Oxegen 2010

This is our third year at the weekend long Oxegen music festival in Punchestown, Co. Kildare –>Oxegen<–

The media have started to be honest about the purpose of this “music festival”, having printed their top ten pick-up tips the week before.
This festival is supposed to be closed to under 17 year olds but our experience is that every year there has been children as young as 13 or 14 years old going to this event.

The festival celebrates mass drunkenness, mass drugs, mass fornication and thuggery.
Amazingly there seems to be very little restraint imposed upon the crowds of 75,000 people each year.
Each year there has been rapes and death. Violent fracas and public exposure to normalisation of vile practices.

This year Edel and myself met up with Desmond Smyth of Jeriamiah Cry ministries, Dave Kinsella or Cross Reach evangelism and several other individuals, Ciara, Daniel and Jonathan. I think I may have missed someone else too!
Peter Kelly travelled up from Wexford on the Saturday and stayed over to get a second opportunity to bring life on Sunday.

Arriving in Waterford on Thursday evening after half a day of work we met up with Dave and stayed the night with his wonderful family, having dinner and a great time of fellowship.
The next morning we travelled up to Naas, the nearest large town to the event and where the party-goers would be bussed each day to buy more supplies.

By the time we got there the crowds were already thronging the streets.

We had a quick scout about for the best place to preach and then got set up in front of the Naas court house, which was very busy dispensing justice over the next few days.

We alternated with amplified preaching from the courthouse, handing out tracts and engaging the crowd in one-to-one conversations.
There were many very hard people and also many soft to the gospel.
We encountered many people who obviously knew they were doing wrong and when confronted with the truth they would demand for us to “shut up” until “after this weekend”.

The bus queues doubled up in front of the courthouse with multiples of hundreds of people hearing the gospel at one time and constantly circulating.

Many tens of thousands heard the true Gospel, the call to repentance and faith in Jesus, we handed out at least 11,000 gospel tracts between us all in spite of the atrocious conditions.
It rained quite hard for most of the weekend and several people seemed touched by that, they said that we must really believe what we preached since we stuck it out.
We were there from about 11am Friday until 8pm and then again on Saturday from about 10am until maybe 7pm, until all but a few stragglers were gone.
Sunday we finished around late lunch, purely because we had family and work commitments that needed to be attended.

We were very kindly accommodated and fed by a wonderful Christian couple, Donal & Julia. They truly have the gift of hospitality. We would have been a lot more tired without their kindness.

It was war for the weekend and we needed to have all our armour on, there were incidents of the flesh rising against us with both Desmond & myself having cans and “shot” bottles thrown at us.
The Lord protected us and each shot missed. This was evidently the Lord as on one occasion the same people had just accurately pelted a man passing by, minding his own business before turning their attention to us.
There was at least one incident of satanic spell incantations against the preaching with Peter Kelly having the discernment to see he was being affected by one man in the crowd who was making some symbol with his hand.
Peter went to the man and asked him what he was doing and the man told him that he was a satanist and was cursing him. Filled with boldness, Peter looked him in the eye and told the satanist that the devil was going into the lake that burns with fire, for all eternity.
The satanist, appeared to physically deflate, turned tail and skulked away without looking back.

We really appreciate all the prayer & intercession that was made on our behalf this weekend, we had favour with the authorities, unlike last year and even though there were many incidents of extreme anger from the crowds the Lord held them back.

They heard the words of Jesus but they did not heed them.

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Since the Word of God is the power unto salvation for all that believe I pray that the incorruptible seed of that Word will take deep root and the Holy Spirit of God will bring conviction of sin, righteousness & judgement and that they would flee to the Rock of Christ for salvation.

