Battle Log

Page 180

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On Saturday evening the Brisbane evangelism team took up a slightly different location on the edge of King George Square. This location usually has a decent amount of foot traffic and as a result numerous conversations were had.

Two stand out conversations were with a Jewish man named Jacob and a younger man who was seeking for truth, named Alex.

Jacob, who is a Jewish scholar and teacher professed that he was saving himself. He said that humans weren't sinners, we were just people who needed to be taught what was right and that we made mistakes occasionally. When the Old Testament was quoted as saying the direct opposite to this, Jacob's argument was that these passages were being misunderstood but he wasn't interested in engaging with the text.

The conversation stretched on for over two hours and he was quite angry. For a man who proclaimed to know God intimately and to even be one with YHWH Himself, Jacob was incredibly rude. He swore many times, called team members various names and sadly his hostility during the night didn't turn to humility. Jacob was given repeated clear explanations of God's promised to send a Messiah to save the guilty but Jacob didn't want Jesus. At one moment he said, "If Jesus was to come here now, He would be bowing down to me."

We pray that you feel the weight of Jacob's deception and feel compelled to pray, to earnestly and reguarly ask God to change Jacob's heart, that He may have true abundant life and forgiveness of His sin.

The second and more exciting conversation was with a man named Alex. He mentioned that his friend has recently become a Christian (saved out of an addiction to Marijuana) and that as a result he had been searching for the truth. Alex quickly followed up, that he wasn't sure what to believe because there were so many opinions and ideas. The bad news, of human sinfulness and the good news that God came to save sinners, was shared with Alex and he was very open.

When asked, "What is stopping you from believing in Jesus?" He paused and said, "I'm not sure if there is anything". Alex then downloaded a Bible app on his phone and was encouraged to read the Gospel of Mark.

Please be praying for these two men and for the others who heard God's message of salvation. Please also ask God to grant the team boldness that we may continue to be empowered by God's Spirit, motivated by God's love to preach God's Gospel!

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On Saturday we got to be a real light in the darkness at the Manly Halloween Street Party. Each year, thousands of people gather on the waterfront dressed as ghouls, demons, witches, and a variety of dark and evil personalities. Often times the costumes are quite revealing and sexual; other times they are horrifically violent, yet, this is considered a 'family friendly event.'

We gathered at around 2:30pm to hand out tracts and talk to people. In nearly two hours we handed out 1000 tracts, and had several good conversations.

One conversation I had was with a young Police Officer. She took a 'Trick or Treat' tract and asked me what it was all about. I explained to her that the biggest 'trick' people fall for is is the idea what we can somehow earn our way to Heaven by being good. She told me she didn't believe that and that there was no hope for her as she had done too many wrong things. She handed the tract back and said seriously, "It is straight to Hell for me." I told her, "It isn't too late, there is still hope. As long as you have breath in your lungs there is hope." She walked away saying, "It is too late for me."

After this I was able to talk to an Irish lady who also asked what the tract was about. Again, I said that the biggest trick people fall for is the idea that someone has to be good to get to Heaven. She looked at me, then said, "I don't believe that. But, I don't know how to get to Heaven." She then asked if I knew how someone could get there. Well, I was more than happy to tell her of the Lord Jesus and all that He has done. As I explained salvation not being by works, she smiled and said, "It is all by believing in Him! I need to believe in Him!" Excitedly she kept saying, "I need to believe in Him!" She walked away rather happy. I do pray the Lord has granted her repentance and faith.

Please pray for all those we met today. May the Lord Jesus continue to banish the darkness in this land, and may of the light of the gospel spread.

SDG!

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It was a great outreach last Friday sharing the good news of the gospel at the Gold Coast. It was amazing to see God raised 17 labourers including 6 new labourers that joined us for the first time.

We had some great conversations with people from various backgrounds. One of the conversations we had was with a man who said, that he believes in evolution, although he is still not sure about the whole thing. Upon being asked the question, whether he will go to heaven or hell, he said that, "I don't know but I always think about death and every time I think about it, it freaks me out". After the gospel was explained to him, he said that he has not heard about Jesus in this way and that, there is a lot for him to think about.

