Battle Log

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It proved to be a coolish day but the conversations were warming to our hearts. Ryan started a chat with a young man and was still engaged after an hour. Lee-Anne had an open chat with Sarah and they had reached the gospel when her bus arrived. She left with John's gospel and Lee-Anne's phone number as she wanted to hear more. Please pray that she does. As Sarah got on her bus and it was departing, another young lady came running for the bus but missed it. Lee-Anne was able to console her and was chatting freely with her as I left. 

     I met a Philippine lady Muslim who was easy to speak to but not really taking what I said seriously. She freely admitted her sinfulness and need of forgiveness. She ignored the court analogy of simply asking the judge to have mercy on her and then expecting him to let her go free, and asking God for mercy with no satisfaction of His offended justice and expecting the Righteous Judge to let her go unpunished. She stuck to her 'we worship the same god but in different ways'. Her way was from the Koran.

   Next was Jordan who was wide open and seemed to understand the message of salvation. He has a Bible and was asked to read John's gospel humbly asking God to reveal Himself. Jordan was also made aware of his need to 'count the cost'.

We can thank God for the cool breeze that swept through the plaza from time to time. It seemed to keep many away but even our long-time 'knocker' passed by twice without interfering. Praise God and to Him be all the glory.

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Queen Street Outreach

Our gracious God had granted to us the joy of heralding the everlasting gospel on Queens street, our opening line in the open air was “Hear ye, Hear ye, we are here on Queen street, on Queen's birthday weekend but we come by decree of the King of Kings....”

We had a team of 5, many of our Op513 tracts were handed out along with a few gospel conversations, one of the brothers had bumped into an old friend whom he had not seen in over 15 years, it was a great opportunity for him to share how God had saved him from his life of sin. We were blessed to have good steady foot traffic during the open air preaching of the gospel.

Please pray for those whom we came into contact with either through one on one conversations or walking past while we preached, we pray that God would enable them to hear the call of the Kingdom.

Our team was: Pastor Alfie, 2 of our Deacons' Charles & Joe, our sister Eliza and myself.

May the Lord Jesus the King of Kings be glorified, rule and reign forever and ever.

 

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Speakers Corner (Auckland City, Albert Park) 

We give thanks to the Lord in allowing us to have this place to open air preach - Every Wednesdays' myself and a mix of brothers from different Churches gather here at Speakers Corner for open air preaching - this particular outreach it was, Brothers' Trevor, Tim, Alistair and myself -

We usually meet here at around lunch time and often get some foot traffic moving through, as it is located in Auckland City people come to this park for their lunch break, also, this park is right next to the University of Auckland - So we get a steady amount of University students passing through.

One student in particular who's name was Logan I had noticed as I stood up on the podium to preach came and sat down to listen to the message, he had stayed there until I had finished and as I came to sit down he walked over and asked me the question "Why would a loving God send anyone to hell?"

With the Lord's help I was able to take him briefly through some of God's attributes, explaining to him what the bible means when it speaks of God's Righteousness, Holiness & Justice and His hatred for sin, explaining what the Bible means when it speaks of man's total depravity, but then making the point of the mystery of God's mercy and grace to sinners as He sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins. and then asking the question, "Why does God send anyone to heaven?"

By God's grace Logan was able to come to the understanding that "there are none good, no not one"  and that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" that "the soul that sins it shall die".

One other thing was that during our conversation as I was explaining to him the meaning of repentance - He was able to come to the understanding that turning away from your sin and trusting in Christ is a work from God and not of the flesh, I assured him that his only hope in being made right with God is through Jesus Christ the Lord.

As we parted, he expressed his appreciation for our conversation in answering his questions and I gave him one of the "Jesus shows us God" Op513 tracts. Please pray for Logan and others who would have heard the preaching of the gospel this day. Our next outreach will be on the 1st of June in Auckland City on Queen Street if it be the Lord's will. 

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Open air meeting at Otara Shopping Centre 

With the Lord's help we were able to do something we have never done before and have an open air meeting in the Otara Shopping Centre with some of the members of our Church - This was a great opportunity as we had hired the main stage in the square and were granted permission to use amplification for open air preaching.

By God's grace, myself and my Pastor were able to bring 2 messages and the Lord's grace was shown as it allowed for many people to stop and listen to the preaching of the gospel. In between the preaching we sung hymns such as "How great thou Art" - "The Old rugged Cross".

There are some brothers from other churches who want to join in on the next open air meeting if the Lord wills we plan to have on the 16th of June. 

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Anzac dawn service & Parade 

Members of our Church, and our Pastor by God's grace were able to attend both dawn service and the ANZAC parade in Manurewa, South Auckland to hand out a replica copy of John's gospel that the soldiers would have received during the first world war - Easily over 200 gospel's were handed out altogether - We were greatly encouraged by the willingness of the people wanting to take God's word with them and hearing how it was standard issue gear for the soldiers. One particular lady whom I got to share with said that she had an original copy that belonged to her great grandfather. We give praise and glory to the Lord of hosts for allowing us to serve & worship Him in this way. 

