Battle Log

God sent a brisk breeze such that we could not set up the flip chart  where it was last time. We were to know by the end of our outreach one reason why God did this. There were 4 Indian gentlemen who had been brought up in a R.C. grounding. As they were taken through the law and gospel, understanding seems to have been granted them. They, each one, expressed a desire to trust Christ alone this very day. Once the fog of tradition is blown away, the simplicity of God's salvation is so relieving. Eph. 2:8-10 shows God's prevenient grace produces saving faith which invariably produces God's good works. There can be no merit in doing what we are supposed to be doing as His children, Lk. 17:7-10. Our works, which God prepared beforehand that we should do, are the Christian response of love, e.g. Jn.15:14 +1 John 5:3 " For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome."

God was doing more than this but all His works are glorious as they exhibit His glorious being. To Him alone be the glory and we thank Him for the privilege of serving Him once again in this way.  

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Our Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour and only Mediator between God and man had 6 of His body members in the team today.  For the first time at Wellington Point, Ryan and Harry had the use of a flip chart. As an example of how this was advantageous, there was a family to whom they had been chatting. When they indicated that 'they had to go', they were asked if they had done this "Good Person"  test. They stayed and were engaged as God's good news was presented. The other 2 teams took up their usual positions and carried on as usual.

     The team spirit has been developing into a blessing for each one of us. e.g. A young man flying his drone was chatted to. He had been challenged just a few weeks earlier by a different team of ours. May our gracious God awaken the spirit of this young man to consider what he has heard - seriously. Eternity in God's prison with no possibility of escape, is a dreadful prospect for any sentient being to experience.

May the Lord build His house, Ps. 127:1 + 1 Peter 2:4-6! To Him alone be all glory and praise, now and forever. Amen.

 

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Wellington Point weather is somewhat unusual. 3 of us went to the pier side and one needed his Sydney winter coat. Of those wiling to converse, there were a higher percentage than usual of those who called themselves Christian:

Andrew - actually is a Mormon. He was challenged to read the Bible as we worship different gods and we have different ways of becoming 'saved'.

2 Chinese ladies who were leaving after finishing their lunch handed back the tracts. When asked "If you were to die today and had to give a reason why God should let you into His heaven, what would you say?" had no idea. As they were walking away we said, "Is it because of what Jesus has done for you or what you have done?"  One said, with a huge smile, that it was the first. God knows the heart - 2 Tim. 2:19 - and it is obvious in any Christian's life.

A Baptist man who did good deeds. His girl friend was more interested in hearing the gospel than he was.

A young Chinese man, Brian, who had not been in Bible study for a few years had no answer After hearing God's good news, we gave him an illustration of what it means to 'count the cost' = when I became a Christian after 10 years of marriage, God became my first love and Railee my second. Brian was shocked at this. So I explained how God taught me how to love Railee - properly. Then Railee completed the illustration by relating the same shift in allegiance once she was converted. He understood the need for him to have God as his first love - in everything. We asked him to explain this to his girlfriend, who was in Australia on a visit , as they continued to walk around.

Meanwhile the other 2 had stayed on King Island side which was relatively balmy. They also met a 'Christian" who was getting into heaven because he was better than he used to be. After explaining the law and gospel to him, he was able to give the right answer to the checking questions Ryan put to him. Mr. Aseila, a former rugby 'great' from the 1970s Fiji team, now appears to be in the kingdom of God. Please pray that he will share the good news with others in the Methodist church he attends.  

Thanks the Lord that His name is near to His people, Ps. 75:1. To Him alone, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be all glory.

