Battle Log

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“You can’t preach here, this is my spot.”

These were the words of a young man who frequents Leicester Square and preaches a message that sadly is not the Gospel. We had arrived at our normal time and headed to our new spot to set up to minister God’s Word. Unfortunately there was a jazz band of sorts not far from us and so it was going to be quite difficult to make ourselves heard. We decided to move further down into the square to find a spot that would be better for us. 

We found an area that I believed could work and got ready to begin. Less than a minute later the young man I just mentioned showed up next to me and asked if he could join us and preach with us. I have heard him preach before and so I had to make a decision. My answer was not the answer he wanted to hear. In a matter of seconds his countenance changed and he became very unfriendly to say the least. It was at that point that he told us we were in his spot. I objected and he left, but very shortly after he returned to set up very close to where we were. I had another decision to make. To be associated with him, in my opinion, was not good and so we headed back to where we had been last week, hoping that the band had finished playing. I was sad and somewhat unnerved by what had just happened, but it’s so important that the truth of God’s Word is proclaimed and that we do not associate with a false Gospel (Galatians 1:8-9). Please pray for the young man who opposed us and please pray the Lord would arrest his heart with the truth. 

I stood up to preach and proclaimed the truth of the Gospel from God’s Word. A few stopped to listen and I was encouraged to see Bobbie get into a conversation almost immediately with a man who stopped to listen also. After I finished preaching I got talking with a young Muslim man from Bangladesh. He had of cause heard of Jesus, but did not understand why he needed to die on a cross. It was great to talk with him and I was so encouraged when he asked if he could talk with me some more about it sometime. He suggested I add him as a friend on Facebook so I whipped out my iPhone and did just that. I have since sent him an email and hopefully we can continue to chat. Please pray for him. 

A little later James stood up to preach and I thought he did a great job. His springboard into the Gospel was excellent. Recently in the FA Premier League a match took place between Manchester United and Wigan. One of the Manchester United players, Wayne Rooney, committed a foul by elbowing a Wigan player. It was a certain red card offence, however the referee did not see it and Wayne Rooney was not dismissed. However, unlike this referee who missed this offence, God does not miss the offences that we make against Him. The Bible says, “For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” (Ecc. 12:14) The Bible also says that God, “...will by no means clear the guilty.” (Ex. 34:7) God is a gracious God, but also a just God, a God that will bring judgment to this world. We want people to hear so that they will flee from the wrath that is to come. We long to see them run to Jesus, for there truly is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). 

Praise God for allowing us keep preaching His Word in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation. Yet we too were once wicked and perverse, and God in His grace saved us. Oh that He would save others also, and may we see revival in this land. 

Soli Deo Gloria!

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On Friday night the team headed into Leicester Square to proclaim the Gospel. We had a really good size team, there were at least ten of us to begin with and as the evening progressed a few more joined the team. 

It was very cold but there were still plenty of people passing through. Unfortunately it has been quite challenging of late as they are doing some major construction project in the centre of the square for the 2012 Olympics, and hence the entire centre portion is blocked off by a large wall. Also, in the area that we have often stood, Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream has “hijacked” for their customers (see pic). The question has to be asked: who sits outside in the middle of a freezing cold winter and eats ice-cream? Something tells me they don’t want us standing there. We have a new spot though and although it’s probably not quite as good, the Lord is definitely still using us in Leicester Square.

I stood up first to preach and pleaded with those passing to get right with God. Nothing is more important in this world than our eternal destiny. I appealed to reason and I also warned them of the danger of pride. “God resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6) Believing that we are good enough to reach Heaven one day is utter folly when we examine ourselves in light of God’s holiness and His law. There can be no hiding from the wrath of God that will come upon this world, and to deny the grace of God that can rescue us from His wrath and judgment will ultimately be the greatest folly a person can ever know. After I finished preaching the Lord encouraged us greatly through the ensuing conversations that developed. 

Myself and Barney had a challenging conversation with a young group of teenagers. Barney did a great job talking through the Gospel account, beginning with God as supreme creator of the universe, to His creation of the world and all that is on it, and to the pinnacle of His creation, humanity itself. There were a few in the group that sneered and laughed away what they heard, but there were also those who were listening to what was being said. We can take comfort in the fact that God’s Word is powerful to save. It could well be that God uses the Word that was preached to these young people to draw them to Himself in repentance and faith. Please pray for them. 

