Last Saturday we had a deviation from our regular street outreach; we went down to Wexford town.
This time we also went as a family, all the de Paor’s together for the Gospel. We met with Peter & Nichola Kelly and their children and with Brian O’ Donnell and last, but by no means least, we met with Peter & Madge Ryan.
We had a time of fellowship and prayer at the old church building in Peter’s Square and walked down the town to spy out the land! We set up at a wider junction area of the main street and both Peter Kelly & myself took turns preaching from the step with the loud-hailer. The acoustics in that area are great with all the buildings hemming in the sound and bouncing it up the street. We got some good natured hecklers and some angry ones. I pointed out to the angry hecklers that their anger was evidence that they knew the Gospel was true as no one would be angry at someone who told them they were destined to a place that they truly believed did not exist.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Rom 1:18-20) ESV
One group who had been heckling while I preached came back for a second pass while Peter Kelly was preaching and I asked them their opinion on the preaching. We then spent about 45 minutes sharing the Gospel and applying it directly to them and highlighting the personal ownership of sin, the holiness and righteousness of God and their desperate state before Him. They both sobered under conviction and admitted that they needed to be saved but they also both said they had some more sin they wanted to commit before they would come to that place. I pleaded with them not to put it off as the Lord will not always strive with them and they may end up being given over to their lusts. Please pray for the people of Wexford who are in bondage to sin that they would realise their condition and fear the consequences sufficiently to gain the beginning of wisdom!
We are planning to make a monthly or bi-monthly preaching trip to Wexford town on Saturdays so if you’d like to join us and you’ve been through the training then please get in touch. If you’d like to join us but haven’t been through the training then please get in touch as we will provide it for you free!! It will only cost you one afternoon of your life and will equip you to win souls for the Lord according to His command.
And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
(Mar 16:15-16) ESV
People are perishing because they are condemned and we have the words of life, eternal life which is the cure. Let’s make a point to share it for the glory of God.
Early afternoon 3 weeks ago I joined with Oriel O’ Gorman, the pastor at the local, independent Arklow Baptist church. We spent some time in prayer in the park in the centre of town that used to be a graveyard and still has the headstones as “decoration” around the walls. The weather was very damp, not actual rain but more of what in Ireland is called a “soft” day; heavy misty weather which looks not too bad but soaks to the skin after any length of time.
Oriel took the first step up to preach while I stood below on the street to engage people in direct one-to-one discussion which comes about as a result of the preaching. Almost immediately a young woman and younger man came along and stopped to talk, the young man had previously had a discussion with Oriel and as a result had decided to become more religious but had not been born again. The woman was his sister and she had been a Goth and Satanist, she told me that she had been to see the priest and he had told her there was no hope for her since she had worshipped Satan.
I talked at length to her, she claimed not to believe in God but I challenged that anyone could be a Satanist if there was no God. She admitted to the witness of creation and her conscience being evidence for God. I spoke to her about the 2 thieves and how they had both reviled Jesus to His face even as He was dying to pay the punishment for their sins and that one repented, a man due to die on a few hours he admitted his guilt and just punishment, he declared the innocence of Jesus and he acknowledged Jesus as Lord and asked Jesus to save him. He did.
One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luk 23:39-43) ESV.
The following Sunday they both showed up for the meeting at Arklow Baptist church and after a strongly evangelistic message from Oriel they both came forward at the end and called on Jesus to save them. Since then they have been attending Bible study, prayer meetings and preaching service.
I thank my God for His work in their lives and that they are trusting Jesus alone for salvation.
I had been hearing a LOT about this book “The Shack” over the past year or so and the things I heard were never middle of the road… They were either singing high praises of this as a life changing book or condeming it as heresy and dangerous ground to tread on.
Since people I knew had weighed in on both sides of the argument I decided to buy a copy and see what all the fuss is about. I also read Tim Challies report and compared it to the book, I liked some of his content, he put it just like I would so some of this has been influenced here.
At first glance the book seemed to be just like any other mass market fictional novel – here is the synopsis from the back page…
Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack’s world forever.