One of the new labourers who was on her holidays from Brazil joined the team. At first, she was bit nervous as this was her first time sharing the gospel in Australia, and English wasn't her first language. She was hoping to find some Brazilians who she can share the gospel with in Portuguese and hand out tracts written in the Portuguese language. One of the team told her that this is when God does awesome things and as we rely upon Him, He uses us despite of having language barriers. By the end of the night, she handed out most of the gospel tracts she had in English. Praise God for the spirit of boldness that comes from Him.

It is a great reminder for us all that live in Australia, that we need to be out on the streets proclaiming the gospel while the doors for preaching the gospel are wide open. We are grateful to God for giving us this huge opportunity to share the gospel with as many as we can. What we are going to do with this opportunity is up to us. I encourage you all to prayerfully consider joining the local team: https://www.operation513.com/street-evangelism-teams/

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On Wednesday, the team headed into Brisbane city for an outreach, and we were blessed to be joined by three new labourers on holidays from Germany. Once they arrived, they said that they were terrified. But I encouraged them by saying that that fear will drive you to prayer to ask God for help, for courage and for strength.

And it was so great to see that it wasn't long before they were handing out gospel tracts to whoever walked by and even got into some gospel conversations.

Over the course of the afternoon well over 500 tracts were handed out. One conversation we had was with a young man named John who was very receptive as he heard the gospel and said, "Today I want to trust in Jesus."

After talking further, I asked him if he has a Bible at home and he said, "No, but I am sure I can get one somewhere." I then gave him one and he was very thankful. I encouraged him to find a good local church, and gave him some tips on how to do that.

To God be all the glory!

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Just recently there has been a newspaper article published in our local rag that painted the outreach in Elizabeth Mall as the cause of arguments, noise and loss of business. Myself and the team were also painted as disingenuous hucksters only out to manipulate people. Mr S., the SSM protesters and the local shop owners were painted as angelic figures that were either "silently protesting" our outreach or the victims of our malicious actions. On reading this I shrugged my shoulders and began to pray and urged others to do likewise as we continued to work for good whilst painted as evil. Following the article, though it will never reach the newspapers, God provided this week a clear refutation of this biased nonsense. 

As I said in my last post the Hobart team has faced a lot of aggression and noise from SSM supporters and from Mr S. (we're still praying for both sets of you guys!). Whilst this was going on it was tempting to think that there was something to the accusation that we were the "troublers of Israel" as such. There was a lot of nasty interactions and it certainly was quite noisy some days, with even local buskers getting into the act with drums and banjo's to boot.

Yet this last week there has been almost no SSM protesters (barring two girls who thought destroying my sign was a good pass time), and Mr S. has been absent. During two afternoons there were three preachers at work, and seven to eight Christians supporting them in prayer and conversations. Yet there were no angry exchanges whilst preaching was happening or afterwards, no violent outbursts from the Christians, Muslims or Sikhs that stopped by to listen and chat. There was none of the previous weeks of angst and outrage. There were great conversations and frequent occasions where we urged others to repent of sin and trust in Jesus. There was preaching the peace-making gospel of faith by grace in Jesus Christ our great God and Saviour. There were even bibles given out to people who asked for a copy.

As I said this is unlikely to make the papers, peace and godliness don't make good copy... But it certainly encouraged me to not that the negative commentary of the secular press is baseless when examined in practice. There is also encouragement in that shining the light of Christ in the dark of Australia's streets is being reviled. The God-haters of every age have reviled those publicly preaching the word of God, why should now be any different? 

Praise be to God who sits enthroned on high! Holy, Holy, Holy are you, your glory is over all the earth!

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Warwick Rodeo Outreach

It was a great day with perfect weather to share the gospel with the people of Warwick (QLD, Australia) and the many people who travelled from surrounding country areas to join in the events at this year's Rodeo. The Rodeo started on Monday and finished on Sunday and is a highlight for Warwick and is held on the last week of October each year.

The street parade was held on the Saturday and it was the best place to pass out some gospel tracts as crowds gathered along the streets as well as in the park where there was a large community markets with many stalls.

As the event was announced at the church we attend there was a call for prayer and workers for the day, and we were very thankful to God for the prayers and 11 workers to hand out tracts. As we met and prayed together there were some who had never done this before that felt the fear that is a natural feeling that we all get when we begin this work, even after years of handing out tracts we can allow this feeling to stop or hinder us, but we know what Jesus wants us to do, and that is to allow Him to help us to trust that He will give us the words to speak and to obey the call to go spread the good news.