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At lunch time I met with up with Seán Bradford, Brian O’Donnell and Patrick McCullagh in Wexford town and we walked down main street, praying to find a place to preach. The Lord put it upon me to preach at the “Bull Ring”, an area with a long history of rebellion and bloodshed. (See the link at the end of the article for more information)

Shortly after starting to preach and share the gospel directly in conversations and hand out gospel tracts, we got some fairly assertive hecklers; a group of young men who insisted that there was no God, that we were all just a product of evolution. Upon further examination they agreed that their mothers were not monkeys nor their grandmothers and so on back through their ancestors.
They were told how the Lord personally knit them together in their mothers womb, how He had every hair on their head numbered and how He had prepared works for them to walk in since before the foundation of the universe, how they were more valued and know by Him than by themselves! They laughed and mocked and so it was expounded how that knowledge of them by God will be their undoing on the appointed day of their judgement as every secret thought and deed would be made known.

Later a couple of young women came and mocked and they were told how there was a God in heaven who loved them more than their earthly father or any husband or boyfriend will ever love them. They were asked had anyone ever said that they would die for them and were then introduced to the One who had died for them, to purchase forgiveness of their sins and reconcile them to God. They continued mocking and so it was preached how if they despised so great a salvation the only thing that could remain for them was the wrath of God which would be revealed on that day of the revelation of the wrath of God.

We encountered determined resistance this time, even greater than the last time we preached in the “Bull Ring”. We had resistance from agitators that came from the nearby pub and from the local Gardai (police) on multiple occasions who tried to use the law unlawfully to stop the preaching. Thankfully the Lord had provided copies of these laws and I had one with me and was able to discuss it with the police and they agreed that we had a right to be there and to preach what we were preaching. There was a powerful presence of God in that place and I believe that He gave us special grace at that time above the usual measure to continue steadfast in the face of the opposition and the threat of arrest.

This outreach ended up with one particular agitator, a very large man, manifesting demonic intent and shouting repeatedly for me to “shut up” after his companion had denied that the Bible was the Word of God yet claimed to believe in God! I had asked him if he believed in Jesus and that Jesus taught that the Bible is the Word of God. “Your Word is truth” Jesus said. When the man was asked how he could know if it was God or the devil that gave the answers he said he was hearing in his prayers – immediately the other man started shouting. He struck me hard in the chest with both hands in plain sight of the Gardai, while they stood by and let it happen. We were praying continuously and when I asked the man what I had said that so offended him he just kept shouting “shut up” and threatening me. His companion eventually wrestled him back into the pub saying “Don’t be stupid! The Guards are watching.”

The Gospel is offensive to those who are perishing. The apostle Paul said through the Holy Spirit “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that perish: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.”

Jesus said “I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” We are commanded to preach a Gospel of repentance to the world, but how can they repent if they know not from what they should repent? We must preach on sin so that they can know for what they will be judged and from what they should flee and why the free gift of Christ is not to be despised and mocked as a worthless thing but prized above all other things.

People are dying for a reason to live, let’s get out there and tell them what it is. And let us not be of them who shrink back but of them that stand and when all is done, remain standing.

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Waterford City is a busy city with large crowds of young people congregating in the pedestrianised square there. I met up with Dave Kinsella, from Dunmore East and we went to his usual spot.

I was wearing my “Million Dollar Question” jacket and before we had even started four young people had stopped me and asked me what the “Question” was, giving me an opportunity to ask them where they would go when they died.  I got to take them through the whole gospel; law & grace and left them with understanding although three of them joked about a bit, they all came under conviction of sin.

Dave got up to preach and before long a missile impacted the wall beside him, so I took out my phone and started to video what was happening.  Not long ago Dave has had his equipment taken by gangs of youths up to their mid-twenties and they threw it into the river there, the people who did it filmed it and posted it on you-tube so it was time to turn the tables.  Before long a young woman ran forward to collect her missile and smugly walked away until she noticed me filming. She shouted at me that it was “illegal” for me to film her without her consent.  Now this is not the case in Ireland or the UK, filming in a public place does not require permission, not even to make commercial profit from the images.  I pointed out all the privately owned security cameras around and showed her that it cannot be illegal.  This started a discussion about the law with a group of young men that accompanied the woman and were hostile to Dave, and surprisingly it led to a discussion about God’s Law and how they are all beholden to it.  I was given liberty to discuss the preaching and the motivation of Dave’s heart, the reason for existence, death, Hell and Heaven, and finally the grace of God and how in need we all are of His grace. They went away quieted and sobered, expressing gratitude for the frank discussion.