In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant “The Shack” wrestles with the timeless question, “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?”
The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You’ll want everyone you know to read this book!
Having read it I agree that the “answers” Mack gets will astound you, but not in a pleasant way, hopefully it will not transform you as the latter condition would be much worse than your former. Man-made religious practices my be irrelevant but God and the Bible are ALWAYS relevant. If you read this and see the very, very real dangers of false teaching contained within you will want everyone you know to avoid it like the plague! My advice for anyone who ventures to read it; don’t just read it and take what it says at face value but be like the Bereans in Acts chapter 17:11 and search the scriptures to see if it is so!! And here is why:
This book firstly is a fictional work about a grisly kidnap and murder of a small child and immediately engages the emotions at the level of horror. Although it is fiction it is obviously intended and touted as teaching theological truths. It was not written only to share a story but to teach or share theology.
So starting with that point what exactly is theology? Is it just something stuffy intellectual professors sit around and argue about without an indwelling of the Holy Spirit to guide them? Nope. Theology is simply “talking about God”, theos (God) – ology (speaking words).
Whether we like it or not we all engage in theology every time we speak or think about anything to do with God. It has generally become accepted to think of theology as the study of God.
Of course seperating theology from an actual relationship with God produces relegious people, Christian in name but unregenerated in nature which can often put people off theology. It is a false conclusion to come to that “the study of scripture is bad because of the many religious hypocrites we see” as it throws the baby out with the bathwater. All real born-again believers love God and as such seek to know Him more and undertake to study His Word as the primary means of doing this.
We also know that faith without works is dead, but how can we know what works the Father requires if we don’t read His instruction manual – the Bible? Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.
This book correctly identifies those religious people as hypocrites but sadly paints theology as a bad thing which is a lie. Those people who live most like Christ are those who know Him best. True Christians wish to know God intimately and deeply, the way to avoid being religious is not to avoid theology but to pursue it out of a love for God.
The authority of scripture is criticised on page 65 and I gave it poetic license that it may just be a demonstration of how the hero of the book “Mack” didn’t actually have a relationship with God but was religious “God’s voice had been reduced to paper, and even that paper had to be moderated and deciphered by the proper authorities and intellects.”
However it was not to be so, the book pushes experiential encounter over scripture which is very, very dangerous. Especially as scripture teaches us to “examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (NASB)
On page 82 is where things go from just dangerous to sheer heretical. Here God the Father (as He has chosen to reveal Himself) is depicted as a woman (named Elouise, meaning Strong in Battle) who just rushes up and hugs Mack. Later on page 85 the Holy Spirit (called Sarayu, meaning flowing air or wind) is also depicted as a female and a mental eros love interaction between Mack and Sarayu occurs. It is more than a little inappropriate and the book continues on depicting unholy relationships and false teachings about the Trinity.
A careful Christian reader, familiar with Scripture would probably see what Young appears to be trying to do in response to the many dead religious institutions that operate still as a priest between man and God in the place of Jesus.
However this book has so much shallow theology and misrepresentation that it is a very real danger to a correct understanding of the Holiness of God. Mack lies directly to the face of God in bad attitude with no consequences. God is depicted as listening to music that is written in rebellion, enjoying and dancing to it and justifying the musicians anger as having “good reason” and then calling them “My kids”. But the Bible describes all humanity as children of wrath until they get born again of spirit , adopted into the family of God.
While I stuck with this book all the way to the end hoping for some redeeming chapter to set straight all the flaws in the theology and reveal them as part of Macks character and the reason he is so far from God, it never happened. The book continued irreverently depicting God as weak, apologetic for the bad things happening in the world and just plain wierd. Mack was able to lie and swear in the presence of God and get angry, which made God cry!
There is no clear presentation of the Gospel of God in this book and if a person was searching they most likely would come away more confused then when they picked this book up. The understanding of the depravity of man and the righteous judgement and punishment of sin is not taught but actively opposed with statements like “Sin is it’s own punishment”.
So where then is room for the eternity in Hell for the unregenerate that Jesus spoke so much about?
Where is the justice in a God who would cast these sinners into such a place when they have already been punished for their sin on earth if that is true?
