Battle Log

Page 165

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This afternoon at Capalaba the team had the privilege of engaging with a host of different people. There were less people than usual but conversations weren't hard to find. This afternoon was filled with unusual conversations and these are usually sad. Uniqueness in a religious belief isn't good, because it means the belief differs from God's clear revelation.

The first was with a man named Keith. He proclaimed to be a spiritual man and "very intelligent". Keith believed that God existed but that all religions are wrong. He attacked the Bible as false because, "we weren't there, we can't know it is true" and declared that true spirituality is just being good and hoping that God accepts that.

Keith didn't understand the Gospel when the conversation first started but said he understood it at the end. 

Sadly, he follow this acknowledgment with, "but it is wrong". He is a man, that is so desperately in love with himself and his own ideas and on this basis has rejected God's very clear revelation about Himself.

Please be praying that God would be gracious to Keith and lead him to repentance.

Another conversation was had with a man who asked, "What do you think Heaven is?"

When it was explained that Heaven is a place, enjoying God and His glory eternally the man scoffed in scorn. He declared loudly, "Who would want to go there, what an awful place. Heaven should be like this earth where we can live how we want and make our own choices".

Sadly this man, also claimed to be a believer in God. It was another scary conversation with a man deluded to think that Heaven would be a place where he could sin at will, without consequence.

Two other conversations were had with a young man named Callum and a Girl named Shania. Neither had much understanding of God except for the idea that He is love. Callum thought that God would just let anyone into Heaven and Shania thought that as long as you try hard God will accept you.

Callum lent towards a buddhist idea of karma and was hoping that God would give some small punishments in this life so he would be okay on judgement day. It was explained that there is no small sin and no small punishment for sin because there is no small God to sin against.

Sadly Callum didn't really think he was that bad, or was that worried by God's judgement but preferred to live his own way.

On the other hand Shania came to understand that God's love is far more than what we call love (having mushy feelings). She learnt that God's love is for the underserving, the guilty, vile and helpless. God had every right to punish us and instead, punished Himself, so that we could be forgiven.

Shania was taken back and had never heard of God's love in this way before. She said she wanted to know more.

Please be praying for Keith that God would humble him. For the other man, that he would come to a saving knowledge of God. For Callum that he would see his desperate need for the Saviour and for Shania that she would seek to know God more.

Please also pray for Caleb a young man who heard the bad news but whose bus arrived before he was able to hear the Gospel. Please be praying that the team could speak to him in the coming weeks.

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Southmall Manurewa 

This was our second time here in Southmall Manurewa. The Lord had allowed 5 of us to go, Pastor Orr, one of our Deacons Joe, our sister Eliza and our brother Stuart joining us in the end and myself.

Even with the small turnout of locals in the area that evening we were still able to hand out many of our Operation 513 gospel tracts. A couple of people asked for Bibles. 

One of the highlights was being able to open air preach on the pavement, using amplification, as we had quite a few people listening. To the left there were the customers waiting for their take away order from the Pizza Hut many of them came outside once they heard the preaching. Others listening were the uber and taxi drivers that were right in front of us. Even some by standers stopped to listen.

One man in particular was walking by and stopped as I preached about God's omnipresence and how nothing is hidden from the eyes of the Lord. Then I proclaimed that because of Christ, all those whom believe in Him, trusting in who He is and what He has done on the cross, all the sins of the believer is cast as far as the east is from the west and into the sea of God's forgetfulness.

He stayed a couple more minutes to listen then turned around and kept walking, please pray for all those who heard and were contacted through one to one conversations. 

Please pray for our next outreach on the 18th of Aug as we with God's help plan to visit Otara markets.

SDG

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The team had a wonderful night on the Gold Coast last night. Hear Natalie share about a Christian couple who realised the importance of Jesus' sacrifice for the first time. And hear Trevor share, using the flip chart, with a couple who had no idea what Jesus came to accomplish but soon learnt and desired to know more!

 

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At the Jumpers and Jazz Festival on this week, there were more people in town. Lots of Gospel tracts were handed out, praise God.