After praying we split into groups and started in the park just before the street parade. We handed out to stall keepers and people browsing in the markets and had such an easy time giving out the Big Money tracts.

One of the children in our group gave to a local school that had a stall and as she walked off the kids came running and asking for more to give to their friends. This gave a boost to the young believer and her fear became less and as the day went on she was giving out with more courage...so praise God for how He works in us and through us.

With almost 2500 tracts given out in the time we were together it was a blessing to have a few short conversations and plant some seeds that we pray will take root and grow unto salvation.

Thank you to all who prayed and stepped out in faith on this day.

All Glory to our God!

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We handed out a conservative tract estimate of at least 1000 tracts. The weather forecast was not good, with lots of rain predicted. When I mentioned this in a prayer request, a friend replied that even soggy people need the Gospel.

The Halloween Evangelism Outreach was held in downtown Auckland CBD on the corners of Queen & Victoria streets, from 15:00 to 20:30. One of the team members (Howick Baptist Church) and her two young daughters arrived just before 15:00 and were very helpful in handing out tracts to start with. She unfortunately had to leave at 17:00.

Two more people from Papakura Baptist Church arrived around 16:00 and helped cover two more of the intersection’s corners. By the time they had to leave the rest of the team arrived around 17:00 to 18:00 (one more from Howick Baptist; and four from South City Reformed Baptist Church, including their Pastor). 

Four of the team open aired (videos to follow). I used 1 Corinthians 15 and Psalm 51 as the basis for my message, while another friend on the Love of Jesus; we had a couple of 1-on-1 conversations; personally had two: please pray for Shane & Duncan. Shane basically had a catholic/ pharisaic upbringing and very angry about God allowing suffering etc- admits to just wanting to argue, but thanked me for listening; Duncan views God as a dictator, leans towards buddhism and not open to talk really- presented the Gospel as best as I could. Duncan earlier tried to tell me that preaching from the bench was illegal according to Auckland council, to which I politely responded that until they tell me so themselves, that I would continue. I have since been informed that is perfectly legal; and in fact, council and police have passed us in the past without even commenting.

Thank you again to all who participated ( Patrick Gailer, Abraham A Oseterika, Rowena Charles Siale, Carlene Pryor, Joel, Alfie, Jonathan Scanlan ... hope I did not miss anyone  :) and everyone who prayed.

The following is feedback from Joel Jacobs who handed out tracts for the first time in Auckland:

It was really encouraging to be part of the outreach.

One of the things I found really helpful was to see that people are quite surprised and curious especially to listen to the preacher.

And they seemed quite compelled to take a tract especially when there was preaching. Because they really want to know more about the powerful verses that were proclaimed.

Another friend, who also open aired, remarked that they found the outreach a real eye opener; recounted a heckler (Andrew) who basically only seem interested in arguing; and that they were concerned about the number of other churches also out evangelizing, but who don’t have a Biblical grasp on the Gospel. 

Everyone seemed eager to have another outreach. Psalm 67.

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It seemed a mainly 'black and white' day at the bus stop today. There were those who compressed their lips as they indicated they were not in a talkative mood - mainly older citizens. But also. there were teens who confessed to be Biblically ignorant but took tracts and seemed to accept the challenge to take the Bible seriously for it deals with God's way to eternal life or an eternity of personal misery. Pray that they do 'check it out'.

One young man reckoned that he was too bad to be saved. However he heard God's good news. While he seemed unchanged, we pray that as God's word does its work, Is. 55:11; Heb. 4:12, so his conscience is awakened so that he breaks free from his current fatalistic stance.

We thank God for conversations had, tracts distributed and all our imperfect works with all our imperfect prayers made acceptable through the offices of our Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the praise of God's glorious grace. 

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The 2 teams today mainly operated from the shade of the trees on the east and west sides of the point. Amongst the visitors, we dealt with quite a few polite Maoris as they came up from the swimming zone on the western side. In one of the the eating areas, there were many Asians who were mainly using their phones instead of conversing with one another. Approaching the 'headman' one team was asked what they wanted. It was explained  that it was about being reconciled to God. He said that they were not religious. It was pointed out that if God's message  was true that eternal life was involved. They needed to consider the message. Many tracts were distributed before that team moved  on.