Why did the Lord of all the Universe come and die on that cruel cross and take upon himself all the wrath and due punishment of a Holy, Righteous and Just God if the sin is punishment in itself for mankind?
In summary
The Shack although an engaging read in many ways belittles the might of God, the sacrifice of Jesus and the holiness of the Holy Spirit. It defiles the submission of Christ to the Father in it’s presentation of their relationship and it teaches a heretical and pagan view of our relationship with the Trinity and the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
If you decide to read it please take all precautions to protect yourself from absorbing the falsities, pray before and after reading any of this book. Commit yourself to check each concept against what the Bible says.
In answer to the “timeless” question: “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?” I’ll quote John Piper from his book “Suffering and the Sovreignity of God” (available for free download at http://www.desiringgod.org) as he puts it so much better than I could.
“The ultimate reason that suffering exists in the universe is so that Christ might display the greatness of the glory of the grace of God by suffering in himself to overcome our suffering. The suffering of the utterly innocent and infinitely holy Son of God in the place of utterly undeserving sinners to bring us to everlasting joy is the greatest display of the glory of God’s grace that ever was, or ever could be.”“This was the moment–Good Friday–for which everything in the universe was planned. In conceiving a universe in which to display the glory of his grace, God did not choose Plan B. There could be no greater display of the glory of the Grace of God than what happened at Calvary. Everything leading to it and everything flowing from it is explained by it, including all the suffering in the world.”
Last Saturday I was joined by Peter Kelly on the streets of Arklow. After some time of fellowship and praying as two families in the house we got down town at about 10:30pm. We positioned ourselves across the road from the busiest pub/hotel in the town and the ATM at the lane beside Christy’s bar. I took the step first and the loudhailer and addressed the crowds of people with the question “What are you living for?”. Variously reading from Matthew 5, Romans 2, Revelation 20 and 21 and 1 Corinthians 6; I dealt with living for the pleasures of sin for a season, storing up wealth on Earth and the yawning vista of eternity stretching ahead of each person. Eternity in Heaven with the Lord and His love being poured out or in Hell with His wrath being poured out
I pleaded with them to wake up and repent, to call on the Lord while He may yet be found.
There were several stops to get down to groups of people who were questioning and we had some great conversations. Some were genuinely touched and some just raged against God all the more.
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
(Psalm 2:1-12)
Peter got up to preach and dealt right across the board with “Your soul is precious!”. He preached with authority and power so much so that the bouncers across the street who have heard the Gospel many times and are hardened to it – well they sent a lady called Aileen (from Limerick) across to try and get us to move elsewhere. Well 20 or 30 minutes later she was still there listening to the Gospel from me face to face, pleading with her to look to Jesus for her salvation and Peter was still preaching on the box beside us. Aileen was very nice but had a hard life and viewed that as her “penance”, she reckoned that God would overlook her sins since she had had a hard time of it. We discussed the personal ownership of our sins and the free gift of salvation from God through Jesus Christ. Aileen was with a hen party that night and when the bride to be and her friends came to “rescue” her from the preachers she introduced them all and we also got to share a short gospel message with them and pray for the marriage. They all thanked us and Aileen took gospel tracts with the promise to read them and do something about her eternal destiny.
2 young men, Paul & James came along then and started to talk to us. I had spoken to Paul on and off for the past 3 years and he keeps coming up with “intellectual” arguments against Christ and the Bible. Every time an argument is shown to be empty he has been shifting to a different offensive position! So this time I just kept telling him that all of those are secondary issues and the primary issue is his stance before an almighty and holy God.
After a very rowdy and obscenely dressed crowd of young men came along and engaged in some light natured heckling and I we spoke with them for a very short while.
Well Paul & James hung around with many questions and eventually they both said that they were going to get right with God that night.
I pray that they did. We finished up and got home for a nice hot cup of tea at about 12:50am.
Please pray for Aileen, Paul and James that God the Father draw them to His Son Jesus and salvation.
