Battle Log

Saturday, 19 April, 2008

Posted 26 April 2008, 12:27 AM by Josh Williamson. Permalink

Saturday, 19 April 2008

A cool breeze was blowing as I headed into the Queen Street Mall, while I was excited about witnessing, I was also distracted. The reason for the distraction was because at Sunday lunch time I would be leading the Gold Coast team, which a week earlier had been arrested and detained. So I was preoccupied with the notion of facing possible arrest.

   Something I learnt during this whole situation is that often times we can not trust in God to be Sovereign over the situation. While we may profess that He is in total control, often times our actions are at odds with our theology. It was during my drive into the city that I pondered these thoughts, and the one scripture that kept coming back to my mind was Ephesians 1:11 "In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will." God works ALL things out according to His will, and as I grasped that truth, I became at peace with all that was going on.

After our normal time of prayer and Bible reading we had a bit of fellowship then headed up to the mall to begin our preaching for the night. It looked like we had a small team this week, so we prayed that God would raise up labourers, and of course He is always faithful, he brought in guys that hadn't been on the street for some time to work alongside us.

Ralph was the first preacher up, this was his fourth open air, and he is showing amazing growth as a preacher. In the time that he has been preaching his confidence has grown, and also he is starting to develop skills in regards to handling hecklers.

It was a quiet night in the mall, yet Ralph managed to get a heckler who wanted to stand really close to him as he preached. This is a standard thing on the street, as often times the enemy wishes to shut down the open air, so he brings a heckler along to make the preacher talk quietly. Ralph handled this guy well, and did a decent job in getting the gospel out.

While Ralph was preaching, those on the Bible table and standing behind the preacher were constantly ducking for cover, as some bats had decided to take up residence in the tree above us.   The problem was these bats would sit above us and then let some ‘gifts' fall on us.

It was around this time that Kristine spotted a man sitting behind the preacher listening. This man was the man she had sat next to on the bus trip into the city, so she grabbed some tracts and headed over to speak to him. I covered the Bible table for a bit and even had the privilege of giving to Arabs a copy of the New Testament in their own language.

By now Ryan was up preaching, and a man was sitting next to the preacher listening and heckling. As Ryan preached I was called over by Kristine to assist her in witnessing.

The man she was witnessing to was a self righteous humanist, who was only looking for an argument. He kept saying "What if a person kept all of God's Laws, yet didn't believe, would they go to Heaven". Of course in his mind he was that ‘good person', as we went through the Laws of God it soon became clear that he was not good, nor had he kept all the law. Yet in his own mind he was convinced that he had. It is always saddening to see how sin blinds many people. It blinds them to the point where they think they are sinless in the sight of a Holy God.

  While I was discussing the gospel with my humanist friend, Ryan's heckler began to scream, and Ryan just calmly responded to all his questions. The man finally got so mad that he walked away yelling. This was interesting as it shows what happens when ones pride gets damaged by the Gospel of Christ.

I turned once again to the humanist, and began to expound on sin, and how it is repulsive to God. But he just hardened his heart, and decided to leave still believing that he is not a sinner.

By now our regular heckler "The Dawkins Man" was back, now he was heckling Ryan over the existence of God. Ryan dismantled his argument piece by piece, and then proved to the few listening that God does exist. But as usual "The Dawkins Man" just ignored the arguments and kept saying "Christians can't prove it!" even though anyone listening just saw the proof of God.

Ryan tagged me in and I opened up on "The Dawkins Man" showing him the reason he refuses to accept the evidence is because he is a slave to sin, and loves his sin. He didn't argue but admitted that he had sinned. This drew in other people who wanted to speak, but since I was about to beaten by the clock I only dealt with one of them. That was a young lady who had many questions about Christianity, and why we were doing what we do. I stressed to her that I love her, and I will do this because I care for her. This softened her up to the Gospel, and she willingly took a gospel tract. While I was talking to her a drunk man got up in my face. He was showing all the body signs of wanting to fight, so I prepared myself to defend. But a drunk aboriginal man decided to come to my aid and began to fight with the man. He landed a few good punches on this man, and eventually they both walked off.

After I got down a lot of the team was engaged in one to one, as I began to pack up an old aboriginal man came up and stated that the spirits wanted to kill us. It turned out that he is an aboriginal spirit man, and his job is to summon the spirits to do his bidding. Many Christians get frightened when a ‘spirit man' curses them, but my rest is in the Sovereignty of God. And I know that God will not allow something to happen, unless He wills it!

As he began to speak in a demonic tongue, I began to quote the Scripture to him, and pointed out that the spirits in him are subject to the One who defeated them at the cross. The man shot back that Jesus Christ had no power, but the Scripture was finding its mark, as the man began to look uncomfortable and left.

Praise God for His faithfulness and Sovereignty!