A little later on James stood up to preach. James has joined us just recently and is full of zeal for the Lord and the salvation of the lost. He has a real heart to proclaim God’s Word and did a great job. We were all very blessed by his boldness and faithfulness to God’s Word. I can really see the Lord using him through the preaching of the Gospel. 

It was an encouraging evening and one to be very thankful for. 

Soli Deo Gloria!

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Today, the Essex team went to Romford to join with a number of Christians from surrounding churches to proclaim the Gospel.  Roman and I met James, Elvin, Micky and at least six others at Romford train station.  We proceeded to the shopping precinct were I preached first and when finished, we all began to hand out tracts.  Many conversations were had on the street, I had a number of young guys asking about the million pound notes.  This led into discussing the Law and the Gospel! 

I also came across a young man named Glen.  At first he decided that nothing I was to say meant much to him, but after discussing the Law and repeatedly pressing His conscience it appeared that his mouth was stopped and he found himself guilty before a Holy God.  (As we all are out side of Christ!!!)  

Roman and I could only stay for a few hours but in that short time period, many people had the Gospel presented to them.  May God grant repentance!!  Amen.

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Since the permit we have been given from the council allows us to preach in Cavill Mall from 7pm-10pm, tonight we decided that we would aim to arrive at Surfers at 7pm. Usually the team starts at 8pm and goes till 11pm. This proved to be quite difficult for most people on the team, so it was closer to 8pm by the time basically everyone on the team had arrived.

But with those of us that did manage to arrive by about 7pm, we prayed together and got straight into it. The first spot right at the bottom of the Mall was occupied by a busker and so we went to the other spot in the middle of the Mall. Then John started off the preaching. There were lots of people around tonight and therefore the background noise meant that it was very difficult to hear John.

At about 8pm, Jeremy arrived with his small PA system. So we set that up and I stood up on the soapbox and started preaching with it. The PA did amplify my voice, but I found I still had to shout into the microphone for it to really work. One other downside of using a microphone is that people are less likely to heckle, since they know that they don’t have a microphone.  But with that said, a guy did come right up to me and I was able to have a discussion with him in the open air, and I was able to put the microphone in front of him when he spoke, so that the audience could hear his responses too.

After I stood down from preaching, Jeremy got up a preached without the microphone. He thought that without it he would be louder. Only a few minutes later, he had quite a number of people asking him questions, focusing on “How can Jesus be the only way?”

At this point, one of the Gold Coast council local law compliance officer’s that was telling us last week that we still can’t hand out gospel tracts on public land said, “You know how we were having that argument last week about the handing out of those things, and well, I was wrong. I sought clarification and it is perfectly fine for anyone to hand out those materials.” Praise God! Now the local law officers shouldn’t bother us anymore!

I then asked him, “So then, doesn’t that throw out the basis for the fines we have received?” He said, “Yeah, well I don’t deal with those. That’s someone else’s responsibility.” This local law officer was one of them that fined us the very first time back in August last year. It was good on him for acknowledging that he was wrong to say that we couldn’t hand out gospel tracts.

Hopefully now the fines will be dropped, because surely they wouldn’t want to bring us to court over them, now that we have had so much correspondence from the council saying that it’s okay to hand out gospel tracts on council land (and that was the very thing we were fined for!).

After Jeremy preached, Blake got up and used the PA and preached the gospel faithfully. During this time, I checked out the other location to see if it was now unoccupied. The other spot is brighter and busier and so is the preferred location. And I found no busker there and so I communicated to Blake that we should move to the other spot and so after a little while he finished up and we all moved to the new location.

At the new location, I decided I would preach again and within minutes there were quite a number of hecklers about me. I ran through some of the 10 Commandments with them, in order to bring the knowledge of sin to their minds, and then I told them about the punishment that God will pour out on people for their sin. This then led onto the great news of the cross – how forgiveness is through Jesus if we are to repent and trust in His sacrifice on the cross as the only reason that we’ll go to Heaven. A lot of the hecklers understood the message but openly admitted that they would rather keep on sinning than come to Christ. It is really sad when I hear that, but yet at the same time, everyone by nature is exactly the same. By nature, we loved our sin more than God, and yet God did not abandon humanity, He sent Jesus to die for the sins of the elect. Praise be to Him!