Dave was then crowded by a rowdy group of young people, jeering and shouting.  One of whom went to kick the step Dave was standing on.  Again I pulled out the camera and challenged them on Dave’s freedom to preach and his motivation.  One of them shouted that it was “illegal” to film and again I disagreed and pointed out the security cameras.  The real troublemakers scattered back to the safety and anonymity of the larger crowd.  The rest stayed and listened closely to the preaching.  

We took turns preaching and a couple of young Mormon “elders” heckled me a little but the Lord gave me real fire and words to preach on the new birth in Christ and His divinity.  Many of the original crowd were still there to hear the truth of the Person of Jesus preached.

All in all a mixed group of people and much interaction.

Young people are falling prey to many false religions; Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Secular Humanism etc.  We need to give them the information to refute these false belief systems, they are hungry and even if exhibiting initial hostility they are appreciative in general of persistence in love.

Following on from the previous three visits to the Capital I decided to go once again to that hotbed of liberality and preach the gospel of life to a dead world. On the way out of the house I grabbed 3 Spanish tracts and put them in my bag. Later sitting on the train opposite a couple who were quietly talking in a foreign language I was convinced they were Spanish, though I could not make out what they were saying. I wrestled with irrational fear about just asking them and in the end I rebuked that fear as not being from the Lord and just excused myself and asked them where they were from. Their answer – Spain. They thanked me for the tracts and we had a short chat before the train got to Dublin.

Arriving late morning I noticed that the open selling and taking of drugs & drink had returned to the streets now that the theatre festival was over. Straight opposite Tara Street train station in broad daylight, a sizeable crowd gathered and did their business as if there were no laws against it – a telling situation of the state of darkness in this nation.

I spent the first part of my time walking and praying in the area I was to preach. I was burdened by the sight of all those multitudes of people walking past me, buying, selling, taking in marriage yet wilfully ignorant of their eternal destiny and the suddenness of that transition from life to death.

I passed out a few tracts and had some profitable conversations. After a while Ciara showed up, followed by the 3 Spanish missionaries and then Desmond with Aoife. We prayed together in the street and then Desmond started preaching and I continued to pray, hand out tracts and witness just down the road from him. The Lord used this awesomely; one woman was walking past and angrily shook her head at Desmond’s preaching and loudly said “For Jesus’ Sake!” just as she got beside me. I looked her in the eye and said “Yes, it is for Jesus’ sake that man is standing there preaching the good news of eternal life.” She stopped in her tracks and was visibly shocked, the Lord gave me boldness to push on and speak with her. We had a good chat and it turned out she had been angry with God because of family deaths. I thank the Lord that He arranged that meeting, the enemy had twisted that woman’s view of God, yet when asked a few simple questions about it and forced to think about her position she was surprised to find that she could have even thought about God in that way! She knew in her heart and head that He is good and she believed her relatives had gone on to heaven, yet she had been angry about it. The Lord gave me liberty to minister to her and after about 25 minutes she went away thanking me, changed in her opinion of the preaching and resolved to renew her relationship with God.

The Lord also gave me a great opportunity when I took my turn at preaching, I had been praying for a good heckler and He provided one in the shape of “Mick”, an Irish soldier based in Germany.

Mick had a lot of questions which gathered a crowd, he had obviously been reading his Bible but without real understanding. The Lord used him to direct the preaching to deal with many heretical teachings and to keep bringing it back to how we need a perfect Saviour, through grace in order that we may be born-again.

In the end I handed the preaching back to Desmond and spoke directly with Mick. He gave me his phone number and email address and asked me for some follow up information. Please pray for Mick and the many who heard the true gospel.

Next report will be back in Wexford with one weekend in Waterford so I’m looking forward to what the Lord will do there also.