The ministry we able to give out two more Bibles to Emma & Douglas, the family from Inglewood. Their ninth child was born two weeks ago. Please pray we can continue to encourage this family as they seek to read Gods Word.

I met another Christian from Inglewood. His name is Ron. He is connected to a church there and has a sound understanding of the Gospel. 

He wanted to know about the ministry. Please pray these Christians will support each other in their faith in Jesus.

Alan, the man who I talked with a couple of weeks ago, stopped for a bit. He says he is born again but he does not want to hold Scripture as the final authority. He says everyone interprets it differently. He is also adding works to salvation. So, I just focused on what the Bible teaches. I shared that we are brought to repentance and faith by God's Grace alone. After that, obedience follows because He first loved us and works are evidence of our faith but cannot save us. He did not agree. 

Sadly Alan, goes to a range of churches and not under any authority. He said he sees visions and bases a lot of his beliefs on his experiences. It is scary that his testimony but does not align with Scripture. Please pray that God by grace will lead Alan to the correct understanding of the Gospel and the Scriptures.

Please pray for Mandy. She is a Liaison officer, who knows the Gospel and is eager to share with others. We talked about the need to be discerning and know true from false. I have given her a name of a ministry to check out that deals with false teachers in a truthful yet loving manner. His name is Justin Peters the ministry is "JustinPeters.org". You can check this out for yourselves, it is a good resource. 

Please pray for all the tracts handed out today.

Please pray for these seeds to stir the hearts of each person who has been given the Gospel message.

May God be and Glorified!

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This afternoon as the team were at Sunnybank, there were many people whom God had prepared to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These included, Christians who were encouraged, Mormons misunderstanding the Gospel and even an atheists fighting against it. This afternoon was fruitful and exciting.

One encouraging thing when on the street is found in speaking to other Christians. Many are excited to overhear conversations and will support you. When we as a team encounter Christians we often, exhort them to take a couple of tracts and share the Gospel with people they sit next to on the bus or train as they head home. We also then assist them by asking what they would share and how they would share it. This also doubles as a good way to see how they understand the Gospel. Across this afternoon, three of these encounters were had with Graham, Howie and Hannah.

One early conversation was had with a man named Daniel. He professed to know "all about Christianity" and has "been there and done that". When challenged on what he thought Christianity was all about, Dan said it was simply being good, living a good life and God will accept you. This question was followed up with another, "If Christianity is just about being good, what has Jesus Christ got to do with it?" Dan paused for a moment and said, "He has something to do with sacrifice".

And a third and final question was posed, "What does Jesus' sacrifice have to do with, us being good?" Dan wasn't sure. It turns out he had grown up as a JW, which is a religion in which one tries to justify themselves by works. When it was explained, that this was not Christianity, Dan didn't have much response.

He had some other attacks against Christianity, most of which seemed to be a flurry of attacks to avoid addressing the real elephant in the room, his failure before a Holy God. Sadly his bus arrived and he had to leave. Please be praying that Dan is given a hatred for sin and comes humbly to the Saviour.

Another conversation was had with Mitchell. Mitchell had spent most of his life on the streets but had recently started to get his life together and had been going to a local Church with some friends. During the conversation he was constantly getting distracted by his phone and wasn't being all that attentive. Thankfully at times he did pay attention.

Mitchell had been discouraged because his friends had all said they'd been hearing God speak to them and talk back to them as they prayed and he wasn't. He was encouraged never expect things of God that God hasn't promised.

It also came up that he struggled to read. He was encouraged to download a bible app that could read the Bible out to him. Beautifully it could solve both dilemmas, he could hear God's personal revelation and learn more about who God is, at the same time!

Mitchell seemed encouraged by this, he took a tract and headed off.

A final conversation at the end of the afternoon was had with a woman, one other team member had spoken to early on in the afternoon. Marissa, had some Christian-ish beliefs but had largely rejected God because people she loved had died. It was explained that God's intention is not spite or callousness. Rather, everyone has a time appointed for them to die, in God's good plan. The purpose of this plan is for His glory and the good of those who love Him.

