur and Lisa.

 

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Great night of outreach in Brisbane last night. We brought in 30+ New Testaments for the free Bible table, all went out. A few members of the team commented to me after the outreach saying that they spoke to a number of really receptive people tonight.

Our prayer that we prayed at the start of outreach was that God would prepare people's hearts to hear the gospel. He answered that prayer.

One such person I spoke to whose name was Danny. He mentioned that this last week he was speaking to a friend about how to get to Heaven and both of them were not sure. Then on Friday while at work up in Cairns a customer gave him a Bible. Then on Saturday (yesterday) he moved from Cairns to Brisbane and then at night he happened to be walking in Queen Street and came across our outreach, and I asked him whether will go to Heaven.

He said he sees these things as a sign from God that he should find the way to Heaven. So I explained to him about sin, the judgement to come, grace, repentance and faith. He came to understand the gospel, and so I encouraged him to count the cost of following Christ, but at the same time without delay, come to saving faith. He thanked me for the chat and said he is going to do that and start reading the Bible that he got the day before.

Please pray for him and all the others who heard the gospel.

All Glory to God!

If you'd like to support the work of Operation 513, including the purchasing of Bibles, etc to give out freely to people, you can donate online.

 

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The gospel went out again today in Brisbane city. We gave out about 25 gospels of John and talked to lots of people.

From a Korean man with no religion, to a lady who says she only believes in people, to those who went to Christian schools but have never understood the gospel, it was a fruitful day.

A good number of people said they were challenged by what they heard and said they will count the cost of repenting and trusting in Christ.

I also did some preaching with the sketchboard and there was a guy right from the very first word of the preaching who started shouting profanity repeatedly to drown out the preaching, showing his hatred of God. It was interesting seeing the crowd repeatedly telling him to stop and so eventually he went away. And in a way, God used him to draw in a crowd to hear the gospel.

Glory to God for another great outreach!

 

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The gospel was proclaimed in Brisbane city on Wednesday again this week. Some people in the crowd stuck around listening for the two hours or so of preaching, and then wanted to keep talking with us afterwards.

People were asking all sorts of questions and presenting their objections during the preaching. This encouraged more people stop and listen in to the discussion. 

Please pray for all those who heard the gospel, received gospel tracts or took a free Bible, that God would save them.

The city presents such a great opportunity to get the gospel out to many people. So if you have any time Wednesday afternoons to join us, please do.

 

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One of the most encouraging things from Tuesday's outreach at Woodridge was that one of people who has become a Christian because of our ministry there (and has been attending a local church for past 6 months) was keen to help us hand out gospel tracts. He joined us for several hours.

Praise be to God!

 

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I have been away for the last fortnight and today it was wonderful to be back into sharing the gospel with the people of Hobart. Apparently our absence has been noticed, lots of people have come up and commented that they haven't seen us for a while. I pray that God would use our presence as a visible reminder to people of who we preach and stand for. May God bring to mind all the gospel people know when ever they see us in the street!

We started the day with the bible table and chatting to people who came to the table. One of these was Mr R. who had questions about the bible and believed some things that were obviously contradicting the bible. We talked for a period but he left insisting that we/I were scare-mongering. Later in the afternoon during the preaching he returned and had a long conversation with Karl which was excellent. 

I praise God that He has raised up all sorts of different people to be part of our team here in Hobart. There are so many people that other members of the team can reach who I cannot. Never think dear friends that you are unable to evangelise because "I am not like person x who is gifted in evangelism...", there are people in your town that only you will be able to reach. God has gifted you with the life and experience that you have so that you can share His glory and gospel with particular people. Trust God and go share your faith with those around you, they need you to bring it to them and your Lord commands that you do.

Mr S. our regular heckler has also taken a different approach recently as I have written previously. This week Mr S. set up a table also in the mall seeking to engage with people about cults, psychics and clairvoyants. He is also seeking to encourage atheism and draw people away from religions of all types. While there is obviously major differences/disagreements between us I praise God for the opportunity that this creates. His work brings many atheists to our area of the mall and we are then able to share the gospel with them. Please pray that we will be able to boldly and wisely share the gospel with these people and encounter their world view in a way that changes them for Christ.

May God's Name be praised!

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Evangelism in Leicester Square was fantastic last night. We had a good size team out, which really supported the preaching of the gospel in the open-air.

A number of people stopped to listen, and some even engaged. The chap in photo (with his back to camera, on the left) asked a great question and after the preaching Regan was able to converse with him more thoroughly.

This is what I love! — a public proclamation of the gospel that spills into one-to-one conversations. God is so good!

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