Last Saturday I met up with Dave Kinsella from Waterford, Joe O’Reilly from Dublin and we went to the capital city to preach the word to bring life to the dead.

Upon arriving we went to North Earl St., across from the historical GPO. There were truly multitudes of people. Some were going about their business, many were clearly walking in fear and many were openly buying & selling narcotics in the streets of our capital city.

Spending some time initially in prayer we started off with some tract distribution and one-to-one conversations. Shortly after we started ministering a group of six Islamic preachers came and set up a table in the street, seeking to harvest those white fields for evil. They proceeded to try and engage us in argument but some additional Christian evangelists had shown up, Claire and three Spanish missionaries were about to spread the gospel too. The Islamic preachers got very angry when Claire was gently pointing out to them that there can only be one ultimate truth and that logically all other systems are then untrue. Up to that point they had been trying to be gently persuasive and using compromised theology such as “we worship the same god” in order to try and lull us in to their way of thinking. Of course we don’t worship the same God since our God is the God of Adam, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Shortly after Desmond Smyth and his wife from “Jeremiah Cry Ministries” showed up and started preaching across the street. We spread out and commenced preaching on the other side of the street, beside the GPO in order to make sure we got maximum coverage of the people. Many stopped, one asked how to be saved in sincerity. Thousands heard the word of God and the message of salvation. While we were there we met what was to be an answer to prayer; two brothers from a gospel hall in the north of Ireland were out distributing calendars and tracts also. They offered me some Romanian & Russian literature. This turned out to be an answer to prayer as I brought some to the fellowship on Sunday and in conversation found that one of the ladies had been praying for how to reach her supervisor in work, the supervisor is Romanian. She now had a calendar and gospel of John in Romanian. Thanks be to God for His timely provision.

All in all, it was an encouraging time with over 12 Christians on the street, some of us went to the Kylmore café after the preaching to warm our hands on mugs of coffee and a great time of fellowship was had. We discussed the increasing hostility of the Gardai towards the street preaching and Desmond told us that the exotic dancers kept calling the police when the preached on Thursday nights telling them that the preaching was “offensive” to them and demanding them to be silenced. We discussed the importance of understanding the law today and how much freedom we truly have, it is OK to “appeal to Caesar” when the law is being used unlawfully against you by the state.

I was perturbed, slightly, by the open preaching and hostility when probed of the Islamic preachers. Only one other person on the streets (not a preacher) had the gumption to tackle them on the anti-western, anti-freedom nature of their message. Time is truly short, the enemy is pushing hard and raising up many labourers for his evil harvest into false religions and into perversions of the world.

Please pray for the Lord to raise up true labourers for His harvest and be ready to listen if He tells you that you are one of them.

This last few times out in Wexford town we reverted back to one-to-one conversations and handing out special Christmas tracts which help people to see if they are on Santa’s “naughty” list or his “nice” one; obviously since we’re using God’s standard of measurement everyone ends up on the naughty list!

We have had some great conversations with people telling them how to get their name removed from God’s “naughty” or “lost” list to His “redeemed” list.
Walking down mainstreet in the cold, many people stopped to talk. Many were convinced they were good people who deserved to get into heaven, despite Jesus’ proclamation that only God is good. Many were asked if they were willing to judge themselves honestly by God’s perfect standard – the standard of the ten commandments. Without us judging anyone, they judged themselves and the Holy Spirit silenced their protestations of innocence as they considered their true condition before a just and holy God. I was pleased to be able to point some of those people to the free gift of redemption available to them in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.
This Christmas I have been asking people “Are you celebrating Christmas this year?” and many of them, no doubt having supernatural perception, have responded: “No” – with their hands laden under bags full of Christmas presents. Since they don’t know us, and we have no obvious external “Christian” markings; this is, in my belief, a subtle manifestation of demonic influence. How can someone in their flesh know that we are about to hand them a lifeline from God? How can they know and then lie straight to our faces and in doing so they reject God while they take the event that commemorates my Lord become flesh and pervert it with false revelry?