A crowd of about 50 people gathered around to listen to the preaching and they stayed for quite some time. In fact, once 10pm rolled around there was still a large crowd gathered and most wanted me to continue, but we couldn’t do so at that spot because our permit runs out at 10pm.

After this, the rest of the team got into conversations with the people standing there, and a young bloke came up to me asking me some questions. His name was Liam and he was telling me about his mum and how she has had cancer for two years. He used to be very active in the Church, but since the cancer he has become angry at God and is now living a lifestyle of sin. He was asking why God hasn’t taken the pain away that his mum is experiencing. His whole Church was praying for it too, and so he was shocked that God still hadn’t done it. So I explained to him about the natural consequence of living in this world is that even Christians experience the effects of the Fall, and that is pain and death. I then spoke about how God can do what he wants and is not compelled to heal someone simply because a group of people are praying for that person, and about how God will have a good purpose in letting it continue (even though we don't know what it is). I then spoke about the hope that he can have during this time, that since his mum is a believer, if she does die, it is simply the Lord taking her home.

I then addressed this man’s problem. After asking how someone gets to Heaven, it was clear that this bloke didn’t understand the gospel. So I began sharing it with him – but he didn’t like hearing it. In fact, at one point he said that he just had God tell him that I should stop talking to him and instead I should be sharing the Word with other people. I expressed my doubts to him about that ‘revelation’ that he had just received. The Bible is our source of revelation from God, and the Bible says I am to preach the gospel to everyone – that includes this man, as he did not understand the right way to be saved.

After sharing the gospel with him, he ended the conversation saying that he won’t repent of his sins and trust in Christ. Please pray for him, that God will soften his heart towards the gospel.

There were 22 people on the team tonight. Praise God for each of these people and the zeal He has given them. Lots of gospel tracts were handed out and many wonderful witnessing conversations had.

To God be the glory!

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After the events of last week – with Joshua being arrested – one may find it hard to believe that tonight would be completely opposite to last week. But it was. Just earlier in the day, the Gold Coast City Council finally gave to us a permit to preach in the mall. The permit allows us to use a PA system and covers both Friday and Saturday nights. Praise God for how He works!

The funny thing is that on the permit itself it makes a distinction between material that contains Biblical messages and material classed as business advertising publications. Yet the majority of the fines that we have received from the council have been classed under ‘Business Advertising Publications’, and yet in all those instances where we were fined, it was for handing out gospel tracts – that is, material that contains messages from the Bible!

So it seems absurd that the council would still take us to court for these fines. Yet the latest we have heard from them about it is that they will be. They estimate it will go to court in late March-early April.

The council has recently notified us that they have dropped two of the fines because of incorrect fining. Both of these fines were for preaching. The rest of the fines (compromising almost entirely of fines for handing out gospel tracts) they are still pursuing. They said that after a person elects to have their fine heard in court, it usually takes only about 4-6 weeks before that happens. Our fines were all the way back in August-September last year and yet we are still waiting for them to bring us to court.

I think they won’t actually bring us to court - for the whole reason they did it in the first place, I suspect, was simply to intimidate us – hoping that we would stop our outreaches. That is why they made sure to fine us the maximum amount they could – $375 each. But I could be wrong, they may take us to court and if that happens, it should be an easy win.

This evening I was actually running late, so when I arrived everyone was already witnessing in Cavill Mall. When I arrived, we set up at one of the preaching spots allocated to us and I stood up and preached. We didn’t have an amp with us this week, but hopefully by next week we should.

Next preacher up was Blake, who after only a short while had a bunch of hecklers. This attracted a sizable crowd and so Blake made sure to preach the news about the death and resurrection of Jesus faithfully.  While he was preaching, the council local law officers came up to me and they were happy that we finally have a permit. That actually surprised me that they’d react like that.

The permit only goes until 10pm and so as that time was approaching, Blake stood down and we moved to outside the mall. Ryan Francis then got up to preach – he spoke about the need everyone has for the Saviour. For God has appointed a Day of Judgement to come – and the only way to be forgiven of our sins is by trusting in Jesus’ death on the cross and repenting. After this, I then preached again till the end of the evening.

