Battle Log

Saturday, 10 May, 2008

Posted 16 May 2008, 2:34 PM by Josh Williamson. Permalink

Saturday, 10 May, 2008

When will I ever learn? Every time I head out on the street and say "Tonight, I won't preach" I end up preaching. Tonight I resolved that I would not preach due to the fact that I would be preaching at Rosalie Baptist Church the  next morning, and I wanted to be fresh for the pulpit sermon.

As we set up for the night I noticed that we had a demonic painter set up in our preaching area. This really frustrated me since this guy paints really dark paintings, and often times he gets large crowds. Knowing that there would be clash of light and darkness I prepared for a long night.

Initially I tried to get the Queensland Police to move the painter from our area, but I was informed by police that it is a Brisbane city council matter, and they have no say. Which was interesting since in the past they have moved us for council matters.

The first preacher up was Ryan, and he battled to get a crowd, since people would stand and look at the painter painting instead. He did mange to get a few hecklers, and he did well dealing with them.

  Next up was Kevin, I really like to hear Kevin preach, he has come such a long way since I first heard him preach. He keeps calm under pressure, and constantly points to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While Kevin was preaching a man came and stood really close to him, so I moved in just in case it got violent. As the man stood close to Kevin, I could hear the language he was using. Some of the words were the most vile I have ever heard, then the man had the hide to claim to be a Christian. Kevin slammed him for his hypocrisy, and then the man yelled "I am on the Council of the Queensland Uniting Church, and we want to see you guys stopped!" This stirred Kevin up to preach all the more.

After Kev preached, Ralph had a go. He did a wonderful job, and he managed to preach to a few people that were gathering. Towards the end of his open air he was heckled by a couple of Jehovah Witness girls who were  drunk. Ralph tagged me in, and I began to deal with them. The girls quickly turned and ran. But by now many hecklers had moved in.

It was interesting to see that the crowd watching the painter quickly became a crowd listening to the preaching and the debate. We went back and forth over the existence of God, and then a man who studied philosophy started to heckle. This debate led to a discussion on "Is there absolute truth and is there absolute right and wrong?" Of course all the hecklers said "No!" The leading vocal heckler was "Mr. Dawkins Man" he was yelling that there is no absolutes. After a few illustrations which show that there must be right and wrong. He started to yell that I was wrong. It was then that I pointed out that under his viewpoint I couldn't be wrong, since there is no right and wrong. This caused the crowd the chuckle.

Throughout the fifty minutes I preached, the gospel was presented many a time. At the end we got to have some really good one to one conversations!

Soli Deo Gloria!