Battle Log



Sunday 30 March 2008

Posted by Posted 31 March 2008, 9:30 PM by Ryan Hemelaar. Permalink

At the scheduled time of 9pm the Operation 513 Skypecast room opened up. However within 60 seconds of joining, it kicked everyone out of the Skypecast. In fact, it kept doing it for the first hour and a half of the Skypecast. Even though we had a lot of people try join in and listen, it would kick everyone out within 60 seconds of them joining. So Josh and I tried to do 50 second gospels for the people that were listening.

To find a solution, we tried creating a new Skypecast room, but it had the same problem. So at the hour and a half mark it started working properly and now we had two rooms that were filling up very fast. So we directed everyone that was in the initial room to the new one we created.

From then on we discussed important issues such as morality, the judgment to come, the law, religions, existence of God, the gospel. We tried having a conversation with two people, however both their microphones were not working. Josh Mitchell did eventually get to have a chat with a Muslim fellow living in the UK. His objection was that Christianity is logically inconsistent because Jesus could not be God and man. Also, he thought that penal substitution was unfair because the innocent party is getting punished instead of the guilty criminal. So Josh Mitchell briefly gave the chap a few reasons to believe the contrary. He wasn't satisfied with the answer so we encouraged him to come back next week to continue the conversation as they only had about 15 minutes to talk because the closing gospel message was about to start.

Josh Williamson did the closing gospel message. However, about 15 minutes through all of a sudden everyone was automatically moved to the waiting area. Every few seconds it would move everyone to the waiting area, then the listening area. Then every Skype client that was in the Skypecast room crashed. We are definitely suspecting that it was a hacker.

Please pray the gospel will not be hindered in next week's Skypecast because of technical difficulties and hackers.

We will have another Skypecast at the same time next week - Sunday 9pm - 12am GMT+10.

To God be the glory!


Sunday 23 March 2008

Posted by Posted 27 March 2008, 2:56 PM by Ryan Hemelaar. Permalink

The Operation 513 Skypecast kicked off at 9pm and the people started to flow in. Within 10 minutes there was about 60 people in the room, so I started preaching the law to bring the knowledge of sin, then the wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ's death on the cross.

We had a Muslim fellow who wanted to speak, so we brought him up to the talking area. He was very angry and forcifully expressed his opinion about Jesus. He even used vulgar language, so we immediately removed speaking access from him. He said he hated Jesus, but that's strange as if that man was truly a Muslim then he would know that the Qu'ran holds Jesus up to a high esteem because they believe He is a prophet of God. But I explained to the listeners why He is more than a prophet, He is actually God in flesh.

I also brought up some errors within the Qu'ran, for example, the Qu'ran says Mary is part of the trinity (Sura 5:116 - instead of the Holy Spirit). Now if the Qu'ran was truly inspired of God then it wouldn't make such a major blunder as that. Christians have never regarded Mary as part of the trinity. Another example of an error within the Qu'ran is that it says Jesus didn't actually die. But that is blatantly false as we have four historical accounts in the New Testament attesting to the contrary, plus several other historical accounts written by secular historians affirming Jesus' life and death under Pontius Pilate. Yet the Qu'ran, a book written over 600 years after Jesus' death claims He didn't die. Which viewpoint would be deemed more accurate? The primary source documents of course.

I also had a nice conversation with a different Muslim person who thought himself to be a good person. I showed him God's laws and the fact that he has broken them. He threw in the objection regarding his good works and that God should let him go based on his works. But I clearly showed him that a good judge cannot let a criminal go just because He has done good works. That is like trying to bribe the judge. I told him of the wonderful news of the Saviour and how He can be saved from the wrath that is to come by repenting and trusting Jesus alone as His Saviour.

Josh Mitchell discussed the issue of morality and where we get the knowledge of right and wrong from. Using that starting point, he directed it back to God's law and the judgment to come.

We did have some hacker issues though during the Skypecast. There was a number of times when some of our Skype clients crashed or disconnected as someone tried to stop the gospel preaching. At one time Josh Williamson's computer suddenly opened up a lot of sound files and started to play them and his mozilla browser just started to bounce all over the screen. He immediately unplugged his network cord. But Thankfully because there was three speakers, when one person had issues, another person could continue the preaching. Please pray that the preaching of the gospel will not be hindered next week.