Then today I did some recycling evangelism! Tesco were selling off some rain jackets cheap and I had bought a couple and had them printed with “Million Dollar Question” on the mack and “Ask Me” on the front. It is amazing how people will embarrass themselves for the love of money! Since I began wearing the jacket on the street not very long ago about 5 people have already come up to ask me what the million dollar question is and is it some kind of competition? Well today I went to the recycling and wore the jacket and Caroline came up and asked me about the jacket so I got the opportunity to ask the million dollar question – Where will you go when you die – Heaven or Hell?
She told me she hoped to go to heaven and in the course of the conversation it transpired that she reads her bible every night to her children and does not allow blasphemy in her house. So I shared the scriptures that we should that we are going to heaven -
I have put these things in writing for you who have faith in the name of the Son of God, so that you may be certain that you have eternal life.
(1Jn 5:13)
We got through the good test and after about 30 minutes she took a comprehensive gospel tract and told me that her husband and 2 year old were waiting in the car for her but that otherwise she would stay as she had a lot of questions. I asked her to read her Bible and see that the things I had said were true. – Please pray for Caroline to be brought into relationship with God.
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.
This Monday 9th Feb a group from Mullingar came to visit with the local Arklow Baptist Church team.
Jonathan had been burdened to preach every day this week so we hit the streets together in the afternoon after a time of prayer.
We started with a couple of verses of Amazing Grace which got some interesting reactions not usually seen. Here was 7 men just singing on the street and not collecting money so I’m sure it seemed a little strange to people.
Once that was done we spread out and Jonathan opened up the preaching. He was followed by Oriel and Gene. One seed sower got Jonathans back as last week they had been attacked with wet wads of toilet tissue and sheets of ice broken over their heads. We had a great response with many people stopping to listen and a few hecklers.
The team from Mullingar had not experienced any of this before and were greatly encouraged by the outreach. We had some great 1 on 1 conversations with people and some antagonistic responses. Several hundreds of tracts were given out and the Gospel of God was upheld.
We ended up Monday evening with a joint meal for all of the families at Oriel & Heathers place with a great time of fellowship and an agreement to reciprocate the preaching time in Mullingar.
I’m looking forward to this immensely.
On Tuesday we had a different mission field all together.
The reception was much more hostile and I met a few people who had chosen to be offended by the nationality of Jonathan, an American. My response: God didn’t just write the Bible for Americans and Jesus didn’t just die for Americans. Don’t they also want to know what is required to attain to eternal life and escape a just judgement?
Below are some photos of Jonathan preaching, Rebecca talking to Willie who has professed faith in Jesus and repentence and a photo of 3 young chaps: Alan, Layton and Stephen who spoke at length with me and who frequently thought they were being cool but were just being really, really vulgar and continued to store up more wrath to be revealed on the day of wrath by Jesus. Alan was the most reasonable and open-minded of the three and I pray he has the courage to continue to search for the truth about God and eternity in spite of the hard mockery of his fellows.
Guys, if you are reading we are praying for you that you would see you are in slavery to sin and you would wish to be freed from that bondage.
Jesus can emancipate you, permanently.
Jonathan & Rebecca Barber
Rebecca talks to Willie
Alan, Layton and Stephen
Thursday was overcast, cold and that special kind of misty rain that Ireland seems so good at.
It covers everything with a thin film of water.
After praying this morning with the family for a harvest and for God to rend the heavens I met with Jonathan, Rebecca about 2pm at the house where the Arklow Baptist church is currently operating out of.
We hit our knees for about half an hour or 45 minutes and then went out in the power of the Lord to preach the truth to Arklow.
Jonathan got straight to it with the small 7W amp he has, magnifying the holiness, righteousness and goodness of God. Demonstrating the sinful nature of mankind with many evidences and preaching the eternal love of God for those who would perish if only they will turn from their sin, surrendering to and embracing the forgiveness and mercy of the God who gave them life and against whom their eternal offences have been.
I placed my preaching step where the sign “Boycott Hell – Repent” could be clearly seen by the passing cars and crossed the street. Many refused the tracts we were handing out and did not want to speak to us.
Once across the street 2 or 3 people had taken tracts but didn’t want to get into a conversation.