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We had a break in the showery weather which was long enough to do what our Lord would have us (6 on the team today) do. We had a few conversations and gave out some tracts as usual. One encounter with a Korean young woman reminded us of the lack of a fear of God in some people. This lady was showing a non-English speaking Korean woman around the Point.  During a chat with her, the fact was presented that Jesus is a fully competent Saviour with the capacity to save His people out of their sins, or former, present and future sins. The lady responded with a remark that if she trusted in Jesus then she could live as she wanted and He would certainly save her. The reply that if anyone continued to live as he wanted to, yet claimed to be a Christian, it would demonstrate that he was not a Christian at all. Thankfully she then agreed to give a tract to her Korean friend who was returning to Korea in a week. Once back, she was asked to search out a Christian to explain the tract to her. Please pray that God will be gracious to these lost souls that He directed to hear some of His liberating truth today.

     We recall that repentance is one's acknowledgement of one's own sins and his inability to reconcile himself to God. It is a fruit of regeneration and leads to a new way to live - for the glory of God. Where there is no repentance, there can be no forgiveness. The Christian knows the ongoing blessedness of ongoing repentance as one walks with the Lord - daily; moment by moment.

What a privilege that every Christian has been reconciled to the one true and living Holy God. To Him be all glory!

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Our gracious Lord brought Harry here from England to hear His truth. He claimed an atheistic/I believe in science position. He was taken through a reason for taking the Bible as God's revelation = great basis for believing the message of salvation by grace and then showing one's love for the Saviour by obeying His commands, Eph. 2:8-10 + Jn. 15.

     Someone has said that the Bible is able to defend itself. It is our pleasure to feed people enough evidence to convince them that one needs to check out the authority of Scripture alone for oneself. Think of the scoffers among archeologists who said things like, "The Bible talks about the Hivites but ther is no evidence they ever existed." Time has proved the Bible true. Lee Strobel (The Case for Christ book/movie, etc. ) is one of a troupe of individuals over time who have set out to disprove the Bible and God has convinced them otherwise. Think of (Frank?) Morrison who, after careful investigation from the stance of an unbeliever  wrote, "Who Moved the Stone". This book shows the reasonableness of the gospel accounts of the resurrection and subsequent appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ.

     Harry was privileged to hear the law/gospel/count the cost presentation and was last seen staring out to the ocean seemingly thinking about these things. God knows his thoughts. May God have mercy on Harry and to God alone be the glory and praise. 

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There was no particular interest in eternal things evidenced in most of the people contacted today.  But we know God is always working, Jn. 5:17, and we often do not realize it at that time, Jn. 3:8. 

There was this timely reminder of the dire consequences of preaching that states "God loves everybody" but does not even attempt to define what this love is. A young man named Christian had the firm view that God loved him. He grew up in a Christian family but he was the only non-believer in that household. He claimed to have repented and trusted in Jesus twice before but he was unchanged.

He was reminded that God knows when repentance is true or not. He was shown Ps. 5:5 which states that God hates doers of iniquity. Christian appeared to be truly shocked that this was in the Bible. Pray that he has his ears opened to God's truth about himself and truly repents. As we know, anyone who dies in his sins must pay the penalty = finite creatures are consigned to everlasting punishment and can never be released nor escape: they cannot meet God's standard of absolute 'repayment'. God's justice is absolute. If anyone refuses Jesus Christ as his Saviour and Lord now, he can never be reconciled in hell.  

Praise the Lord that His love endures forever and everyone who is 'in Christ' is firmly in God's household, Rom. 8:38,39, for ever.

We give God all the glory for His ways are far higher than ours and He does not change. 

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God gave us 7 workers today, including an 81 year old who had spent 2 years evangelizing in Hong Kong. The first contact he and his teammate made was with a Chinese lady who spoke no English. So he spoke to her in a language she was familiar with. We had some 'good' conversations, including these for follow-up prayer:

 - Raj or Ruj, a Persian man  whose sister has already been converted. He heard it all, received a tract and John's gospel. He appreciated the web contact details so he can pursue his inquiries without attracting undue attention to himself. Please pray that he does email us.

- Connor, a life-guard who had attended a Christian school. Since then, he has looked at other religions and concluded that some sort of divine force was in charge. We covered some preliminary points of contention before we got to the law and Substitutionary atonement and what he needs to do. Conner readily received a gospel of John which we asked him to prayerfully read asking God to reveal Himself to him.