Marissa, didn't really understand what it meant to trust in Jesus, so a simple analogy was given. She then understood and when asked if she was trusting in Jesus, now understanding what it meant, she said "No".

She was encouraged to place her total reliance upon who Jesus is and what He has done. She mentioned a few different things holding her back but these objections were answered and she understood.

Please be praying that Marissa, dwells upon the trustworthiness of God and stakes her eternity on His promises and work. Please pray that Mitchell is able to begin to trust God and learn about Him through the audible Word. Please pray that Dan may by humbled by God's Holiness and come in surrender to Jesus as Saviour and Lord. Please be praying that Graham, Howie and Hannah stepped out in faith and, in the power of the Spirit, declared boldly and clearly, God's offer of salvation.
 

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Speakers Corner 

We were blessed by today's outreach. Tim, Brendan and myself got to preach. Brother Trevor was also with us. There were a few that stopped by to listen. One young lady in particular stayed to listen to each one of us. She later thanked one of our other brothers Joseph for the messages she heard and I got to give her one of our Op513 tracts.

By God's grace I got into a conversation with a young man named Anton. I reached over to hand him a tract, he took it and I said, "Do you have any spiritual beliefs?" "Yes!" he said. I then asked him, "What do you think happens when you die?" He responded, "I don't know".

I gave him a summary of Romans 1:18-25, making the point that everyone knows that God exist that they suppress the truth in their wickedness.

I tried to explain that God is all powerful, all knowing and the creator of all things good. And God had allowed for him to wake up this morning.

Then using the text, from Hebrews 4:13 and Hebrews 9:27, I made the point that one day he will stand before this all powerful, all knowing Holy God to give an account for his life. 

I also stressed, because he has sinned against this great and eternal God the punishment is also great and eternal because it is He who has been offended. 

I will never forget the look on his face when I told him that the good news that Jesus Christ came to take that punishment on the cross so that we would have peace with God.

From then on by I just kept telling him more about who Christ is what He has done. Explaining further, the promise of eternal life for those who believe in Him. He asked whether Jesus was ever born as a man. This gave me an opportunity to explain the doctrine of the incarnation. Jesus is truly God and truly man, which began when He walked the earth. 

As we finished I continued to encourage Anton that the only way he would be right with God is if he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. God alone can forgive the sins of man but God should not forgive the wicked because He is just. God forgave the wicked when His justice was poured out on Christ on the cross and those who would truly turn away from their sin and believe Him, though they die yet shall they live. 

Please pray for Anton, and those who heard the gospel preached in the open air. 

SDG 

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This afternoon in King George Square in the heart of Brisbane City many people heard the Gospel.

As the afternoon started there were some charity workers nearby, who were getting people to sign up for a charity. Across the afternoon the team was able to speak to all of the workers, early on a conversation was started with one female member but soon after James the team leader began engaging and ended up staying for almost thirty minutes.

He threw a lot of questions out, at first, not really interested in the answers. Every time an answer was given he would jump to a different question, sometimes even raising multiple at once. It seemed that James was using the questions to dodge the reality of God's existence and God's judgement of sin.

Slowly and surely, as each question was answered, James started to understand Christianity. The beauty of a lenghty conversation on the street is that as each question is answered the picture of Christianity gets clearer as the answers link together and tie back into each other. 

As the converastion was wrapping up conversation James said, "I was expecting this to be a much worse conversation but you have made it very clear. I now understand Christianity a lot more, thanks for talking to me".

As James left one final reminder of the Gospel was given to him and a call was given for him to find forgiveness and salvation in Jesus.

Another conversation was had with Georgia. She had absolutely no issues proclaiming that she was one of the most vile human beings and talked about her past armed robbery and current drug use.

Sadly, this knowledge of sin was not saving her. She was still desperately proud and self-reliant. She declared that she did not need a saviour but would simply, when she is ready, clean herself up and make herself right with God. No matter what God had said or how it was explained she could not understand that we can't ever remove our history of sin, or atone for one single sin. Georgia was adamant that she needed no Saviour and would be fine.