The council local law officers saw us handing out gospel tracts and said that we can't do it. I said that when I met with council this week, they said to hand out gospel tracts is to not break any of their local laws. In fact, they even said preaching anywhere outside the mall is fine too. So we kept doing it and they didn't fine us.

Praise God for His faithfulness and opening up the opportunity for us to preach in the Mall. Ideally, permits shouldn’t be required for that to happen, but regardless thanks be to God for the permit.

While all this preaching was going on, the rest of the team was faithfully witnessing one2one with people and handing out lots of gospel tracts. Please pray that God will grant repentance to all who heard or read the gospel this evening.

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We had about 16 people on the team tonight – maybe the largest it has ever been. It is great to see how the Lord has been raising up new labours all the time to share his Word.

Ryan Francis started the preaching for the evening and did a great job proclaiming the Biblical message about our sin, the coming judgement, and the greatness of the Saviour. After about 20 minutes of preaching he tagged Joshua Corneloup in. Joshua has a very loud voice, which enabled more people to hear the message.

After about fifteen minutes, the council local law compliance officers that were on duty for the evening came up to Joshua and asked him for his ID. Joshua explained that he didn’t have any on him. But the council did not seem to believe him and so they said they were going to get the police.

Once the police arrived (two officers), they came up to Joshua and said, “Can I see some ID on you? Mate pull it out.” At this Joshua honestly responds that he doesn’t have any on him. He said the council will be giving Joshua a ticket. Joshua repeats that he doesn’t have ID on him. The Senior Constable then said that he will be coming to the police station.

The Senior Constable then started grabbing Joshua with both his hands, and then attempted to steal the camera off him.  At this Joshua says, “No, you are not having my camera mate.” Both police officers then grabbed Joshua, and so Joshua then gave the camera he was holding to me and I gave it then on to Jeremy. One of the police officers then pulls hand cuffs from his back pocket and looked like he was going to put them on Joshua, but he ended up not doing that.

The police asked for Joshua’s name and he gave it immediately. The Senior Constable then said, “You’re coming to the station with me.” Joshua asks if he is forced to come. The Senior Constable responds, “You are under arrest.” Joshua asks, “Am I under arrest?” The Senior Constable says again, “You are under arrest.”

At this point both police officers manhandled Joshua down Cavill Ave then onto Orchid Ave. Once on Orchid Ave, Joshua says, “You’re hurting my arm.” The Senior Constable did not respond and so Joshua repeats what he said. Then he said, “That’s hurting my arm.” The Senior Constable said, “Walk!”

Joshua said that he didn’t want to be forced to walk. The Senior Constable then hit Joshua’s arm very firmly and shouted at him, “Stop resisting! Stop resisting or you will be thrown in the watch house.” The police officers then put him a against a wall, the badgeless officer then let go of him but the Senior Constable still had Joshua’s arm twisted behind his back. The way the officer forced his arm to go did seem very painful.

The badgeless police officer pulled to the side, indicating to the Senior Constable that he wanted to speak to him. But the Senior Constable did not move, saying something about the fact that we were filming. So the badgeless police officer walked over to the Senior Constable and whispered something to him. And then I heard him say to the Senior Constable, “Just come over here.”

The Senior Constable responded by saying, “No he’s fine. We’ll take him back to the station.” The other officer said, “You sure?” The Senior Constable responded, “Yep, I am happy with that.” The other officer said, “Ok, if you’re happy.” They then proceeded to manhandle him again towards the police station. At this point, Joshua instructs Jeremy and I to leave now. The Senior Constable then points to Jeremy and shouts, “Oi, you there! Come here! Come here!” and starts moving fast towards Jeremy.

The police officer then grabs Jeremy’s arm and says, “Give me the camera. If he wants to sue me, he can use that camera as evidence!” Jeremy tried giving me the camera, however at that point the police officer then starts very forcibly grabbing his other arm and then proceeded to snatch the camera out of Jeremy’s hand. The Senior Constable then gave Jeremy a very forceful shove on his chest.

At this point, I feared for my own safety. If a police officer used that much force to get the video camera off Jeremy, I thought I was next, because I was still filming with my camera at this point in time. I didn’t want the footage on my camera to be erased as well.