There were 3 young marrieds couples plus toddlers - all university students (except the toddlers) from Vietnam and with no belief in God. They asked me if I was a J.W. to which I replied, "No! I am a Christian."   I did some apologetics with them, gave them tracts and warned them  that when they return to Vietnam that their government does not like Christians. Interestingly, they knew this already.

There was more going on but we leave the ongoing work to our sovereign God. What a privilege to tell forth God's good news of how sinners may be reconciled to Him. To Him alone our praises arise. Heb. 7:24b,25.

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The Lord stopped the rain/showers long enough for us to do what He has commanded: Take His good news and proclaim it as He has revealed it. The variety of people conversed with included: 

- an Irish man who thought he would go to heaven because he was a R.C. and a good person who sometimes went to church. After being tested against part of God's  standard of righteousness, the 10 commandments, he confessed that he was guilty of sinning against God. May he seriously consider his need to trust Christ his righteousness, Jer. 23:5,6; Rom. 4:23-25; Heb. 4:15. and in the finished work of Christ on behalf of God's people.

- a couple of ladies who announced that they were to marry. They thanked our ladies for doing a kindness to them but did not want to be prayed for. 

- a couple of Muslims who did not believe that Jesus died so the resurrection is a non-event to them.

It was our pleasure to work with a couple from the ACT who are gathering information and ideas on witnessing in their own church area.

As always, we thank God for tracts handed out, conversations had and that He does His sovereign work just as He planned. How glorious is our covenant-keeping God? Beyond our ability to adequately describe. 

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It was an unusual day for the 5 of us. As Railee and I were walking down to our team meeting place for prayer, we got engaged in a most unorthodox half hour dialogue with Mr. R & A. Mr. A was seeking inner peace and Mr. R also and he said he was inclining towards Buddhism. Mr. R thought the God of the Bible was too strict. Furthermore he said that the God of the O.T. showed no love and was quite different from the God of the N.T. (He could not think of a specific example right then.)

Overall we managed to present most of God's good news. By God's grace, they both gladly received copies of John's gospel with the "Does God exist?" tract inside and said that they would consider what we had presented to them.. Pray the Lord deals with them in mercy.

We then found the other team members who had prayed and were busy engaging others in conversations. However, there was a half hour spent countering a couple who were drop-outs from church life and had some strange teachings like 'generational curses' and worse still some heresies from the word of faith movement. {They had approached the 3 saying that they wanted to encourage them in this work!}

After that, there were some productive conversations. We thank God for enabling us to handle the various challenges. We give Him all the glory for His work which always reflects His beautiful nature.  

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Our great Lord of His harvest granted us 9 on His team here today; 3 were first-timers at Wello Pt. There was some incidences that occur occasionally. e.g. In the midst of one gospel presentation, a person purporting to be a Christian broke into the conversation and made enough ridiculous comments to end that opportunity. Moving right along...

Meanwhile a chat with teenagers Reece and Phoenix gave Reece much to think about on submitting to the Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour. Later this couple met another on our team who reinforced the gospel. Then Phoenix appeared 'softer' towards God's good news.

Another team of 2 went into an area we have never covered before due to insufficient workers.

The Hindus, Rudge and Punita, listened and then claimed that their holy book contained truth as well as the Bible. {Even false religions 'holy books'v have some truth in them but only the Bible has nothing but the truth} Concentrating on Jesus as the only Way to be reconciled to God, brought Rudge to state that if he went to hell, that was what he deserved (his karma). Then one team member gave her testimony on how God had revealed Himself to her savingly through prayerful searching the Scriptures to see if the gospel was true. Then Punita said she would start reading her Bible. May God convict her of His truth and cause Rudge to abandon the fatalism of karma and close with Christ alone to save him.

 We thank God for His glorious work of saving His people and enabling us and using us to present the claims of Christ to a very needy people. We give Him all the glory. Amen.  

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