Battle Log

Friday, 16 April, 2021

Posted 20 April 2021, 8:01 AM by Glen Richards. Permalink

On Thursday I was sharing the gospel online before joining Andy at Northlands for bus stop outreach.  Then on Friday I was online before heading into the city for outreach with Andy & Roger and then the gospel + abortion outreach outside the hospital with a team of six.  To finish the day I was online for a couple more hours.

At Northlands, the highlight was a great conversation that led from a rejection.  I was talking to a student when an old lady went past and gave me a bit of a dirty look.  The conversation with the student wrapped up and so I approached the lady and asked if she would like a tract.  She asked what it was, and I said, “It’s a gospel tract, I’m a Christian, I’m here today to share the hope of Jesus”.  She didn’t want anything to do with religion and refused the tract.

But another student close by had been listening, and she was intrigued by my open declaration as a Christian.  I know this because I offered her a tract next, she took it and said, “I’m a Christian too”.  “That’s great”, I said, “what do you have to do to get to heaven?”.  “Be a good person”.  And so from there I was able to share the gospel with her.  She was very thoughtful.  I challenged her to respond to the gospel, not by trusting in her good works, but by trusting that Jesus died for her sins - that would lead to good works.

This then rolled into another conversation with two other students, one who left early on, but the other came to hear the gospel for the first time.

We were in Cashel Mall & Cathedral Square Friday morning.  Roger had his flip chart out.  Andy preached in the open air.  I had a wonderful gospel conversation with a young lady who was making the most of life and not thinking of the afterlife - as she didn’t think there were any answers.  She heard the law and the gospel and was challenged to respond.  But the pleasures of this life seemed to sway her away - she was counting the cost of the change that faith in Jesus' sacrifice would bring in her life.

I fetched the abortion signs from my car and Andy and I headed to the hospital for the gospel + abortion outreach.  A team of six, which was great!  Another relatively calm outreach.  Kath and I had a lovely gospel chat with a lady.  She was familiar with Christianity, but not clear on the gospel, and not part of a church.  A long chat, she became emotional (in a good way, I think) which ended the conversation.

The online work was very rewarding, as always.  I had a long chat with a guy in Nicaragua who was familiar with the gospel, could even say the right words (‘repent’, ‘Jesus died for my sins’), but with some gentle probing it was clear he was subtly looking at his works to *get* him to heaven (‘we just have to try not to sin’, ‘obey God and his commandments’).  It seems he was getting his Internet connection from free WiFi outside a shop, he started to walk down the street and lost his connection - bringing the conversation to an end.

Amazingly my very next chat was with a guy with the same hang up.  Right from the start he had a flawless articulation of why he would be going to heaven: “believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins”.  I checked if he thought good deeds would get him to heaven.  He thought for a second and responded with “no”.  So I asked how sure he would be of getting to heaven: “60%”!  Why?  “Because I cuss and don’t go to church like I should”.  Going from there I was able to share the law and the gospel.  By the end he seemed to be understanding and was very appreciative of the chat.  You can watch a short video of the end of this chat here.

A chat with a girl flirting with Satanism who came to understand the gospel and have many of her questions answered (including many on the issue of homosexuality).  A guy from Egypt who had seemed to reject Islam in all but name.  He heard the gospel, said it “made sense”, but is not currently willing to repent because “I’ll become faithless”.

Those were just the highlights from Thursday, out of time to summarise Friday’s online chats.  But many good ones, including with a guy from Spain with poor English, claiming to be Christian yet very confused on the gospel.  A frustrating chat, but I think he started to grasp the proper place of faith and works in regards to salvation.