This was an incredibly sad conversation. Even pondering it in hindsight, it causes tears to well up. Georgia was so clearly broken and hopeless but had no interest (yet) in calling to the humble and patient God, who has everything that is required for sinners for find forgiveness.

As the outreach came to a close a conversation was had with Luke and Paris. Paris asked one question but spent most of the time distracted where as Luke couldn't get enough. He asked many inquisitive questions, seeking to understand Christianity. 

He began talking about God. Luke started by saying that be basically believes most of the things in the Bible but just disagrees with a few. It was then explained, that the first two people to be in this position were Adam and Eve. It isn't good enough to trust God and most things and live our own way even on a single issue. As Adam and Eve found out, wanting to be your own god, even over which tree you want to eat from, is enough to separate you completely from the Holy and Righteous God who created us. (Whilst this conversation was going on James, from earlier, overheard and listened this this first part).

Luke understood this and  said he knows a God exists but he isn't sure it is the Christian God. Many simple proofs were given as to why the Christian God, is the one true and living God. Ranging from Jesus' resurrection from the dead, the miraculous power given to the Apostles, the prophesy in the Old Testament or even the beauty and master craftsmanship of the Bible. Luke slowly listened and asked questions about each answer. 

He also asked about how Christianity is different from all the other religions and was surprised to hear that it was primarily a salvation issue. All other religions point us to ourselves, to clean ourselves up and God will honour that. Where as Christianity is the only religion in which God Himself, comes down, to redeem sinners from punishment.

With a few more questions answered, Luke was very excited and said, "You have been very convincing, I am excited to learn more about this!"

Please be praying that James ponders the Gospel and that the Holy Spirit will use this exposure to bring him to salvation. Please pray that Georgia is humbled by an understanding of God's immense Holiness and will turn and trust in God's humble Saviour and please pray for Luke that He will not rest until he has placed his trust, solely in the work of Christ on the cross!

And may you also pray, that God would give you the boldness and courage to step out in love and obedience, to declare His glorious Gospel to those around you in your every day lives!
 

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Hear Matt explain the types of people the team usually encounter at Woodridge, and share of two conversations that he had with people. One with Alex, which was short and to the point and another with four youngsters and was filled with many questions and helpful explanations.

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Well it all started when a bloke started bashing his partner in the carpark across the road. Our team was meeting at the Margaret street McDonalds last Saturday when Elisa came over and said she’d just seen (and confronted) a man who was beating his partner. The man had launched into a tirade against Elisa and so while she rang the police six of our male team members crossed the street to maintain an obvious presence and ensure no further violence would occur.
 

After waiting around 15 minutes the police still hadn’t arrived. It was decided that four of us would return to McDonalds while Rick and I would continue to keep an eye on the situation. Rick is the Operation 513 Team Leader in Warwick and along with his wife Glenda had decided to join us today. I was especially grateful of Rick’s presence in this moment, because it didn’t take long for the abuser to notice our reduced numbers and to come storming over to Rick and I. He demanded to know what we were doing there, and when I told him we were there because we’d been told he’d been bashing his missus, he exploded in a furious rant about it “being none of our business” and how “we should f---- off” etc.
 

He then called his partner over, who then proceeded to scream and rant at us as well. Sadly, this is not an unusual situation with domestic violence, however what was unusual was that she was clearly under the influence of something. Her sentences were mostly incoherent though the general meaning was certainly clear. She asked us what we were doing and when Rick mentioned we were praying for their situation (among other things) they both heartily enjoyed mocking us as they walked back to their car.

Things took a strange turn a few minutes later, however, when the bloke asked if we could buy him and his partner coffee (Yes, you read that right). Now in a calmer frame of mind, he introduced himself as J- and his girlfriend as K-. He told us that their car was having mechanical trouble and that they’d both endured a very stressful 24 hours after being busted for drugs.

Whilst we realised that background story to his abuse could never excuse the violence (and the fact that this was clearly a “exploit-the-religious-guys” coffee request), Rick and I chose to buy J- and K- coffee and something extra to show our love for them.

