It has been interesting times indeed on the streets in the past few weeks.
Since my last report one of the girls who had been abusing the preachers in Arklow has come to the Lord and two of the others expressed a wish to have the peace that they could visibly see she had gained but sadly they were not willing to surrender to God.
The father of one of the girls has also come to the Lord as a result of the preaching of the Gospel and has been going on for Jesus.
We had a visiting preacher from the North, Jeff Turkington and he joined Peter Kelly and myself to hit the streets of Wexford. We had a fruitful night with many hearing the Gospel and being open. Seeds were sown and many people came under conviction demonstrating the work of the Holy Spirit upon them.
We must trust in God; His word says that it pleased Him to save people through the foolishness of the preaching of the Gospel. – 1 Corinthians 1:21. So while it may appear to offend our sense of worldly wisdom – appearing as foolishness to the world, it is the Wisdom of God that He chose to save people by us preaching that Christ died as a substitution of the just punishment for our sins in accordance with the Old Testament, was buried and rose again on the third day according to the Old Testament, and this resurrection life was witnessed by many – 1 Corinthians 15:3-8.
It is often fearful and with trepidation that I step up to preach in this way and it should be! We stand as ambassadors of Christ and we should tremble so that we should not misrepresent and thus blaspheme His Holy Name or cause it be be blasphemed by unbelievers because of our words or actions. However it is inevitable that the lost would be offended by the preaching of the Gospel because the Word of God tells us the preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that perish, it is an offense to the lost. – Romans 9:33, 1 Corinthians 1:23.
We preached in Arklow on St Patricks Day after the parade had passed and I was asked by a group of young men drinking in the park why I came to talk to them instead of the “respectable” people, my answer surprised them: I asked would it be Christian of me not to care that drunkards were going to Hell while caring only that the “decent” folk would perish?
A sobering final fact, after this preaching and patient witnessing was that one of the young men who had heard the full Gospel and refused to even believe in God, who’s own friends told him that he was mistaken.
That young man ended his life the very next night. We pray that he had cried out to be saved before he lost the ability.
People are dying for a reason to live, we must tell them, time is running out.