One couple stopped, Laurabella from Romania and her boyfriend Zoltan from Hungary.
They wanted to hear the Gospel of God. They knew they were living in a sinful relationship, they had been praying every morning and evening and before each meal. They had a copy of the Original Testament in Latin, which is quite like Romanian and so they could read it.
Both of them came under extreme conviction of the Holy Spirit as we were speaking and only moved in closer rather than pull away as the weather worsened. After many questions and 45 minutes expounding of the Word of God they both wished to surrender to Jesus and place their trust in His substitutionary death.
They prayed in turn, out loud in their native tongues on the street right there, spilling hearts full of repentance and love for God. They allowed me to pray for a baptism of the Holy Spirit and to lay hands on them and immediately wished to be introduced to their new family!
We crossed the street over to Jonathan and Rebecca and both Rebecca and Jonathan quizzed Laurabella and Zoltan with some follow up questions to see if they truly understood what they were doing.
The Holy Spirit in them both gave witness to their salvation and it’s security and to their acknowledgement of the justice of God to have previously condemned them to eternity in Hell, a sentence now pardoned by the life blood of Christ!
We pray for their continuance in the faith and a continuing harvest of souls in Arklow.
Afterwards Jonathan took back to preaching and a group of 4 late teen school girls (who had previously been in their house) abused him and tried to throw wet wads of stolen toilet paper (from the public toilets) at us both.
They were very bad shots.
I spoke with them for a while and they were very abusive and kept making obscene suggestions and statements about Jesus. I left them to their devices and Oriel joined us at this time. He had been tied up ministering elsewhere. As we spoke the girls launched another unsuccessful wad attack
Oriel, Jonathan and myself then spoke to them as they had come up right behind us, mocking and making obscene gestures. They just continued to harden their hearts and attack the preaching of the truth, spoken in love. One girl left the others, hopefully in conviction, taking her mobile phone which one of the others had been using to play obscene rap music.
We prayed for them and as we finished praying they launched another attack, this time hitting Oriel in the mouth. Jonathan warned them from the Word of God that people who do such such things bring judgement upon their own heads and that they should refrain from doing such a thing for their own skin, at least.
They mocked and laughed but ”the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Heb 4:12)
The Gospel must be preached and will be preached as a direct instruction from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today I once again meet with 3 sisters in the Lord for a Lydia Bible study. The Lord always seems to bless this time together abundantly and we all come away edified and challenged. Our passage for today was Colossions 2:6-17. We opened in prayer and asked the Lord to teach us by His Spirit all that He had for us in this passage.
The Bible tells us that if we are believers we have the mind of Christ, so if we are walking in the Spirit we will be lead by the Spirit. This passage brought back again and again how important it is to be in Christ. Our fellowship with each other and the teaching and building up we get from one another is wonderful but it is no substitute for a true minute by minute relationship with Christ. If we don’t have a true relationship with Our Lord Jesus Christ than we don’t have Him, and since salvation is only through Him if we don’t have Him we are not saved. Even as believers we need to live in Him, it’s a continual thing, a continual growing we are united, rooted and continually being built up in HIm so that thanksgiving will over flow from us. If we are not seeing this in our lives we have to examine ourselves as we are told to in 1John to see if indeed we are in the faith. “”I am the vine, you [are] the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw [them] into the fire, and they are burned.” John 15:5-6′
The Christian must remain in Christ, there is no life outside of Him. We need to examine all our presumptions, all our previous teachings, philosophys and traditions in the Light of the Gospel and the Word of God. If they oppose the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ they must be abandoned, thrown out and our minds brought in to line with the Word of God. Total surrendering of our lives to Him. If Christ is not Lord of All, He’s not Lord at all. If you call Him Lord you must submit.
by Rebecca
The first significant opportunity was with Nate. He was in his young 20′s. When I asked him if he was sure that he was going to heaven he said “yes” and showed me the gold cross around his neck. I asked him if the cross was what he was depending on to get him to heaven or what exactly it was that was giving him the confidence. He said he didn’t know. He then said he didn’t think anyone could really know. I quoted him 1 John 3:15 and told him that the Bible was written that we would know for sure that we are going to heaven. I asked if he would be interested in hearing. He listened to an abbreviated version of the Gospel (I basically shared my testimony and then breifly explained the points of the Gospel.) He knew that he was a sinner. He is open to talking more. His buddy wasn’t too interested, but Nate listened. He kept getting a phone call and he said he had to go, but I got his address and phone number and he said that Jonathan could meet him to talk further.