The Senior Constable then tried to temper with the camera, most likely in order to delete it. He then proceeded to talk with Jeremy for the next ten minutes, while the other officer held Joshua’s arms. As the minutes went on, more police officers arrived so that there were now six officers around Joshua. After about ten minutes of waiting around there, two undercover police officers then manhandled Joshua to the police station.

In the end, Joshua was released without charge and was fined $375 by the council for preaching. We had a chat to the local law compliance officers after all this and they insisted that preaching is forbidden on all of the Gold Coast council’s land. It says nowhere in their such a thing, it just seems to be these particular council workers that really do not like the gospel.

After this, I started preaching back on Cavill Ave and the council officers just walked past and did nothing. After walking past a few times, they commented to Trevor that they won’t fine me because I already have a fine that is still to go to court. I don’t think that’s the real reason. The real reason is because they know that to preach the gospel on public land is to not break any of their own local laws.

With all the hassles, the gospel was still preached and many people received gospel tracts. So to God be the glory!

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It was looking to be a very busy night, as it was very difficult to find a car park. We ended up having to park about a kilometre away from Cavill Ave. However while we were walking towards Cavill, it started to rain. I knew this would make things a bit quieter, but after 5 minutes the rain subsided.

When we arrived we found the rest of the team and then we all prayed together. Prayer is very important in evangelism, because salvation is completely the Lord’s work, not of any human effort. After concluding our prayer, we sought out a place to preach.

We chose a spot just outside of Cavill mall facing into it, and I got up to preach. However, after about only ten minutes of preaching, a busker with an amp set up nearby and started playing loud music. So we decided to move to the corner where Hard Rock Cafe is and start preaching there. However, soon after, rain starting tumbling down again, resulting in us moving undercover to preach.

At this point we did see the council law local officers on duty, but they did not approach us. After realising that the spot we were at undercover was very quiet, we decided to move a busier spot. The spot was great and quite a few people were stopping to listening to the preaching. But after a while, a security guard who in past weeks has repeatedly tried to stop the message of the gospel proceeding told us to move away. But the thing is that we were not even in the front of the shop that he was guarding. But to prevent a scene, we moved a few metres further away from him.

The council numerous times saw us and walked straight past us. Usually they come up and threatened to fine us if we continue handing out gospel tracts and preaching on public land. We always do continue, since we are not breaking the law, and for months now even though they do see us continue, they haven’t fined us.

After I stepped down from the soapbox, John and then Ryan Francis got up to preach. While Ryan was preaching, a large crowd was starting to gather and quite a few people listening had questions. So Ryan was able to answer their questions and then direct the discussion back to the gospel. That if a person is to repent and trust in Christ’s death alone for their forgiveness, they would be forgiven.

Questions that kept getting raised from hecklers included, “How do you know the Bible hasn’t been changed? What about other religions?” etc.

Many gospel tracts were also handed out by the rest of the team, resulting in some good conversations.  Please pray that God will convert those who heard the gospel or received a tract this evening.

To God be the glory!

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After an extended Christmas break, the Essex team have begun afresh this year, bringing the Gospel of Christ to streets of Brentwood.  The team was small but as the day grew, the team expanded.  I was joined first by Suzi and then by Mike and later by Roman. 

After chatting to a South African couple about Christian things in Cafe Nero we went to the High St and prayed.  I managed to share with a couple of young boys who were resting from riding their bmx bikes.  We joked a little about the sins we have all committed but later they took a more serious demeanour when discussing the punishment of God against sin.  They took some good person tracts and split. 

Mike introduced me to a hindu friend of his and we proceeded to discuss the presuppositions of the hindu worldview and how it contradicts itself.  I attempted to explain the Biblical worldview and how God is the Creator and how we break His Law.  I concluded with the Gospel and handed the hindu man a tract and a copy of Johns Gospel.  He was very interested to hear what the Bible says, I pray that he understands and is granted repentance!

The conditions this afternoon were very cold and then it began to rain so after a couple of hours we left.  Quite a number of tracts were handed to young men and woman as they pass by so we pray that thay will read them and turn to the only Mediator between God and man: Jesus Christ!

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Bekk and I were running quite a bit late tonight, but thankfully Trevor was there and was able to lead the team in prayer and then get stuck into the outreach. So when Bekk and I arrived, John was already preaching. The team let me know that the council had already gone past threatening to come back and fine those handing out tracts on council land.

