Ministry Update: June 28, 2015

It was a real blessing to have Rich, his family and Diana join me at MSU last Monday. Rich has three young boys and they ran to the students to hand out tracts. His middle boy also stood by him while Rich open-aired and repeated everything Rich said. We have a young open-air preacher in the making! The greatest blessing (besides fellowshipping with other believers) is that when other people witness with me at the university is that tracts can be handed out in addition to preaching. 

Then last Friday night Rich and I joined Aaron and others from is church – Erica, Diana, Elise and Margaret – who was able to come out for the first time in long time. We were heavy-hearted because the abominable (not to mention illegal) ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court was handed down earlier that day concerning same sex marriage. (By the way, God Almighty defined biblical marriage in the Bible as being between a man and a woman).

But in spite of how we felt, we sang hymns and preached the Gospel on the square in downtown Springfield. Surprisingly, there wasn’t as much gay celebration downtown as I expected. We had a few people arguing with us over the gay agenda, but more than anything else, it was just spiritually dark that night. My guess is the devil realizes that he doesn’t even have to pretend any more, he can just run rampant throughout our wicked nation.

Aaron had a good conversation with a young man that he knew. I didn’t catch his name. Four women came up and two of them kissed each other right beside Aaron while he was preaching. One claimed that she wasn’t even gay, but that she was a Christian. Aaron explained to her that if she was truly saved, she wouldn’t act like that nor would she condone what God calls abominable.

I talked to one of the four women named Lindsey after she had talked to Erica first. She told Erica that she was marrying her girlfriend in September, but Lindsey didn’t tell me that. She kept telling me with tears in her eyes that she had really cried out to God in the past and God didn’t answer her. I told her that I was sorry that she missed my message because it was called Who Are the Lost and I briefly talked about those who say they have sought God and He didn’t answer them. I told her that she could go to the website on Tuesday and read the message. She asked me to go to her facebook page and see how happy she looks. I told her I would if she would read the blog. I even went so far as to send her a friend request on facebook because we have three friends in common, but she still hasn’t responded.

I tried to explain to Lindsey that it isn’t about her happiness, but God’s holiness. She kept telling me that it was her heart that matters. I told her that God spoke through Jeremiah and said that our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. She said that God had told her that it was her goodness that counted. I responded that God would not go against His word and that He wouldn’t tell Jeremiah that our hearts are wicked and then tell her that her heart is good. She didn’t believe that God never changes. She wanted to know why God would speak to Jeremiah and not talk to her. I told her that God does speak to us still – through His word.

I didn’t catch this on Friday, but I should have asked her how God told her that goodness and love was the main thing since she claimed earlier that God didn’t hear her when she cried out to him when she was younger. Her main theme was love – as long as you love and have love in your heart that’s all that matters. Lord help us! Truth triumph’s love. God is love and God is a loving God, but perverted love, the perverted love that is sweeping America (and I’m talking about the President’s love wins type of love, not necessarily homosexual love), is not godly love. It is not saving love. In fact, it is not really love at all. Love, real love, speaks the truth.

At the end of the night, Rich was on the box and he was preaching hard about the Supreme Court’s decision and the depravity of our nation. Two young men came up and one kept trying to interrupt Rich. I yelled to him “he’s preaching. Come on over here and I’ll talk to you.” I did this because I was holding Aaron’s large sign. They came over and wanted to know what was wrong with homosexuality. The one man, Sean said that he was an atheist and his friend Carter didn’t say much. I offered Sean a Gospel tract right away, but he refused and that’s when he said that he was an atheist. Then Carter snatched it out of my hand. We had a good exchange of ideas. Since Sean said that he was an atheist I explained to him that his believing that everything came from nothing was even more absurd that thinking a 747 airplane could assemble itself in a junk yard.

We talked for a quite a while and then I was able to share the Gospel with them. I walked them through the good person test. I love it when a self-professed atheist will admit that if there is a God, and He judges us by the 10 Commandments on Judgment Day, that he would be found guilty and that he does deserve to go to Hell. Even though neither one them fell on the ground and cried out “what must I do to be saved” there is always hope when people listen and when they admit that they are sinners. After we finished talking, I held out another tract to Sean and I said “won’t you take a tract? You can go to the site, make fun of it and then you can contact me and we can continue our discussion.” Praise God he took the tract! When we finished up, Carter, who didn’t say much of anything through the whole encounter said “I don’t believe everything you said, but you are good at this.” It’s not about me, so I told him that I believe God and His truth, which is what I had shared with them. May God save their souls!

Then on Saturday Aaron, Rich and Erica joined Chris, Jeremy and others and they witnessed at the Gay Pride Event in St. Louis. My friends from Springfield came back home Saturday, but Jeremy and a few others from Rolla stayed overnight. Jeremy posted this on social media: It’s been hostile, but astounding things have happened. Please pray for us as we represent Christ on the last day of the festival (Sunday). That’s good advice, let’s pray. Let’s pray that God will draw lost souls to Himself and may He convict unrepentant sinners over their sin and unrighteousness and may the Lord cause America to repent and turn back to Him before it’s too late.

(This update is being shared to exhort Christians to share their faith in Jesus Christ with others. You may never stand on a box on a street corner and proclaim the glorious Gospel, but you can hand a tract to a neighbor or loved one. You can share your testimony with a lost soul).