Upon our return J- went back to being rather prickly, however Rick still boldly offered J- a Gospel tract (which was declined) and we hung around a little while to continue chatting with J-. It was a difficult discussion though as J- would swing quite wildly between being rather friendly and then suddenly quite antagonistic towards us in the space of a few sentences. Eventually we chose to wrap up the conversation and we headed out for the main part of our outreach with the others.

The afternoon had much more in store for us as a team. Below are three significant encounters:

1. Merv and Adrian handed a tract to a Sudanese man named D- who instantly wanted to discuss Christianity. D- came to Australia in 2011 and had a Christian background, yet only sporadically went to Church. He possessed quite a bit of Bible knowledge yet had some unorthodox beliefs.

D- believed that Jesus died physically but was only raised spiritually (e.g. Jesus’ bones are still in Israel somewhere). He also believed in an old heresy called Modalism, which claims that God manifests Himself in three ways: Father, Son and Spirit but only is one person. In this view, God could be seen as an actor who puts on three different masks throughout history. One person-three masks. This heresy essentially denies the Trinity, which is the Biblical teaching that God is one being yet eternally exists in three distinct persons: The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.

This all may sound rather abstract, but like all heresies Modalism has numerous knock-on effects that undermine the Christian faith. The denial that Jesus rose physically from the dead also causes tremendous problems. Thankfully, Merv is well-versed in these things and he and D- had a robust yet respectful and loving discussion that went for over an hour. Please pray for D-, that he may get connected to a local Church family and may be nurtured, challenged and loved.

2. Rick and I went down Margaret street and handed out a good number of tracts together. People were quite receptive, though it wasn’t long before a young man told us to “make sure we’re sharing the grace and love of Jesus in all this”. It turned out this young man was a Youth Pastor at a large and well-known Church in Toowoomba. I asked him what he meant, and he said that evangelism should be done in the context of relationship, focussing on the grace and love of Christ. He was adamant on this point and the way he was saying it seemed (to me) to indicate that Christians should *only* share the Gospel with those we have a relationship with and that we should focus primarily upon God’s grace and love.

This sort of thinking tends to be found mostly in Pentecostal circles and at best sees street evangelism as naïve and at worst sinful. It also tends to place a high emphasis on Christ’s love and has a zero-tolerance policy towards those who share about God’s wrath and condemnation. Yet this view is flawed when you realise that the Good News only becomes Good News in light of the Bad News. Amazing Grace is only amazing (and gracious) when one considers God’s righteous anger against sinful humanity. In fact, the Bible makes the case clear that it's not only the kindness of God but also grief over sin that leads to repentance  “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death." 2 Corinthians 7:10 (ESV).  Finally, God’s love is magnified (not diminished) when a person sees the level of their separation from a just God and His passionate pursuit of them despite what they’ve done.

 The idea that Christian must have a personal relationship with someone before they share their faith with them also has a number of issues. Below are just three such problems which refute this errant idea:

2a) The Ministry of Jesus

Jesus’s ministry was marked by the public proclamation of the Gospel. He often spoke to crowds (Matt 4: 17, 7:28, 9:35, 11:1, John 5:16-43, 6:25-59, 7:14, 37, 8:12-59 to names just a few verses) and to individuals (such as the Samaritan Woman) whom He’d never met before.

2b) The Ministry of the Apostles

Public evangelism that addressed both large crowds and individual people has numerous examples in Acts and is the predominate form of evangelism in the first few decades of the Church (2:14-41, 3:12-26, 4:8-21, 5:21, 42,  6:9-10, 7:2-59, 8:4-8, 26-37, 40 and many, many others).

2c) The Magnitude of Our Task

Born-again Christians are a minority in Australia. Therefore, it is a mathematical reality that there simply isn’t enough born-again Christians to befriend every non-Christian in Toowoomba, let alone Australia. We shouldn’t pursue relationships with non-Christians and then evangelistically ignore those who we are not friends with. Love demands a greater, more public method of evangelism that avoids being unnecessarily offensive yet risks rejection and mockery as it announces Christ’s life, death, resurrection and enthronement even to those we may never see again.