Once recovered, Josh Williamson had a conversation with a man who lives in Melbourne on the Skypecast. Diddy (that being his username), attempted to show why Christianity is wrong because of the bad things that have been done in the name of Christianity. Josh showed him why that is not a legitimate reason for dismissing Christianity. Josh told him that the Bible says to love your neighbour, not kill him. So it the person who interpreted the Bible wrongly who is in the error, not the Bible itself. But Diddy disagreed and said that it was the Bible's fault that people had taken scripture and used it the wrong way. So Josh tried to show Diddy that that is an absurd position to hold by saying, "Diddy, I heard you were going to give me $1000." Diddy replied, "No I didn't." Josh responded, "I am misusing your words, but according to your logic you are the one in the wrong." After that Diddy became silent because he knew that his own logic was flawed. 

I finished off with the closing gospel message and a calling on all people to repent and trust in Christ alone for salvation. Please pray that God will draw people unto Himself for His glory alone.

The recording below is not the whole Skypecast as the Skype on the recording computer disconnected during the middle of it. However below is almost an hour of the Skypecast compiled of two different parts joined together.

speakerListen (12.7MB - 55:31)
(To download: right-click link, save target as.)

We will have another Skypecast at the same time next week - Sunday 9pm - 12am GMT+10.

To God be the glory!


Sunday 16 March 2008

Posted by Posted 17 March 2008, 12:13 PM by Ryan Hemelaar. Permalink

Praise the Lord, the Skypecast worked from the start! In case you weren't aware, recently our weekly Skypecast have been having major technical difficulties. So usually half our time is spent trying to get it working. But tonight it worked from the get go. Praise God.

It was a rather quiet for most of the night. Although Josh Mitchell did have a pleasant conversation on air with a professing Christian. So Josh tested the man to see if you truely knew the gospel.

We had various questions come through via chat message which we addressed on air, such as, "Why is Islam a false religion?", "Where do we get our morals from?", etc. Josh Williamson and Ryan Hemelaar also discussed various topics such as, "How do we know that is a God?", "Does evolution disprove the Bible?", "What is the gospel?", etc.

At about 45 minutes remaining, the flood gates were opened and people started to flow in to the Skypecast. At one point we had about 60 people in the room at the same time. This was perfect timing as Josh Mitchell was almost about to start preaching the in-depth final closing gospel message. The recording below is that message:

speakerListen (6.9MB - 30:01)
(To download: right-click link, save target as.)

We will have another Skypecast at the same time next week - Sunday 9pm - 12am GMT+10.

To God be the glory!


Sunday 27 January 2008

Posted by Posted 28 January 2008, 6:07 PM by Josh Mitchell. Permalink

“Original sin, therefore, appears to be a hereditary, depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused through all the parts of the soul, rendering us obnoxious to the divine wrath and producing in us those works which the scripture calls 'works of” " - John Calvin

What a wonderful night of evangelism. People from all over the world, from Israel, Turkey, England, Australia, Canada etc took part in listening or dialoging with our Operation 513 staff. Glory to God.

Bryan had a misunderstanding of God, sin and why the human race is in the terrible predicament it is in, we searched through the gold mine of the book of Genesis, and uncovered the truths that answered his questions. May God save his soul.

Rose, from Saudi Arabia gained a fear of God's judgment. Please pray for her, since to trust Christ to the exclusion of sin and Islam will mean serious repercussions to her life as she knows it.

Chuck was a hardened athiest, and resisted the arguments given to him. But we trust the word of God is like a hammer it breaketh the rock in pieces, as and when and if God is pleased to do so.

Lots of conversations were had with Dan Kent chatting privately to those involved in the skypecast, we thank God for his efforts there, for the glory of God's name.

It looks like we had about two hundred listeners or thereabouts, and we also had quite a few ppl come back, through our private thankyou messages, that we send (with a gospel tract link in thier tongue) out after most broadcasts!

Keep praying for people ou there, this is a very useful means of proclaiming the gospel! Please also pray for the staff. It took until 3AM to finish witnessing to people, and sending gospel tracts to every person on the list, it's very wearying and likely to interfere with the following days work!

May the Lamb that was slain, receive the reward of His suffering!

 


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