The Spirit of God is still working on the street!

It had rained for 3 days straight but when I called TJ to see if he still wanted to go share the gospel at the “Alive at 5” street party, he was all for it. Alive at 5 was, of course, cancelled so we just hit the walking mall. TJ shared the gospel with a whole bunch of teenagers that mocked him the whole time. I almost can’t stand witnessing to a group of 13-17 year olds. Because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and kids today have no fear of the Lord, they are very stupid. Most of them are not capable of having a conversation about anything but a cell phone or iPod. I guess I am ranting a little but I want to find their derelict parents and slap them around for giving their 13 year old kid a cell phone and some cash and turning them loose to run the streets all night.

We gave out a lot of tracts to the surprising amount of people walking around in the rain. The first person that I shared the gospel with was an older lady with some meditation beads which is what I used to start off the conversation. She told me all about them but didn’t really know much. We talked for a while about different beliefs and what she thought happened when a person died and then I swung to the Scriptures and the Law which brings the knowledge of sin. She now was not a happy camper and advised me, in a daring command, that she wasn’t the person I wanted to talk to about this stuff. I took it as a challenge. We went through the law and I was able, by the grace of God, to share the whole biblical gospel with her. She admitted to breaking God’s law but said she was going to heaven because she wanted to. Everyone wants to go to Heaven, they just don’t want the God of the Bible there with them. She finally got sick of talking and stormed off.

We got out of the rain at Starbucks and tried to start up a conversation but there was none to take it. Some of the punk kids that TJ witnessed to early were there. One of the kids, too loudly, told his friends that the Jesus freaks were here. I stood up and asked the kid what he had said and he got scared and said we were the people that talked to them about Jesus. As we left, they mocked us more. Again…derelict parents to blame.

I next found a man in his 50’s that did have alcohol on his breath but we had a great talk. He grew up Catholic like me and also saw the hypocrisy in the church. I shared my testimony and then we talked about God’s justice and the necessity of God punishing law breakers. He thought he would go to heaven because he believed in his heart that he would because he was good. That changed after we went through the law. God began breaking the man down in the pouring rain. He admitted his sin and the state of his soul. I gave him the good news and explained Jesus as our sin-bearing substitute to satisfy God’s justice. It seemed to make sense to him. He was very convicted as we parted ways and he said he had a bible at home, which is where he was heading.

I tried to share the gospel with some “ultra runners” but these people have their own culture that is centered around themselves. They openly mocked me and Christianity and showed their indignant hatred of Christ.

That last two people that I shared the gospel with is the type of God-ordained encounter that we always hope for. The couple was in their late 20’s and they both grew up Catholic. The guy was actually kicked out of the Catholic church when he was in his teens because he asked too many questions about the Bible that the priest couldn’t answer. The two questions that the priest couldn’t answer and that he still had never found an answer to were very common and simple questions to answer for anyone who actually knows the Bible. He wanted to know if the Bible talked about dinosaurs and why incest was deemed good when Adam and Eve first started populating the earth. I answered both questions and then went into the law. The guy actually went as far from Catholicism as he could and now believed in reincarnation. He soon admitted he had no basis of his beliefs other than it sounded good. As we talked about sin and the justice of God with many illustrations both the guy and his wife had a change of countenance on their face as God was beginning to reveal to them their sin and break them down. I explained the glorious cross and they stared at the ground, realizing the predicament they were in but didn’t really know how to take this substitutionary atonement. I explained repentance and urged them to believe. They knew they would die one day like the rest of all the living. We shook hands and parted ways to let the Spirit of God continue to work in them.

Are you encouraged by these stories? Do you know what will happen if you don’t share the gospel? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. You will never see God work in these glorious ways. God will continue to fulfill His purposes and God will continue to raise up His obedient servants to proclaim the gospel to the perishing but you will suffer loss. You will never experience God in this way. If only you would die to yourself and get out of your easy, comfortable lifestyle and do something. When you see God working in people before your eyes, you become so revived and on fire that you can’t imagine wasting your life doing anything else. The world stops. Your priorities change. The world fades away. Do something, do something, do something for the glory of Christ and the advancement of the Kingdom.