Not too long later, two council local law compliance officers came back and started talking to a few members of the team. They were simply saying that handing out gospel tracts on council land is to distribute business advertising publications. However, that is simply not true. So we simply kept handing out tracts like we had been doing.

The gospel is not anything that can be sold, bought, traded or used for commercial purposes. The gospel is the message about the death of Jesus who died on the cross to forgive the sins of all those who would repent and believe, then rose from the dead on the third day. It is good news that everyone needs to hear. Anyone who tries to stop the message of the gospel being spread will have to give an account of their actions on the day of Judgement. The Scripture says “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31)

During this whole time, John was still preaching – speaking about the great news of the cross. He ended up preaching for about two hours! Praise God for the passion God has given him for the gospel.

At this point I decided I would preach, but do it about 40 metres from where we were. For the area is brightly light and the awnings are a bit higher. I started preaching on Mark 4 where Jesus calmed the storm – in light of the recent floods in Brisbane, I spoke about how there is someone who has control over all the nature – Jesus.

After only a few minutes, there were a few people heckling me. One women in particular was arguing that Christianity is simply a copy of existing religions prior to it. This is not a new argument; I hear it quite often from atheists. The way they try and argue it is to point to similarities between Christianity and other religions before it, and then they say ‘See it must have been copied!’

So I responded to this lady by pointing out that there are hardly many similarities between Christianity and prior pagan religions. The claims of similarities are often based upon some traditions that now tied with Christianity – eg: there being 3 wise men, or Jesus being born on the 25^th December – which they allege is similar to other religions. But the thing is that none of those things are actually mentioned in the Bible, they are just Christian tradition.

I then provided another argument that even if I granted her premise that there were some similarities between Christianity and prior pagan religions, the question needs to be asked, “What exactly does that prove?” Does it prove that Christianity must have copied from these other religions? No not at all. Similarity does not prove copying. I gave an example of two textbooks that might have very similar content, yet it doesn’t mean they copied from each other. They might have just done the same experiments, bringing up the same results and thus have the same conclusions.

This lady knew her basis for not believing Christianity was crumbling, so she quickly walked away. But this discussion did cause a quite large crowd to gather, so I was then able to preach the gospel to them all. The lady returned a bit later, and tried arguing the same point again, but to no real avail.

There were all sorts of other questions that other people brought up. I would respond to them and then direct the discussion back to how we have all sinned, and so deserve Hell forever, but Jesus died on the cross for all those who would repent and believe.

When speaking about sin, I would mention some of God’s laws – using it to bring the knowledge of sin to people. But what I find really interesting that in Australia, since we have such a drinking culture, whenever people hear that God says drunkenness is a sin, most Aussie’s are shocked. They wonder how on Earth God could forbid it. So many people in this country have, as the Apostle Paul states, “seared their conscience with a hot iron” (1 Tim. 4:2). I pray that God will grant many Aussie’s repentance and faith before it’s too late.

After preaching for about an hour, I stood down from preaching and as a team we prayed together to finish off the night.

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In the midst of all the rain and storms this weekend I found a group of faithful Christians gathered in King George square praying to and praising the God of the entire universe. Josh was dealing with a flood at his church and house so it was just Ryan in charge of the team. I was glad to see that there were also a good number of others who had made it in. After a refreshing time of fellowship and prayer we headed up to the normal area in the Queen Street mall.

As it was still raining, Ryan decided that we would just hand out tracts for a period before starting the preaching. It was wonderful to see the gospel getting into the hands of people and the team members getting into conversations as people passed. We all managed to hand out a good number of tracts and as soon as the rain stopped Alex (not the atheist) got up to preach.

While Alex proclaimed the gospel a group of the team gathered around to play rent-a-crowd, but I thought to myself as I listened that there is more to it than that. The gospel deserves a hearing and every preacher of the gospel should see people gladly listening to the word of God proclaimed. I am often convicted by and encouraged by the proclamation of the gospel and I am sure there are many who weaken their faith significantly by refusing to listen to the gospel because they are “already a Christian…”, as though that excuses them from listening. Alex did an excellent job preaching the word and deftly dealt with the couple of objections that were given by hecklers. He has wonderful way of deconstructing people’s arguments and showing up the presuppositions underlying their objections.

