Battle Log

Saturday, 11 July, 2020

Posted 14 July 2020, 4:30 AM by Matthew Rolfe. Permalink

On Saturday 11th July Simon, Ed and myself met in the City Centre to start up outreach again since our last one in March due to the Covid 19 restrictions that have unfortunately been placed on all of us. It was a glorious Sunny day and were thankful it was pretty busy with lots of people out shopping and enjoying the weather. We prayed for Gods protection and freedom to speak to people and for fruitful conversations and opportunities. We acknowledged that we could potentially be nervous or apprehensive of what people may say or if the authorities were called from the local shops, but God gave us strength and fortunately encountered no problems.

We spread out to hand out tracts to the many passers by, and managed to hand out quite a few million pound note and good person comic tracts without anyone complaining, making sure we had a big outstretched arm. I managed to 'apprehend' two young lads from a local school that were just out shopping, and managed to start a conversation with them using the intelligence test questions, before reading through the back of the tract I had handed them. They were age around 14 and so were a bit taken aback and listened to the gospel message, but I tried to make the conversation as interactive as possible to keep them interested so it was not just a monologue without them understanding the implications of what I was saying.

They appeared to understand and knew some things about what Christmas and Easter really stood for, and hopefully they could see the link I tried to make between the two, and why they needed a Saviour. I tried to show using different analogies that even though they were only young and had perhaps not committed major crimes or 'big' sins yet, that it was not the size of the sin that mattered, but who our crimes were against, and I believe this helped them acknowledge whey they would be guilty before God. 

They left after around 10 minutes saying they understood what they had heard and what they needed to do, and took some tracts and were pointed to some good websites to learn more about what we had discussed. 

After Simon and Ed and I had been handing out tracts for around 30 minutes, I apprehensively stood up to preach, after having not done so for so long knew I would have lots of doubts and thoughts from the enemy contrary to it, but thankfully managed to preach without amplification on the huge array of things that had happened in our society these past weeks, including why Seagulls scavenging for our food on Looe beach the other day was a picture of humanity running towards sin, and Jefferey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's love of sin, underage sex and money had led them to commit suicide and now be locked up to potentially put many famous names under the bus in what they had done, including Prince Andrew, and how sin leads all of us into wrong situations and never satisfies. 

I also spoke about the apparent incoherence between BLM supporters, and their views on abortion, and how many people standing up for what they thought was right in one area of society, could not be backed up in their views of the killing of innocent lives in the womb, and why certain statues of people were taken down for their crimes in the past, however Charles Darwin and Margaret Sanger statues were still on show for all to see. Four older teenage girls had come to listen when I mentioned abortion,a nd folded their arms in disgust, along with a University student called Joseph. I tried to tell people that with the ever shifting sands of society and the instability of the News and media in what was right in life, people needed to put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the same yesterday, today and forever, and that although this virus has made people very fearful of death, there was a hope in a real Jesus that historically lived, died and rose again for the forgiveness of sins, no matter what they had done or where they were at, Jesus promised he would give rest to all that came to him in a humble repentant faith.

Unfortunately without amplification and having drunk the last of my water, rather than sound any more like Barry White, we spoke to the people that had been listening. I went to speak with the student who we found was called Joseph, but he was dismissive and so I went on to speak with the four young women while Ed and Simon spoke with him.

The girls were very adamant that the pro choice view was correct and that as a man, I had no right to say that a woman was wrong for getting rid of a 'clump of cells' in the womb, and that rape and underage pregnancy was a legitimate reason for a woman to have an abortion. I tried to show from their point of view that Biblically and Scientifically life starts from conception, a 'fetus' can have a heart beat from six weeks, that over 95% of abortions are due to 'convenience' and the rape argument they used was only a very small percentage, and even then, it ws not the babies fault of how it was conceived, it was still made in the image of God. The girls listened and we exchanged points of view, one girl walked off, the others stayed and I tried to explain the reason we were out that day and shared the gospel with them again. One girl didn't speak and was listening the whole time and they took some tracts and I tried to point them to some good pro life websites for more information, but from their body language and words I believe had already made up their mind their point of view was right.

In the mean time, I went back to listen to the conversation Simon and Ed were having with the University student who was called Joseph, and he immediately stuck out his had to shake mine, and after speaking to Simon had a great change of heart and had a conversation about his Christian upbringing and University life in Plymouth where he now lived as his parents had recently moved to Cyprus! It turns out he had been brought up in a Christian home, would have maybe aid he was a Christian, and at first when listening to me preach had a preconceived idea of what we were doing, but when he listened and understood he was right on board with what we were all doing and was very happy to be given websites and details of what Church we met at and a bit more about why we were out sharing the gospel that day. He was a real encouragement to us all and Simon gave him a gospel DVD that he had produced to watch and hopefully we hear back from him again. 

It was a great day in the end after a slow start, with different people coming to listen and stop at times, others could be seen in the background waiting in the que to McDonalds or Taco Bell listening o our conversations etc. We hope to go out again every 2 weeks and to plan joining up with Josh in Newquay high street which gets very busy, as well as Exeter City Centre which is always seems to have a very positive reception.