Battle Log

Friday, 26 April, 2019

Posted 29 April 2019, 11:39 PM by Matthew Andersen. Permalink

On Friday at the Gold Coast the team as usual headed out to declare God's glory and offer of forgiveness to the nations. But not always does this happen. For some on the team the evening was filled with great conversations, many people hearing and responding positively but for others it was a long hard outreach trying to find someone who was willing to hear.

The evening started with a man who declared that he wasn't sinful and very quickly was shown that was a lie through the law of God. He also declared that God would never punish people and that Hell doesn't exist. He made a point of declaring that he knew God intimately and would definitely be in Heaven and had been saved by Jesus but when asked what Jesus had saved him from he said, "Nothing". Which he was then asked, "So why did you need to be saved?"

It turns out he had been influenced by JW's and had believed much of what they taught and sadly had the pride to declare that he knew everything about God. He was unwilling to read the Bible and ultimately did not want to to hear what God had done to save sinners. He ended up marching off declaring, "You can't tell people that they are on their way to Hell, I could have you arrested right now!"

Next was a conversation with an unbelievably proud man. The other team member that spoke with him was exceedingly patient. This man who declare loudly and forcefully things that he was sure of only to inaccurately represent the truth on almost every occasion. He began by declaring that there is no God and had no great reason for it other than the fact that he didn't want there to be a God. He was asked some questions on that before being asked, "Do you think you're a good person?" to which he declared, "Yes, I am". Then he went on to declare that he was not only good by human standards, by this worlds standards but he declared that he knew if God existed he should let him into Heaven and oppositely if God was to judge him and send him to Hell, "F Him".

This man was unapologetically arrogant. This was gently but directly pointed out late in the conversation. He was shown that his problem wasn't really the evidence around God but from the things he was saying, he had a serious problem with God. He wanted to be in charge and because God exists he couldn't be, so he had done everything in his power to try and convince himself that he really was allowed to live however he wanted. He too left, despite best efforts before he could hear the gospel.

Next came Shane and his son, who followed suit. Their guilt was shown by God's law and they were left guilty but they tried everything they could to avoid God's justice by back flipping between declaring that they weren't that bad or that God doesn't exist.

This pattern followed the rest of the evening, for another thirteen people. The night was filled with seventeen people who heard God's law, saw the guilt and when they realised what they deserved was Hell, didn't want to know the solution but as quick as possible seemed to "run" away. It was almost unbelievable that so many were in the same boat.

Thankfully, even on a night this one, God is in control and His word does not return void! May God use the guilt revealed by His law to bring these people to trust in Him alone, finding a full and free pardon from their sin in Christ!