As we follow in the footsteps of Christ and of His Apostles, who are we to say that God won’t change stranger’s life, just as He changed our lives? This is the hope of public evangelism, that as we sow seeds of the Gospel in people’s minds, God may cause it to grow and to transform individuals and communities in a beautiful way.

3. Glenda and Elisa met a young woman named G-. She was from the Philippines and was currently caught up in a cult that teaches that you need to keep the 10 Commandments to be saved. Glenda and Elisa lovingly shared from the Scriptures that salvation is by grace and not of works (Eph 2:8-9) and by the end of their conversation G- was visibly excited about the truth of the Gospel. The ladies left some tracts with G- and it is our prayer and hope that God will continue His powerful work in this young woman.

As our evangelism came to an end, we returned to McDonalds and saw J- walking down the street, holding a car part. As he disappeared from our sight the Police arrived and interviewed Elisa regarding the incident. It certainly had been a memorable day…and we look forward in faith to what God has planned for our next outreach in Toowoomba.

 

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It’s been almost six months since our last outreach report, but God has blessed us with many unique conversations here in Toowoomba.

The first one was with a man named John. Sarah and Elisa met John outside of Bailey’s and he introduced himself as an Atheist with religious background. Together they spoke for almost an hour about the things of God and afterwards exchanged contact details. Since then there have been a few phone calls and Paul (Sarah’s husband) and John met up and decided to climb up Mount Table Top together! It is a real privilege to have been able to get to know John and we hope to continue to grow the no-strings attached friendship between him and some of our team members.

We’ve also had some fantastic discussion with several our local Jehovah’s Witness. They “set up shop” in the CBD on a Saturday morning and since then our team has had two fruitful encounters with this group. Tim is one of our younger members who grew up in a Godly family and has significant Bible knowledge. He was able to speak with the JWs regarding the necessity of Christ being fully God and fully man (and not just a created being, as the JWs teach).
Tim was able to show them John 8:58 in which Jesus says to doubting Jews… “Very truly I tell you….before Abraham was born, I am!

This “I am” statement is a reference to Exodus 3:14, in which God calls Himself “I AM”. Thus, Jesus demonstrates that while He is not the Father (John 1:1, 17:5) He is God the Son and one in being with God the Father. This was one powerful truth that the JWs were unable to answer and it is our hope that God will continue to reveal Himself to them and that they will come to know the True and Living God and not the non-existent god of Watchtower Society.

Merv also had a great discussion with a Jehovah’s Witness who politely took a tract and then came back later to ask Merv some questions. They had a rigorous and respectful discussion and our prayer is that the Good News will not only grow but transform this man’s heart.

Now if you were to look at all our team, Elisa tends to be the one who attracts the most interesting people. Her warm-hearted demeanor and lion-like boldness is a gift to those around her and as such she has a way of connecting with many different types of people on a deep level. You might find her one week speaking with a large group of teenagers regarding the Good News of Jesus… or another week speaking to a young man who is evidently going through a hard time. Both of these situations actually happened in the last six months and it is  her consolation of a young man deserves some special mention.

Elisa found this young man crying at McDonalds during one of our outreach days. She sat down with him and spoke with him for some time. When she asked him “Has someone let you down?” he nodded in the affirmative. She then said, “I know someone who will never let you down” and in the ensuring discussion was able to present the One who tenderly invites everyone to come to Him and truly find rest (Matt 11:28). It was a beautiful encounter, not only in its simplicity but also in the privilege of being able to share with the others the rest that Jesus offers. As a Christian we can often take this rest for granted, but there are many millions in our country who haven’t experienced this yet.

Please continue to keep our outreach… but more importantly this city… in your prayers. Please pray that God’s peace (His Shalom Peace) may come upon Toowoomba so that people will be reconciled to God and to each other so that our city will flourish and God will receive the glory that is His due.
  
 
 

 

 

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