Next up was Yarran, who as normal elucidated some portion of scripture so well that I feel ashamed of my superficial treatment of God’s word. Yarran poured out his heart into the preaching of the gospel and urged the people of Brisbane to turn to the one true God from their many idols. Though there were a couple of hecklers the night appeared to be a slow one with all the rain. The exception to this was the long stream of santa claus impersonators who varied between mildly and severely inebriated. Most of this crowd heckled as they passed on their way into the night, the few who stopped were unwilling to interact and despite questions from Yarran they would not stay to speak to us.

In the middle of all this a group of young women went past and I watched as between them they scoffed and one even made a lewd gesture at the preacher in jest. None of them were considering the words Yarran proclaimed and I at first thought that they were merely another group of revelers. I stopped one to offer her a tract and she said “I’ll swap you one of mine for one of yours” and handed me a tract for their church. Disappointingly it appeared this was a group of Christian women who had just been mocking the preaching of the gospel! I have seen this so many times in so many places yet it always saddens me. Please if you read this consider how it must look to non-Christians when Christians mock at the preaching of the gospel. If even those who claim Christ as their own think that the gospel of Him crucified for sin is a joke, then what will the unbelieving think? You may even think that this form of evangelism is less than constructive, but pause for a moment and consider how your response will either turn people to or away from the gospel. Lastly if you do mock, please consider who it is you’re mocking, if it is the preacher then consider the brother or sister in Christ whose character you are murdering. Christ died for them also. Worse if it is the message itself you would mock, then consider the words of Christ that “…any who are ashamed of me in this faithless and evil generation, I will be ashamed of before my Father and His holy angels”! Would you shame the Lord who bought you?

I was next up to preach and just as I stood up a regular heckler Wayne turned up with his son Rob. I have interacted with Wayne and to a lesser extent Rob for the last couple of months when I have been able to come into the city. During this time I have raised with Wayne many of the evidences from history and science that confirm that we are made by God and that Jesus is the Son of God and our only opportunity for salvation.

One of the witnesses to this is a set of studies done to support a very young age to the earth (by current standards) of 6000-10000 years old as is witnessed to in the bible. These studies have found substantial amounts of C14 in diamonds (similar studies have found similar in many other supposedly ancient artifacts/fossils/coal etc), also the studies have used alternate methods of dating supposedly ancient rocks finding a much younger age. For those interested here is a link to the studies in summary: http://creation.com/radiometric-dating-and-old-ages-in-disarray. This linked with secular work confirming similar results (Taylor RE, Southon J (2007). "Use of natural diamonds to monitor ¹⁴C AMS instrument backgrounds". Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 259: 282–28) provide a major support for a young earth. As there is no such thing as fast forward or fast anything in evolution this is a potent support for the Christian belief that we are made by a supernatural being and as such are responsible to Him.

The other witness is easily found and if you will only take and read the eyewitness accounts of history from God’s perspective as found in the bible (note I don’t mean an exhaustive history!). This account is what I tried failingly to impress upon Wayne and the couple of other people he attracted (as always thank you for that service Wayne you are most kind!). We are lost and sinful people and need a savior to take our place in the wrath and punishment we deserve for our hatred and sin towards God. Jesus is this savior and loved us so much that He died for sin though He deserved eternal praise and worship. I urged people to this until I had no more time and no more voice.

Wayne was unchanged as is so often the case and continued to cling to his blind faith in the skepticism he has in all things Christian. I pray that God will work in him to soften his heart and bring him to repentant faith in Jesus. There were some others present and praise God they took tracts afterwards also.

For those of you who read these words we covet your prayers and your support in what ever way you can. The days are now here when people will not listen to sound doctrine and only want what will scratch whatever itch they happen to have. Australian Christians please pray for us as we work the streets of your homeland, petition the Lord of Glory that he would bless our work and bring many souls to faith and home to glory. Please also pray for the team members who so frequently (much more than I it must be said), give of their time and sacrifice comfort and recreation time to preach the gospel to the lost on your doorstep. If you can please join a local team and work in this mission field, there will not always be in Australia the opportunities and freedoms we enjoy now.

The night as always was a testament to the glory of God and we pray that He would be praised for His work in and through us both to save us and to use us in the glorious work of proclaiming His works.

SDG!

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