There is a prayer request for a Miss T who was raised in a Mormon household but was not committed herself. She was informed of the 'false jesus' of the Mormon cult and how the Bible alone was God's revelation. Now she has been shown/told the law and gospel. Pray that she seeks the true God and Saviour and God grants her the grace to repent and believe.

We give all glory to God that we were able to do what He enabled us to do: give out His Word without compromising His truth.

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The last couple of weeks in Hobart mall have been a mix of enjoyable events and difficult events. We have been praying that all of them would be to God’s glory regardless of how it may feel going through it.

There has continued to be a lot of interest in all aspects of the outreach and we have seen Bibles and tracts going out and people gathering when we have preached. There has also been the wonderful blessing of other preachers coming to join Karl and I in preaching the Gospel!

Danny has been visiting from time to time and praying for us for many months but has recently begun preaching in the mall. It has been wonderful to have his very friendly and inviting yet firmly Biblical style added to the team’s voice in outreach. Ryan and Bec Hemelaar also visited this last week from Brisbane and kindly sacrificed some of their holiday time to join us in outreach. Ryan’s preaching took me down memory lane to my times in Brisbane Mall, and I am sure took many in our mall to the cross to see their need and God’s great love.

                                                     

One of the blessings of preaching is the conversations that are generated afterwards. These last weeks we have seen this again and again. There have been steady stream of Christians coming and encouraging both me and others in the team to continue in the work.

• One young man came and told me how through the preaching and witnessing in the mall he’d had his faith reignited and seen his father begin to question his previous atheism and soften somewhat. Praise God for His Grace!
• A lady came and spoke to me and others about the joy that seeing our witness brought her and how she had been prompted to stop and pray for us with a friend. She had been particularly delighted with the QandA session that I’d had one day with students from local schools.
• Another man commented that he really enjoyed the encouragement of Christian preaching in the mall. He only wished that Mr S. wouldn’t keep interrupting and talking over the preaching!
• There are many others who’ve come to talk and a long line of people who give quick encouragements to myself and others when we preach to stand for the Lord. By His Grace we will!

Also, there have been many opportunities to witness to non-Christian people who come to talk. With the big media focus currently on SSM, there has been many opportunities to affirm God’s love for homosexuals and His call for them to repent and trust in Jesus. Praise God He is drawing some to listen, may the Holy Spirit soften their hearts and turn them to trust in Jesus.

Whenever the Lord brings opportunities to witness you may be sure that opposition will spring up to counter the Gospel. Not all opposition is persecution but there is a point were opposition tips over into persecution. Lately I have had plenty of cause to wonder if that point is getting reached in Hobart’s Elizabeth Street Mall.

Over the last couple of months my Church, the outreach team and I have all faced severe opposition. This has taken the form of legal action, foul mouthed protesters, slander, food thrown at us, two assaults, and once the theft of our things. When these things happen, it can be quite intimidating, occasionally it will hurt and often will make you angry at the injustice of it. But as Christians we are not to be guided by our emotions, rather we are to be guided by scripture.

                                                      

So how should we respond to intense opposition and even violent opposition? There has been much ink spilt on this topic by others wiser than I, so I will keep my comments brief.

• First and foremost, we should not allow it to stop or discourage us. As Christians we walk with God by our side and His almighty hand has already won the victory!
• Secondly it should not surprise us. Scripture is full of warnings that if we will live as Christ’s people in this world, the world will treat us as it treated Him.
• Thirdly we should be prompted to prayer. Our opponents are under the vicious rule of Satan and their sin and in desperate need of salvation. We are weak and prone to sin (particularly prideful vengeance) and need the Lord to work in us to make us more like Him.
• Fourth and finally we should rejoice in humble trust. Behind even in the angry face of a violent opponent there is the love of our Lord and Saviour who knows what He is about. He will bring all of this to our good and salvation and sanctification. Because we trust Him we can rejoice that He has marked us as His and not of this world. Praise God that we are different and our difference bears witness against the sin and wickedness of the world!

Regardless of what comes, we do not lose heart, for the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through His grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. Weather in life or in death, in abundance or affliction matters not, only let God be seen and glorified is our cry!

SDG

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