Idolatry opens doors for demonic powers to have sway over the life of an individual and many have taken Christmas and turned it into an idol, liking the “baby Jesus” but not remembering Him as He is now, a man and not a child.

All this confirms for me the Lord Jesus statement “there is none good but God”, and when asked who could be saved, He replied “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Without an impossible and supernatural rescue no one can come to God.
I am saddened by this evidence of peoples resistance to God’s free gift, but I am encouraged that salvation must, therefore, be all by the Lord and not by us. We bring no-one to God, He just chooses to use us as instruments in the salvation He is already working out.

So this Christmas be encouraged that in those times when you share your faith it is not up to you to save anyone! You and I just need to be obedient to God and let Him do the work. If you have ever been discouraged from sharing your faith because you saw no salvations then do not be discouraged any more and continue sharing your faith, trusting God to save those whom He is drawing.

People are dying for a reason to live, let’s get out there and tell them what it is.

We’ve been doing a bit more outreach using preaching in Wexford recently. Several weeks ago we were joined by Anthony Brazabon from Dublin, Jim McGuire, Sean Bradford, Patrick McCullagh and Brian O’Donnell. We setup near the “bullring” in Wexford town; Anthony, Jim and Sean (and maybe Patrick) were lifting the name of Jesus on high using placards with the word “Jesus” printed on them. Many were drawn and came over to ask what it was all about. Some preaching of God’s truth was done and several crowds of youths gathered. It started to get cold so some of the seed-sowers went to get a warm coffee. Sean and myself were deeply engaged in conversation with a group of young people who had some genuine questions and some who were just openly suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. There were some very good witnessing encounters, please pray for watering & harvest from that sowing.
The following week we moved further up the street and all 3 girls, Kirsty, Kyna & Sláine came with us. We had a few of the regular crew there and were joined by James Bourke. All including Kirsty & Kyna had a great time witnessing for the Lord. Once again we found many young people, in particular, to be open to being challenged in their spiritual walk. Many are aware that this current life and all that the world has to offer is empty and all the promises of the world prove to be hollow lies. They are searching for someone who can define & defend THE truth.

Last Thursday I met with James Bourke and Sean Bradford at the bullring for some rain evangelism. In spite of the very wet weather the Lord was faithful, or perhaps because of the foolishness of preaching in such conditions He demonstrated His power in such weakness. Many stopped to listen to the preaching. Cars were stopping and lowering their windows, some heckled some listened, some questioned. Some came out of the car across the road and cursed at us but, upon going back into the bar another came out and questioned James about what was going on. He came out specially to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Sean had some very profitable conversations with many stopping to listen & reason in spite of the bad weather. One particular young lady stopped at the preaching and spoke at length with James, well we were all very blessed to see her come to the Sunday service 22 November and come under the power of the Holy Spirit almost right from the opening words of pastor Paul Philips and right to the end when the Lord put it on Pat’s heart to ask if anyone needed to get right with God – she came forward, weeping in repentence, and surrendered her life to God. “For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe.” (1 Corinthians 1:21 – ESV)
I was also blessed to get a thumbs up and a smile from an old lady who had stopped to listen to the preaching. May God be praised for His works that He does.

People are dying for a reason to live, we get out there and tell them what it is.

Where do I start? A very busy month has passed. Alongside normal day to day evangelism I got a phone call from Patrick McCullagh to see if I was going down to the Rathangan fair to evangelise the farmers!

Being a city boy I’d never heard of this fair and was keen to do a recon mission at the least! So meeting up at the new premises of WCCC we left one vehicle, loaded up with ammo (tracts!) and proceeded to the objective.

The fair was large with thousands of people walking around looking for something free to do, like take a survey on their faith or answer the “Million Dollar Question” – Where will you go when you die? I spoke to one stall holder who told me it cost 40 euro for a stall and thought it’d be a good idea to get one for next year specifically for evangelism. We had some divine appointments and great conversations with people and passed out a good few tracts also.