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We had a break in the showery weather which was long enough to do what our Lord would have us (6 on the team today) do. We had a few conversations and gave out some tracts as usual. One encounter with a Korean young woman reminded us of the lack of a fear of God in some people. This lady was showing a non-English speaking Korean woman around the Point.  During a chat with her, the fact was presented that Jesus is a fully competent Saviour with the capacity to save His people out of their sins, or former, present and future sins. The lady responded with a remark that if she trusted in Jesus then she could live as she wanted and He would certainly save her. The reply that if anyone continued to live as he wanted to, yet claimed to be a Christian, it would demonstrate that he was not a Christian at all. Thankfully she then agreed to give a tract to her Korean friend who was returning to Korea in a week. Once back, she was asked to search out a Christian to explain the tract to her. Please pray that God will be gracious to these lost souls that He directed to hear some of His liberating truth today.

     We recall that repentance is one's acknowledgement of one's own sins and his inability to reconcile himself to God. It is a fruit of regeneration and leads to a new way to live - for the glory of God. Where there is no repentance, there can be no forgiveness. The Christian knows the ongoing blessedness of ongoing repentance as one walks with the Lord - daily; moment by moment.

What a privilege that every Christian has been reconciled to the one true and living Holy God. To Him be all glory!

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As winter slowly creeps up the foot traffic in Brisbane city on a Saturday night has been getting a little quieter, yet God still provides people with whom the Gospel can be shared.

Watch this encouraging video with a short recap of the evening.

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On Saturday night in Brisbane city it was a little cooler than usual but God still allowed the team to have some great gospel conversations with the lost.

It is great that sometimes we get to speak to people we have spoken to in the past. On Saturday night we spoke to one such man who one year ago had a conversation with us. He didn't fully remember the way to Heaven, so we got to remind him that it is through trusting in the the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

This man saw this second conversation as another wake-up call to really take this all seriously, but he saw that sin is pleasurable and so wasn't sure if he is ready yet to come to saving faith. We stressed the urgency of doing so, gave him a gospel of John to start reading, and left him in God's hands.

Another man we spoke with was a student from Nepal whose brother gave him a Bible when his brother became a Christian, before becoming a Muslim and then becoming a Hindu again. This man said he had read some of the Bible, and so in the conversation after talking about how we have all broken the law of God (to bring the knowledge of sin) and after hearing the gospel, he saw that his Hinduism doesn't actually provide a solution to getting rid of the history of his sin. He saw that doing good deeds wouldn't erase the past and saw how he needed a perfect person to take his punishment for him.

But he said, "The biggest thing stopping me from becoming a Christian is that we as Hindus must burn our parents once they die and you Christians bury your parents." It was explained that there is no commandment in the Bible about what exactly should be done with a person's body when they die, but burying is usually done because it shows respect for the person and it reminds us of the resurrection to come.

The second thing stopping him was, "But I don't want to lose what I've gained in Hinduism." We gave him the example of the apostle Paul who had gained so much in his Judaism prior to becoming a Christian - he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, and yet then in one of this letters he says "Whatever I gained, I now count as loss in comparison to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

This man was seriously counting the cost of leaving Hinduism and trusting in Christ, we gave him a full Bible (as he left his in Nepal) and recommended a local church to attend on Sunday to learn more. To God be all the glory!

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We pray particularly this day for Jack. He was raised Roman Catholic and believes in God. He had no idea on how to get to heaven. However he listened carefully to the law and gospel and understands now  how Jesus Christ saves His people from their sins - Matt. 1:21. Jack was told that Jesus wants fully committed disciples so he needed to 'count the cost' to himself of following Jesus.

When asked when he would  trust Jesus alone to save him, he responded, "Today!" May he, like Zaccheus, find that this day salvation has come to him. Please pray that he would read the gospel of John he was given (and later on the whole Bible) and also that he would find a Bible-based church. He was warned that the Roman Catholic church had departed even further from the Bible than it had in former days. 

The work continues as the school buses arrive and any others the Lord may send along.

As always we thank Him for His gospel which is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes... - Rom. 1:16, and for enabling us to proclaim His unchanging truth. Glory to Him alone!!!
 

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The gospel was shared with many last night at the Gold Coast during our weekly Friday night outreach. Even though it rained for the first fifteen minutes, that didn't stop conversations from starting as God helped the team to get out of their comfort zone to share good news of Christ.

Being the Gold Coast and a big holiday destination, we also got to witness to a bunch of people from Arabic speaking countries - in fact we set up as usual our free Bibles in Arabic table (as well as the one in English), and that attracted a bunch of people to come over and take Bibles.

We know that as Jesus said "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day" and "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out" (John 6:44,37), so we are not discouraged if someone is not open or interested, we simply go on to the next person. But it's such a privilege to be involved in God's plan of Him drawing people to Himself, being the means for someone being able to hear the truth of the gospel.

To God be the glory!

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