June 10 into 11, 2010

June 10 into 11, 2010: I got to Mill Ave. a little after 9:00. Overall, the night seemed to be quite fruitful. Throughout the evening I spoke to many people and did a good bit of preaching. As usual, the preaching was a great way of drawing people in to discuss the things of God. Early on, a man who came over and walked around in front of me appeared to be following what I was saying as I was preaching the gospel. I eventually got into a conversation with him, he had told me some of the circumstances in his life which were quite unfortunate, he said Christians had wronged him. He said he him was a believer, but due to what he was facing, he saw no reason not to just give up and just get drunk. I told him that I don’t know all of the details concerning what he is going through, but I told him I’m sorry that he’s facing whatever he is. I encouraged him not to live for the temporal things and circumstance of this life, but for Christ. If our hope and life are truly found in Christ, this world can fall apart and we’ve lost nothing (after all this life is nothing compared to eternity). I admit I personally have trouble keeping this focus as I should. I also exhorted him not to look to professing Christians (particularly here in America where there is really no reason not profess faith in Christ) to see what a Christian is, but rather to look to Christ. In some cases, people will point to the Crusades or the Inquisition (which by the way were Catholic, not Christian) as reasons to reject Christ and Christianity. If a person uses these and other so-called “Christian” acts to defame Christianity, I’ll often ask them to consider what they would think of a person that professed to be a follower of theirs who went around murdering and claiming to be doing it in their name. I also like to mention the fact that Jesus seemed to be most upset with the religious hypocrites (Matthew 23). Throughout Scripture, we’re warned about and warned not to be one of those who profess faith in Christ, but do not truly know Him, nor are known by Him (Matthew 7:21-23; 15:7-9; Romans 2; Titus 1:16; 1 John 1:6; 2:4). I believe the conversation with the man was fruitful. I often like to encourage people who say they’re Christian to read 1 John to see if they line up with it’s description of one who is born of God (which I encourage you who might be reading this to read if you consider yourself to be a follower of Christ) .
Another conversation that stands out was with a man who admitted he was in sin and wanted to know if I thought he could be saved. He said he has family that are Christian and have talked to him about Christ. He appeared to be broken, I don’t know his heart of course and I don’t know if it was because He realized the gravity of his sin before God or if it was merely because of the fear of hell, but I told him that he could be saved and that he must repent and believe. Please pray for him, his name is John. I gave him my number and it sounds like he has family reaching out to him. One interesting occurrence is that at one point while I was preaching, a man came up to me who anointed me with oil. I spoke to many others, a few times I got a little nervous. At one point, some homosexual men came over to me and were very angry with me after I read 1 Corinthian 6:9-10. I talked to them for a bit. Other people came over as I spoke with them as it was apparently evident that they were angry. I read them some of Romans 1. They claimed that Jesus just spoke about love. I tried to explain to them that they needed a Biblical definition of love, pointing to 1 Corinthians 13 (the same letter that says homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God). I told them love “…does not seek its own…” (1 Corinthians 13:5) and that if they really love a person, they won’t lead them into sin by being in a homosexual relationship with them. They weren’t interested in what the Bible said.
Sadly, there were some woman acting inappropriately out there during the night. Unfortunately, some people use sex and provocative ways to get what they want. This is detestable.
There were other conversations. I left about 2:00. In general the night seemed to be quite fruitful. In fact, it’s nights like this that really help bring some perspective on the importance of getting out and proclaiming the Gospel (Matthew 28:19; Luke 10:2-3). God will be glorified.