Straight away the Oxegen 2009 festival was upon us. This year there was 80,000 tickets sold so we knew to expect a large crowd. We got there on the Saturday about 11:00, Edel, myself and Dave Kinsella from Waterford. We spent some time in prayer and then loaded up with tracts, Bibles, Dave’s “Good Test” flip chart and my loudhailer we made our way to Naas main street.

The streets were teeming with hung over, cold, tired and very muddy festival goers. There were shoes lying abandoned in the mud covered street, empty bottles and cans littered the length of the town. We started in prayer in a closed shop doorway we had used last year and when we stood up we saw a festival security guard standing behind us with a metal crowd barrier closing off the shop entrance who demanded that we move. Obviously he was not a member of our police and so I didn’t have to do what he said any more than any other civilian. We asked why and he was unimpressed with being questioned. Once he explained we moved out of the shop front and started passing out tracts and talking with people at the bus collection area for the festival.

The security guard called for the police to move us along.  Two policemen came to talk to us and they explained that we could not make an obstruction (despite the festival people having half the path obstructed with barriers and queues). Obviously we have a constitutional right to preach and speak to people about God. These 2 police were open and encouraged us to continue but to move from the narrowest path areas. We moved across the path about 5 meters to a larger “island” area and Dave set up his flip chart.  A large crowd was gathering (but not blocking the path) and the organisers again called for the police.

A different pair came along and were much more hard nosed, again Edel did most of the talking with them and they wanted us to move further on. Edel asked if it was a problem because of the crowd and the police-women said it was. As the discussion was ongoing the festival goers started chanting “free speech!” So Edel negotiated that we could preach and hand out tracts just as long as we didn’t do anything to gather a large crowd or we could move to more open parts of the town and gather crowds there. The security guard was visibly angry that we were not moved on again! And he made another call on his radio, but we had no more interruptions from the police.

The sun shone while we did the Lords work and after a while it started to rain heavily; we needed a coffee break. The Lord used the sunshine and rain alternately to support preaching and to keep under shelter with us while we spoke to them. There were people who thought they were frustrating the Gospel but God used their wicked works to bring the news of the Saviour to others who would not have otherwise heard. His wisdom is so greater than ours. That day we were told by police & security staff that already 7 rapes had been reported, almost 100 additional arrests and one person carried dead from their tent. This is not reported in the media and the same type of carry-on last year was also not reported.

We had a great day in the Lord and many people were ready to hear the Gospel. I returned the following day to meet up with Dave and catch the people leaving the festival. Many left early this year but the Lord had prepared a few for me to speak to who were lying on the footpath nursing their heads and waiting on a lift. Initially they were abusive and told me to get lost but I reasoned with them for a short while and quickly they were asking lots of questions. I spent over 1.5 hours with them having a very in-depth discussion of the Gospel and it’s personal application to their souls. It never ceases to amaze me how often this happens, the people who resist hard initially with a little gentle reasoning frequently turn out to be the people that God has prepared to hear the Gospel and it truly impacts them.

Both the Arklow SeaBreeze Festival and the Dunbrody Festival occur on the together on the weekend following Oxegen so we also took on both of these.

Teaming up with Arklow Baptist Church, they had a circus tent and prepared a series of meetings presenting the Gospel. They had put up posters round the town and posted leaflets into most of the houses in the town. On the first meeting there was 69 of the 72 seats taken. The Gospel was preached and at least one lady was saved. We were there primarily for support and to assist with security. This carried on each evening for the weekend with many hearing the Gospel and some being saved.

In the daytime of the Friday & Saturday I also travelled to New Ross and teamed up with Patrick McCullagh to witness there. There were not many places suited to the preaching and this was mainly a recon mission. We spoke to many people and passed out many tracts. An elderly pair of ladies from Belfast had a long chat with me, they had never heard the Gospel. In the end they took a bible each and agreed to go before the Lord in prayer and ask Him to reveal the truth to them and to read His word. God was glorified and the cross was lifted up. His word says that He will draw them to Him all we have to do is be obedient.

People are dying for a reason to live, let’s get out there and tell them what it is.