The other major opportunity that I had was with a mom named Ann. Her son (probably around 9 or 10) was listening to the preaching from across the street. I gave him a tract and he said he was waiting for his mom. Just then his mom came out of Joanne’s and I told her about the tract. She said, “Oh, did you tell her that we already know we are going to heaven?” (kind of like a way of saying, “Thank you, but we are fine. You can go now.”) I just simply asked the mom, “Really, he didn’t tell me that. Are you 100% sure you could explain to your kids how they can know for sure that they are going to heaven?” Then she didn’t seem so confident. She said that she didn’t think God cared what way you took (Buddist, Catholic, JW, etc) as long as you were sincere. I told her that was a nice thought, but it simply wasn’t true. Jesus said there is one way. We talked for a bit and then she said, “Frankly, I am kind of confused and frustrated. Everyone thinks that they are right and how do we know?” She has been talking to a JW who thinks she is right. She asked me what was the difference. I told her that we simply just take the Bible as our only authority. She said the Bible was written by men, but she admitted that she had never read it. I told her that God’s Word is inspired and I challenged her to a 4 part Bible study that we have. It takes 4 weeks and guides a person through the Sciptures. It is very clear and if you will let the Bible speak for itself it clearly shows the way of salvation. She said that she would be interested and I am to meet her on Friday at Joanne’s to give her the first lesson. Please really pray for her.
There were many opportunites yesterday, despited the rain and cold. God blessed! It was encouraging. We came back rejoicing.
Today we teamed up with the brand new Arklow Baptist fellowship.
Four of them have been regularly on the streets, preaching and sharing the Gospel since the end of December – the pastor, Oriel O’Gorman, his wife Heather also Jonathan and Rebekah Barber who are staying until April to support the ministry. http://jonathanrebeccabarber.blogspot.com/
This church is a plant from Lifegate church in Tallaght. http://www.lifegate.org
We had a fantastic time of prayer and fellowship in Oriel & Heathers’ home before hitting the streets. The weather was wild with strong gusting winds and very cold temperatures, in spite of long johns and a heavy coat I was rapidly cooled to an uncomfortable level.
It is great how God prepares times of harvest when our human minds would think is a foolish time or circumstance. Admist all the wind and cold we stood outside the Arklow Bridgewater Shopping Centre handing out tracts and having conversations with strangers. Two young chaps in particular, Eddie and a friend nearly got blown under a passing truck and had to grab the sign post in front of them.
The group spread out, Oriel up the street from us and Jonathan & Rebekah across the road.
We engaged several people in the sharing of the Gospel. One couple gave us a very interesting chat, a chap by the name of John who had some knowledge of Jesus but believed in re-incarnation. We had a long discussion and we agreed with him that people would be judge on a final day when the books are opened, he put forward the idea that we choose our eternal destination by our actions in this world which is pretty much true. He thought that his good works would outweigh his bad on that day. We upheld the truth of scripture and the holiness of God. The conversation ended amicably with handshakes all round and an agreement to meet again for a discussion.
We continued handing out tracts and Oriel had a good chat with three teenage girls while sitting on the wall opposite
After some time the wind chill was so bad that we decided to go into the mall to geta hot chocolate and met Rebekah coming out with 2 young women, she had been told by security to leave after they had gone inside to get a bit warmer while continuing their conversation. The 2 women had told the security guard they wanted to have the talk but he decided to censor their conversation anyway.
We invited them all in for hot chocolate as that way we were free to continue whatever conversation we wanted in the comfort of a nice warm coffee shop.
We pray for a mighty work of conversion in their hearts and minds and those of their young friends.