Sunday, February 14, 2010

Late Saturday night witnessing

Jeremy Roberts and headed to Helena for another night of sharing the gospel. This time we brought three new people with us. They are from Augusta. We met them at our Bible study in Wolf Creek and they seemed excited to hit the streets with us. The all earned nick-names by the end of the late Saturday night. Andy the gunfighter, Josh the bull whipper, and Joe the excited one. Long story on the nick-names.

We met at 6:30 and took off. Roberts and I witnessed to a couple people who said they were Christians before we met the other guys. Once we met, I witnessed to two people who were smoking in front of the staggering ox. The staggering ox has always been a great place to witness to people. It turned out the kid I was talking to already knew me and said that I talked about Jesus with him before. I shared the gospel with him and his friend again. There didn't seem to be much conviction.

We gave out tracts and the new boys shared the gospel with a tattooed up lady. We moved to Carroll College and Josh and his brother Joe witnessed to a kid smoking. I love smokers because when it is cold out you can always find a smoker outside waiting to be witnessed to. Their conversation went good and a seed was planted.

The campus was dead so we moved to the movie theater and found the same emptiness. We moved down town by the Federal security bank. I challenged Josh to witness to the security guard in his booth because no one as yet. Josh is a man that will take a challenge and he did. Josh and Joe talked with the guy for almost a half hour. Good seed planted.

Jeremy and I went into the walking mall and I found a guy smoking to witness to. He proclaimed his own righteousness like most of the people do. He said he lied but never stole, lusted, coveted or used the Lord's name in vain. He was clearly a liar. I explained God's justice and the penalty of breaking the Law. He didn't outwardly show conviction but I shared the gospel with him anyway. He seemed to understand more when I explained the cross. He said he had to go back to work and left.

We ran into a group of couples that were out on the town. I did a magic trick for them and they liked it. One kid was drinking a lot so he was a little obnoxious. They asked why I stopped them and showed them the trick. I asked them if they were Christians. They thought it was a good idea to do a trick to talk to them about the gospel. They didn't really understand anything. The girl and her half-drunk fiance were Catholic and she was Episcopalian but both were lost. As I asked questions the girl got offended and said she didn't want to talk about this. She said she never believed in heaven and she did not believe in being saved. I don't think she had a concept of what she was even saying. I took them through the law and explained justice because they thought God just forgives everyone on the earth. I told them that God can't forgive without satisfying His justice, which is what Jesus did in our place. The girl disagreed. I argued with her bad logic. She said she didn't have to talk about this. I agreed. She stormed off, expecting everyone to follow but no one did, they all stayed. The other couple had the correct answers and said they were Christians but the half-drunk Catholic who was loud and obnoxious was now humbled. I explained to him the gospel and expressed the urgency of being right with God since he could die any day. He said he would think about it and read the bible. We shook hands and left, seeds planted. The one Christian kid followed us and talked with us privately and told us that he really appreciated us sharing the gospel on the street and he thought we were doing good. He seemed convicted that he was in the place he was. It turned out that I knew his dad and that his parents went to our church. We exhorted him to share the gospel with his friends now that we planted the seed.

It was getting late so we headed back to the truck by the way of the bars. I witnessed to another smoker named Tim. He was also drinking and cussing and treated some women bad. I distracted him with a card trick and began to drill him with the law. He said he had his own religion of Tim and could do what he wanted. He said his god allowed him to cuss, get drunk, lie and every other wicked thing this guy did. He then went on to proclaim how great of a person he was and that he knew for a fact that he was a Christian. His girlfriend was a southern baptist, so she claimed and also thought she was great as they were drinking at the bar. The new boys talked with her. Tim kept getting mad and then calming down. I explained the gospel which he said he knew but in reality he had no clue. He gave me his business card and told me to call him because he loved to talk about God. I gave him a tract in hopes that he would read it in the morning.

The new boys witnessed to some older women outside a bar and we called it a night. Praise God! A lot of seeds were planted and people that would have never heard the gospel in a church heard it this night. Praise God for giving us the privilege of evangelism and for His providential working in the lives of sinners.

No comments: