To see Paul Kaiser preach, you once had to find him on a streetcorner or college campus. You don't have to search him out anymore... he's now on YouTube! A common question we get is, "What does reformed evangelism look like?" Paul is the poster boy for reformed evangelists. (He actually wears a poster on his chest while preaching too!) Watch reformed evangelism in action!
Josh Williamson March 6th, 2010
Check out my sermon on “Preaching the Gospel in the Age of Apostasy” it was preached a couple of years ago at an evangelism conference: http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=3610256300
Related Tags: apostasy, Evangelism, Josh Williamson, preaching, Sovereign Grace Baptist ChurchJosh Williamson March 1st, 2010
G’day All!
Just thought I would drop you a note letting you know that the sermons from the church plant that I am pastoring are now able to be downloaded off SermonAudio.com, there you will be able to podcast the messages also.
Please continue to pray for me as I minister and also for the church.
http://www.sermonaudio.com/joshwilliamson
Trusting in His Sovereignty
Josh Williamson
Related Tags: Australia, Banyo, brisbane, Evangelism, Josh Williamson, Podcast, podcasting, Queensland, reformed, Sovereign Grace Baptist ChurchJosh Williamson February 11th, 2010
G’day All!
I have had a few messages from people asking why my reports of the weekly evangelistic outreaches have been slow in coming. Well, let me start off by assuring you that I am still out weekly preaching the gospel in the open air, but of late another ministry has come along.
As of Feb. 2010, I have been employed to plant an evangelistic church plant in Brisbane. This ministry has taken much time and effort. I would ask that you please keep me in prayer as I minister as pastor of this church.
You can visit our church website at: http://www.sgbaptist.org.au there you will be able to download sermons and read our blog.
Thanks for your prayer
Josh Williamson
Related Tags: Australia, Banyo, brisbane, Church Planting, Evangelism, Josh Williamson, Queensland, Sovereign Grace Baptist ChurchJosh Williamson January 6th, 2010
Saturday, 19th December 2009 – Brisbane
“Do you think it is going to rain?” I asked those around me. “Not sure” was the general reply. “Na, it will be fine, maybe rain in a couple of hours” chipped in Ryan. “I think we have only 30 minutes before it pours” Dave added. Since we couldn’t agree on the issue of the weather, both Ryan and I pulled out our iPhones and checked out the bureau of meteorology. The satellite showed rain clouds heading for our location, looked like it was going to be another wet night.
Oh well, in all things give thanks. As we were preparing for the night, one to one conversations began to occur. Ryan, as usual, was engaged in a conversation with a man who was sitting near our location. Then David was in a conversation with a couple who happened to be walking by. It was beginning to shape up for a great night.
We prepared to preach with the clouds looming over us. The first preacher up was Alex. It was only his second time preaching, and it was generally surprising to all of us to see how good of a job he did. As Alex preached a few people stopped to listen, and while the preaching was going on the heavens opened up and down came the rain. Quickly we scrambled to pack down the Bible table and then get undercover. That is, all but the preacher got to go undercover. The preacher continued his job of expounding the gospel to those who would give him an ear.
The rain soon passed, and once again we set up the Bible table. It seems that this Bible table is a yo-yo, as no sooner than it was set up, that it was packed down again as it began to rain.
After preaching for some time, Alex stood down and Ryan took over. As he began to preach, three young guys came close, one of them pulling out his mobile phone and film the preaching. It was then that one of them stepped forward, and with a big grin on his face began to heckle. His goal was to ‘destroy’ the preacher. He argued atheism, evolution and the validity of the Bible. Every single argument he presented was easily answered by Ryan, and then the man was on the back-foot as Ryan turned the attention to the gospel. For the next twenty or so minutes Ryan presented the gospel, this in turn created a whole new wave of hecklers. All of which were dealt with, in a loving and biblical manner.
Ryan preached for some time, then it came time for Dave to preach. Not long into his message he had three guys come up and hassle him with some questions. Out of the three only one showed an interest in what Dave was saying. It was this guy that Dave aimed at. While Dave was talking the man seemed to appreciate all that was going on and he began to shake Dave’s hand and agree with him in regards to the gospel. While this was going on, I was able to speak to one of the other guys, who was not interested in anything to do with Christ, but at least I was able to keep him away from the interrupting the preacher.
It was then that hostility broke out. I was taking a few photos of the proceedings when a drunk man wearing a blue shirt approached me. He leant into my face and said “Do you have a permit to take photos?” I informed him that we didn’t need a permit to take photos since it was a public place. In his drunken ramblings he said, “I’m a lawyer and I’ll sue you!” He then told me that he had secretly recorded our conversation and it would be used as evidence against us. He then continued to argue that us Christians should not be out here and he would be seeing us in court. After awhile he lost interest in me but went after one of our other team members. The little drunk kept leaning in an aggressive manner towards this team member and he was threatening court action. We basically ignored him and carried on with the preaching.
By now Dave had another man up close to him. This man was probably in his 40’s – 50’s and he was drunk. At first he was hostile towards the preacher, and this stemmed from a hurt he had suffered. It turned out that just recently his father had died and he was still in the grieving process. Dave with much gentleness ministered Christ to him and the man calmed down and even shook Dave’s hand. Later in the evening we would see him again, this time he wasn’t hostile but rather he was smiling and he waved to us, calling out “Merry Christmas!”
Just before Dave finished preaching this young female came up screaming abuse. She was saying “There is no god! God doesn’t exist since there are starving people in the world!” Then, in an act of hypocrisy she threw the hamburger she had been eating at Dave, that which could have fed a hungry person made impact on the chest of the preacher as he continued to expound the message of Christ. The young female growing in anger walked up the mall, turned and then in a voice not her own, but rather in a deep masculine voice screamed out obscenities towards God. Dave, stuck to the gospel, and proclaimed the risen Lord.
The night was quite interesting, we had some good hecklers and many people got the gospel. May God be forever praised for His goodness!
Saturday, 26th December 2009 – Brisbane
“And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy
that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,
who is Christ the Lord.” – Luke 2:10-11 (ESV)
The day previous the nation, and indeed much of the world stopped to remember the birth of Christ, and being just one day later many people were still in a celebratory mood. Louise and I sent the day having Christmas lunch with parents, then Louise had the ‘joy’ of going to work, while I had the privilege of going out to tell people about the Saviour.
The night was expected to be slow due to the fact that everyone was on holidays and many shops were closed. This expectation turned out to be correct, for in the mall there were very few people. After our normal time of Bible reading and prayer, we made our way to the Queen Street Mall for some evangelism. While setting up things began to get interesting. Yarran was on the Bible table having a great witness to two Indian men. Alex was preparing himself to preach, Ryan was handing out tracts and engaged in a one to one. Then the explosion came. The man to whom Ryan had been witnessing went absolutely nuts, when he read on the tract that Jesus considers lust to be adultery (Matthew 5:28). He came storming over to me asking who was in charge, so I tried to calm him down. He was not in the mood for talking, rather he was in the mood for yelling and this he did plenty of.
His central beef was around the fact that he considered lust to be perfectly fine, and he didn’t like the idea of his love being a sin in the sight of God. To top it off, amongst the abuse, the swearing, the name calling, the threats he said these words “I believe in God, I’m a Christian!” My reply was one that set him off even further, I told him the Bible would say he is not a Christian as the fruit he is showing says that his heart is wicked.
The man stormed off, then came back. This time he was standing on a park bench screaming a abuse and cursing me at the top of his lungs. He then jumped down and came charging up to me. I thought he was about to smack me one, but instead he just got really close, so the that smell of alcohol would be in my face. Then once again he began to curse and say, “I would have become a Christian, except for you and your statements on lust!” To which I answered, “No, you would not have become a Christian, for you love your sin more than you love God.” He then ripped up a tract and went screaming up the mall. All this, and we hadn’t even started preaching.
After the eventful heckle, we thought it time to begin the preaching. Alex (not the Atheist) got up to preach first. He hadn’t been preaching long when a couple of hecklers moved in for the mock. These two guys had obviously been exposed to some wacko teaching in the past, for they started to ask about healing and being slain in the spirit. Upon asking these questions, one began to shout “I’m blind!” To which the other in a mocking tone came over, laid hands on him and yelled “BE HEALED!” The ‘blind’ man fell to the ground and began to cry out “I’ve been healed! I can see!” With these sort of mocks the heckling continued. Throughout all this Alex remained calm and cool, sticking to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
For over an hour Alex preached, and he did a wonderful job. Not bad for someone who has only been preaching for a few weeks. It seems that he is a natural when it comes to preaching, and God willing Alex will develop into a gifted minister of the Word.
Ryan was the next preacher up for the night, he as usual opened up the Bible and began to tell of the glad tidings that are found in the message of Christ. The hecklers were fewer for Ryan, of course there was Wayne the Agnostic, who threw a few random heckles in the direction of Ryan. Then there was this one young man who came along and mocked the gospel. It even got to the point where he was saying a mock prayer while Ryan preached, and then tried to climb on the box with him.
It was sad to see so many people mock the God who is so kind towards them, the God of the Bible gives them life and everything they need to survive. Yet, they continue to rebel and mock Him. They don’t realise that their sin is an offence to God and that they deserve judgement. Yet, that God whom they mock, in love sent Christ Jesus to suffer and die on the cross in the place of those who would believe. Then, three days after Christ died, He arose again from the dead and defeated sin and death. So, if those who mock would repent (turn from sin) and trust that it is only by the death, burial and resurrection of Christ that we are saved, all their sin would be forgiven. Will they do that? That is up to God, but the question reader is this, “Will repent of your sins and trust in Christ, who in love, died and rose again in the place of sinners?” Look to Christ right now and live.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Full report with pictures: http://www.operation513.com
For other Operation 513 team reports visit: http://www.operation513.com/battlelog.php
Related Tags: Australia, brisbane, David Gee, Evangelism, gospel, Jesus, Josh Williamson, one to one, open air preaching, outreach, Queen Street Mall, Queensland, Ryan Hemelaar, tractsJosh Williamson December 20th, 2009
Saturday, 12th December 2009 – Brisbane
The shrill blast of a whistle drew the attention of not just Louise and I, but of everyone in King George Square. As we looked for where the whistle was coming from a new noise reached our ears, this time it was the deep rhythmic beat of a drum. Still the multitudes of people in the square were none the wiser as to where the noise had originated. Then a new sound was added to the din, this time it was the cry of a female voice calling out “EVERYONE SAMBA!” Then as if on cue the drums beat louder and the whistle blasted again. This time those looking saw a dance troupe start walking from in front of City Hall to a more central location within King George Square.
By now people in the Queen Street Mall, King George Square and the surrounding streets were coming to see what the commotion was all about. The crowd continued to build as the music beat on and as those in the crowd began to dance even more people stopped to join in. Young and old stood in the square and began dancing along with the bikini clad leader. Photos were taken and ultimately it seemed like people were having a good time. As the crowd grew so did the danger, for the crowd had gotten to the point where they were spilling out onto one of Brisbane’s busiest inner-city roads.
As I watched the events unfolding before me, I thought it would be good to tract the crowd when the show had finished. Turning to my pack I began to get out all my Christmas tracts, as I thought these would work best, since the square was all lit up for the festive season. The only problem was that I was massively outnumbered. In no way could I manage to get tracts to the majority of the crowd. As I thought about this problem, a solution appeared. Crossing King George at this point was Ryan and Alex (not the atheist). Quickly I hurried up to them and gave them each a pack of Christmas tracts and then explained how we would reach the crowd when they dispersed. We were fully expecting the music to come to a stop then people would leave, but to our utter amazement this was not the case. With music still being played the crowd began to walk with the dancing troupe. Quickly we spread ourselves out and began to hand out tracts. It was very easy to get tracts in the hands of the crowd, all we said was “Merry Christmas” and offered them our literature. Within a short space of time nearly 300 Christmas tracts were handed out and then began the one to one conversations.
As normal Ryan had no difficulties in getting into a witnessing encounter, he seems to attract people who wish to talk. As the group surrounded him to discuss Christianity I continued to hand out tracts. Then it came my turn for a conversation.
A young man took a tract then came back a few seconds later and said, “Aren’t you one of the preachers from Queen Street?” I replied in the affirmative and from there a conversation began. He stated that he admired the work we did, even though he disagreed with us in certain areas. The discussion then focused on the areas of disagreement and it was then that he made the statement that on that particular day he had de-converted from Christianity and embraced Judaism. That was something I had to explore further, so I began by asking him if he accepted the New Testament as truth, he replied saying he believed it to be holy and from God. I pointed out to him that as a Jew, he could not accept the New Testament as truth and yet hold onto the Judaic understanding of salvation, for the Bible indicates that Jesus is the Messiah, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Then this man said something strange, he said “I believe that!”
I had not expected this reply from a man who had just de-converted, so I took him to the book of Galatians to show him that if someone has truly turned from their sins and trusted that it is by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ that they are saved, then it is foolishness and a curse to put themselves back under the law. It was at this point that the man said, “I have been told not to debate Scripture”. I asked who told him this, and again I did not expect this reply, he said, “The angels and the visions told me not to debate Scripture, they all told me to leave Christianity and become a Jew.” Since, I was in Galatians already I showed him that if any angel preached something other than the Christian gospel, then that angel is damned. For the next 20 or 30 minutes we went back and forth over the biblical gospel. In the end the man seemed to be getting a little frustrated with the fact that I kept God as Sovereign and that the Bible is the sole rule of faith and practice for the Christian.
The man maintained his position on having visions and angels telling him what to do, he also made the claim that he alone possessed a secret knowledge of God. These were all easily countered via the Scripture. Then he made this statement, “I am humble before God, but I must put myself on a pedestal for a time, since the world must know that I am the chosen one!” To which I replied, “I’m sorry, but you have a Messiah complex, the only Chosen One is Christ Jesus, you can’t take His position.” At this the man huffed and walked away.
It was now nearing 2030hrs, so we came together for a time of prayer and bible reading. The night had already been great for evangelism, but it was shaping up to be an interesting night.
As we entered the mall to set up for the night, I got to encounter our second strange person for the night. This man who claimed to be an artist came to me and began to argue that I didn’t know the Bible. The interesting thing was at this stage I hadn’t even used my Bible in the mall. He told me to read a passage of Scripture, so I turned to Colossians 1 and began to read. As the man heard about Christ being the Creator of all, he began to get angry and started to yell at me to stop reading. I refused and kept reading the Scripture. The man then screamed, “IN JESUS NAME I ORDER YOU TO STOP!” Yet, I continued. The man turned and walked away, only to return a few moments later. He came back and said, “Jesus did not create all things on earth, he made the angels and they made things. That was the job of Lucifer.” Again, I opened my Bible and began to read from Colossians 1, which shows that Christ is the Creator of all things, including the angels. Again, the man went nuts at the reading of the Scripture. He then told me that God was speaking though him and that I was to read Matthew 24. I turned there and asked, “Where should I start reading?” The man gave me a verse then said, “That is what God would say to you!” I agreed that God speaks through his word, but that is not the same as God speaking through him. The man then made some really non-sense arguments. But, it kept coming back to the fact, that he did not believe Christ was God, nor was He the Creator. I pointed to the tree standing in the mall, and said, “That there is proof of the Creator God.” The man disagreed and said, “God created himself! The earth created the tree!” I asked him, “How could God create Himself? The mere fact He can create shows that He must be pre-existent”. The man had no reply. I pushed him on if the tree was created by God, the man said, “No, the earth made the tree, God made everything!” I pointed at the tree and said, “Is that apart of everything?” The man nodded, I continued, “So, God must have made that tree, since God made everything?”
At this the man launched into a demonic tongue and began to pronounce curses upon us. He denied that Jesus was come in the flesh and that God was not eternal. I rebuked him from the Scripture, stating that he had the spirit of antichrist and was an enemy of God. The man walked off, but hung around all night. Constantly being a harassment to the team. This behaviour even resulted in Wayne the Agnostic to comment on how the night seemed to be more strange than usual.
Since we were light on preachers tonight, we decided to let Alex (not the atheist) preach first. It was his first time up, so we thought it best to let him have a go, before the crowd got too hostile. He did a great job of preaching. His voice was clear and even, and when the hecklers arose he did a splendid job of countering their objections in both a biblical and logical manner. Towards the end of his open air a couple of hecklers opened up fairly hard on him, and at one point it looked like he may lose control of the crowd, so I tagged in and took over.
The question that was presented by one of the hecklers was the issue of the Bible and the perceived inconsistency within local churches. He maintained that the Bible ordered all women to cover their heads in church, yet no one does it. So I read him the Scripture and was able to counter his argument. This then spawned into a women debate, the agnostics claimed that Christianity suppress women and order them to be silent in the church. I argued that the Scripture teaches that men and women are equal, however, within this equality there is different roles. I then showed him from the Bible how a female is not allowed to preach / teach in the church and how that is a male only function. But, I stressed that it was in no ways declaring a woman lesser than a man. I then swung it back to the gospel and how we are all equal before God as sinners.
For about an hour I debated and reasoned with the crowd. I had heckles from atheists, agnostics, Roman Catholics, Satanists and the like. Each time I would try to answer their questions and preach the gospel. At the end a young Roman Catholic lady came up to me and thanked me for my preaching. Even though she disagreed with what we said, it had made her think. Please pray for her.
Ryan by now was preaching and as the night got later the crowds got bigger and more hostile. While Ryan was preaching within the space of a few minutes there were two fights. The interesting thing was that it centred around one foul mouthed atheist who claimed to have all the answers. First fight erupted when a bunch of Maori got annoyed at him for his “know it all” attitude so they walked up and pushed him in the face. I jumped in and told the group to clear off. It was then that one of them turned on me and said he would punch my face in. I told him to step up and try if he wished, but it wouldn’t look good for him to punch a preacher. The others at this stage dragged him away.
Then a few minutes later an Irishman smacked the atheist once again because of his “know it all” attitude. Like before I was forced to jump between them and this time I cleared the atheist off. He was claiming victory because the preacher couldn’t answer him. I pointed out that the only victory he had was not being seriously injured by some drunk who wanted to punch him out. The man didn’t care and he stayed around for some time. Later on in the night Ryan engaged this man in a one to one and systematically dismantled his arguments.
Finally a young man who had been there all night heckling got moved on by police because of his foul and abusive language. It was turning out to be a rather hostile and strange night. So much for this being the season to be jolly!
At the close of the night, I was approached by a young guy who wanted to talk about the gospel. His friend however did not. He did everything to disrupt the conversation, but I persisted in talking to this one young guy. As I spoke to him you could see him come under conviction and he believed that I was telling the truth. He took an in-depth gospel tract and left. One of the agnostics saw this conversation and he remarked to Louise in a serious tone, “It looks like someone is about to be converted from darkness to Christianity.” I find it interesting that the agnostic knew that those without Christ are in darkness.
This Christmas, are you in darkness or are you in the light? Have you seen the need of the Saviour? Have you realized that your sin is against God? If so, you must repent (turn from your sins) and trust that it is by Jesus dying on the cross and rising again that you can be saved. Would you do that today? Look to Jesus Christ and live.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Full report with pictures: http://www.operation513.com
For other Operation 513 team reports visit: http://www.operation513.com/battlelog.php
Related Tags: angels, atheism, atheist, Australia, brisbane, Chosen One, Evangelism, Jews, Josh Williamon, King George Square, Messiah, one to one, Operation 513, outreach, police, Queen Street Mall, Queensland, Ryan Hemelaar, tracts, visionJosh Williamson December 12th, 2009
Saturday, 5th December 2009 – Brisbane
The air was dripping with the sounds of Christmas, everywhere you turned you could see decorations, trees and festive lights. Playing throughout the Queen Street mall, were Christmas songs of every description. It was plain to all those present that the holidays were here. As Louise and I walked towards King George Square we happened to pass under a seasonal walkway with the words “Love, Peace, Hope” written upon on its steal structure. But, how was it, that this city could associate such words with Christmas, yet forget that we cannot know real love, peace or hope apart from the babe that was born some 2000 years ago in a little manager in the little town of Bethlehem.
As we neared the square we saw the Brisbane Christmas tree, and all around it were many people taking photos or having their photos taken. The celebration was on, yet many of those who celebrate the birth of Jesus do not realise that the Christ of the cradle is also the Christ of the cross.
The city had changed in the two weeks since I had last been here, in fact I myself found my life had changed for the better. As today was the one week celebration of being joined with the most beautiful lady in the world. Just the week prior I had said my vows and exchanged rings with Louise. Tonight was my first night on the streets witnessing as a married man, and I counted it an honour to have my lovely wife with me. This coming together in marriage had put my weekly routine out, so I must apologise to our readers for not being able to get all the normal weekly reports done. It was said by the atheists that the reason we have not been writing reports is because we have been beaten in recent weeks by them. Let me assure them and also those reading that this is not the case, in no way have we been beaten back by those holding to atheism, in fact by them coming out and debating us, we have found that our faith has deepened, and that we are now more assured of the truth of Christianity when it is compared to the foolishness of the atheistic worldview.
As the outreach began for the night, we found ourselves meeting in our normal location in King George Square. There we spent some time in fellowship, prayer and reading the Bible. It was during this time that we saw our main heckler for the night, for strolling across the square was one with whom we have debated many times before. He walked across the square in his black leather jacket and as he strode with an air of arrogance we knew he was in town for a debate. Upon seeing him I called out “G’day Alex!” This greeting was met by Alex holding up two fingers showing his disdain for us.
It was nearing nine o’clock when we made our way to Queen Street for the evening of preaching. By now the weather had changed slightly and instead of it being dry, we found that a few drops of rain had began to fall. This played havoc with our Bible table, for it is impossible to have a display table with tracts, apologetic booklets and Bibles out if the weather turns bad. Then to top it all off a strong wind began to blow down the mall. This in course blew the literature off our table and into the street. Eventually the rain stopped and we came up with ways of limiting our material from being swept away with the breeze.
Around this time Ryan came up to me and told me that Alex the atheist was in town to debate me. This is something I did not want to do. I did not want to give Alex the attention he so eagerly craved. My mission for the night was to preach the gospel and that is what I intended to do. But of course, we knew that any preacher would have to deal with Alex first. With this in mind I decided that it would be best for Ryan to go first and then Dave. The logic in this was that by putting up our two strongest apologists when it comes to atheism we would hopefully wear Alex down to the point where the gospel would go out all the more freely.
Ryan was the first preacher up and as expected within seconds Alex came in yelling his one word objection. It seems that if Alex yells out his disbelief long enough that must make it fact, since it is rare to see Alex engage with the arguments presented by the preachers. Ryan did a splendid job of countering Alex and refuting his objections. By now a second heckler had arisen, it was our old friend and regular heckler Wayne the agnostic. Wayne is in many ways different to Alex, he is much more reasonable and much nicer when it comes to talking to us. While Alex is of the militant camp, Wayne is more open to discussion and reason.
Sadly I didn’t get to listen to all of Ryan’s apologetics and preaching of the gospel, for I saw that over near the camera was a man who had taken an interest in Louise. So I wandered over to him and I heard that he was voicing his objections to our preaching. It was not so much the content that he disapproved of, but rather it was the manner in which we did it. He believed that we should not be doing street ministry for this kind of outreach causes wars and murder. While that may sound strange, in his country religion had caused war and murder. The man was Irish and his fear was that at any moment the Roman Catholics and the Protestants would start a fight. I assured him that while such things may happen in Ireland, we are yet to see that occur in Australia. But the man couldn’t understand this, his worldview was one of if religion is preached then it will cause violence. I assured him that it was people that caused problems, sinful, unregenerate people who hated God and if those same people killed in the name of religion then they did not know the Christ of Scripture. The Irish man wouldn’t budge, he changed his argument to say that it may not happen in Australia, but since we are preaching not far from two Irish pubs we had better except a war. My reply was one that shocked him and I am afraid may of offended him. I said, “If any Irishman comes to Australia and starts any sort of religious war, then he should get on an aeroplane and go back to where he came from!” The Irishman didn’t like that too much, but my position still held.
By now Wayne had walked over and was kind of listening to the going on. As the Irishman argued that there would be a religious war kicking off soon, Wayne interjected and stated that he believed that if I was pushed far enough I would support the killing of people of different religious opinions be it Roman Catholic or otherwise. I argued that under no circumstances would I ever support the killing of someone who disagreed with me in regards to God. While they may be wrong, as Christian I am told to love my enemies and pray for those who persecute us, under no circumstances am I commanded to kill them. Wayne’s reply was, “It was normal, reasonable human beings that built the gas chambers in World War Two, they killed people.” To which I replied, “You’re right, they were normal sinful, totally depraved sinners who made such things, that is why humans need to come to Christ and become a new creation, then those things would not happen!” Wayne just shook his head and walked away, it was at this stage that the Irishman had lost interest and wandered away.
By now the preachers had changed and David was up engaging Alex and answering objections from the crowd. A good size crowd gathered around to listen as he shared the message of the Gospel. Alex intensified his objections as Dave explained that even though we have sinned against God, in love He sent Christ to die in the place of His elect, so that if we would repent and trust that by Jesus dying, and rising again we could have all our sins forgiven. The hatred for God and the gospel flowed from the mouth of Alex. He objects and tries to make out that as an intellectual the belief in God is not plausible, but in reality it is him suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Alex hates the fact that God exists, that He is ruler and Sovereign over all. He especially hates the cross, for it is at the cross that God bled and died for the sins of His people, and three days later He arose again defeating sin and death. The sinful man hates such things and will object to it, for it shows that he is a sinful human in need of a merciful Saviour.
During Dave’s preaching a drunk man entered the crowd and began to head butt people. It didn’t matter who they were he would just walk up and ram them in the back. They could be atheist, Christian or just a onlooker, they were all targets to this intoxicated man. I stepped in and encouraged him to walk away. This resulted in him head butting my shoulder and then letting out a groan. Somewhere around this time the police were called in to deal with him, and it was then that his friends intervened and took him away before he could be arrested.
Dave finished preaching around 11:30pm, and it was then decided that I should up and preach. Both Alex and Wayne were waiting to heckle. So I stood and began to preach about Christmas, and how we should remember that Christ came to save His people from their sins. By this point Alex had opened up and began to heckle. His arguments were basic at best. He claimed that somewhere along the lines nothing made something and here we are today. I found the best apologetic for this was to simply quote a Julie Andrews song from the Sound of Music, “Nothing came from nothing and nothing ever will!” As Alex tried to prove the unprovable I was more convinced of the stupidity that is atheism. It is true when the Scripture says “professing themselves to be wise they became fools.” No amount of evidence or countering would prove Alex, for his mind is made up and he has hardened his heart. However, God is still Sovereign, He is in control and salvation is all of His sovereign grace. Please continue to pray for Alex, pray that God would grant him the gifts of repentance and faith. But, also pray for Wayne and his son, who quite regularly heckle. Pray that Christ will reveal Himself to them, and that they would repent and trust in Him.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Full report with pictures: http://www.operation513.com
For other Operation 513 team reports visit: http://www.operation513.com/battlelog.php
Related Tags: Agnostics, atheists, Australia, brisbane, Evangelism, gospel, Josh Williamson, King George Square, one to one, open air, Operation 513, outreach, police, Queen Street, Queensland, tractsPaul Kaiser November 22nd, 2009
I was thankful to God when Bart McCurdy called and explained to me that Tony “The Law Man” Miano had requested that I head up a team for the Origin Into Schools project on the University of California Davis Campus. !
Living Waters Ministries had a list of more than 50 US, Canadian, and European Campuses and was gathering funding for over 190,000 copies of newly published Ray Comfort Edition of Darwin’s “Origin of Species” to be distributed on Wednesday November 18th, 2009.
Our job was to pass out 2000 books at UC Davis and there was no way I was going to pass that opportunity up! So we began building a team: Joey “The Landmarker” Jaco, John VonDoloski, Ryan “Brother RC” Dozier, Robert “Plus Robert” Hornak, Matt “The Hammer” Schuller, James Stillwell, and myself would be the final group that actually made it to the campus.
A few weeks prior to Nov. 18th the first truckload of books arrived! Brother RC and I were excited to get them in the garage and the first person to get a copy hot off the press was the FedEx Driver! After a little discussion we learned that he was a Christian and that he was excited to hear what we had in store for the books.
Well the day finally arrived and we loaded up my van and Bro. Matt’s truck with boxes. We arrived on campus at the early hour of 7:30 AM, loaded up with the first round of boxes and headed out to pass out the books. We set up a few random stations around the student union and began our work.
We didn’t know it at the time but in God’s providence we set up right in front of the main University bus stop and we were able to distribute the books at a rapid pace! Matt, Robert and James took the outer area and Brother RC, John and Joey set up in a central location on the other side of the union. I stuck to roaming between the various locations and making sure the stations were stocked with books.
It was then that Matt came up with a great way to distribute the books. As students poured out of buses you could hear him saying, “Get your free copy of the 150th Anniversary Edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Think logically and rationally, it contains an opposing viewpoint examine it and decide for yourself.” We owe a great deal of grattitude to Matt as he was passing out books like crazy and clearly it was he who handed out the most.
“Plus Robert”, another “Reformed Think Tank” host, was at the opposite intersection making light work of the book distribution as well saying, “Get you free copy of Darwin’s Origin of Species… No need to buy it at the bookstore.”
Pastor John VonDoloski, Liberty Baptist Church, Medford Oregon, joined us on the campus and he diligently worked a station by the campus bookstore. It was great to see him get excited about being part of the outreach and we look forward to hearing more from him and some of the local evangelism he will be doing back at home in Medford. Word on the street is that a new “sign guy” was born and he will be getting a Gospel Banner once he gets back home to Medford.
One thing of note was the way we were first received on campus. Now as many of you know when going out to tract and do one-2-ones we often get a lot of rejection but today was different. When people would finally see what we were passing out we would receive many compliments and words of encouragement. It was very strange to hear things like, “I’m so glad you are doing this.” Oh what a breath of fresh air, at first I thought you were a crazy Christian handing out New Testaments!” And my personal favorite, “I wish we had more rational people out here like you guys! Thank you so much for being here!”
It was amazing to see how the attitudes of people are different when they thought we were not Christian. Now keep in mind these are the ones who boast about being “open minded and tolerant” but today we got an insiders view on how they really think.
Things were going well but as the morning progressed the opposition to the work began to increase. It was at about 10:00 AM when I received a phone call from Brother RC, “Hey there is a girl over here making a Darwin sign!” She happened to be the leader of the on campus Agnostic and Atheist Group and they had been expecting us and were prepared to do battle!
The group grew quickly over the next 30 minutes and they were mobilized and ready to protest! They had signs, stickers, flyers, and a polemic to the introduction from www.dontdissdarwin.com: “Why Ray Comfort Is Wrong”. They began setting up right next to our stations in the central campus and as people received the books they also received their materials. This quickly made it increasingly difficult for the team to pass out books and their signs were effective in causing more and more people to reject.
By now they were in full strength and had made about 4 or 5 signs. They were not overly agressive however they were creating quite a little stir and they thought they were making a mockery of our efforts. Little did the know that not only were we there to pass out books but we were prepared to start a campus meeting at the major class change. However with a ready made crowd what more could we ask for. It was time to head back to the car for the banners and sandwich boards!
At this point we shifted gears and set up for a campus meeting and I started off the preaching. The rest grabbed the Cross, Banners and Sandwich boards… No sooner than we set up we all had conversations going due to the great buzz the Atheists had started!
It’s at times like these that I thank God for His Sovereignty! A few years ago if we would have been meet with this much resistance we might not have been able to endure it but today God in His mercy has raised us up to be a strong team of evangelists who are equipped for anything that might come our way on a campus.
I started off by preaching on Creation. “Good afternoon UC Davis! Somebody told me that I could find some Hardcore Darwinists here, some Atheists, some Agnostics, and some Open Minded Free Thinkers here. I’d like to talk to you today and do a comparision of Worldviews. You see I believe in the beginning GOD!” I continued by preaching on sin, repentance and God’s law written on the hearts of men! I used my new sandwich board as a springboard to address various different sins and proclaimed the truth of God’s justice.
Our first heckler was a liberal muslim who wanted to debate at first that we serve the same God and then the Trinity. We reasoned that he truly doesn’t believe in the God of the Bible. I asked, “so you believe Christ is God, the Father is God and the Holy Spirit is God” and to this he quickly went on to the question of do I believe my God has died!”
As we reasoned together and I mixed in with my apologetics the glory of the Cross the class change occured and the crowd instantly grew around us. He seemed to be a fairly devout Muslim but when asked if infidels should be put to death his liberalism came out.
I encouraged him to flee from idolatry and flee to the Cross casting himself upon the mercy of God! Now the crowd was beginning to be a little more agressive and the Atheists found it cute to make a sign for me so I wouldn’t feel left out!
I used their signs as springboards and addressed many issues regarding science, Evolution, and Absolutes.
Now the next heckler I had was a “Roman Catholic Lesbian”. The Lord has really had me burdened with her for the last few days. She proclaimed that she was able to love God and her girlfriend at the same time. When I told her that she was not a Christian she charged up to me and I thought for sure I was going to get slapped but I stood fast and continued to preach the grace of God toward sinners.
She remained in the crowd for the greater portion of the afternoon and made a sign in response to mine. I pray that the Lord will open her heart!
Now it was time for Brother RC to preach! When he took over the crowd he quickly established how God is the ultimate authority and that absolutes are derived from Him. Just then the Police arrived and questioned us regarding a preacher that was on the campus the day before. From some of the stories told to us by the resident campus group this “preacher” had said much that was counter to Biblical truth.
Brother RC continued to reason with many and preached the death, burial and resurrection of Christ to a fairly large crowd. He reasoned regarding the “mind/brain” delima and reduced many arguments to their logical conclusions all the while proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom!
The other brothers had many great one-2-one encounters while we preached and Robert received some encouragement from another guy who sometimes preaches during his breaks betweek class.
Bro. Joey was a great help by engaging those who stood by and worked the camera for us (due to recent campus preacher attacks it is very important that we keep audio and video recording equipment going at all times). James was also hard at it holding one of the banners high and had an opportunity to share the Gospel via video interview with the campus newspaper.
As the preaching progressed the books kept getting passed out. Robert manned the boxes and many continued to come up for books for the next 3 hrs. Although many did keep and read the books there were those who could not contain themselves.
It is amazing how we will be accused of intolerance and being closed minded but if you will note it was us who had been willing to have the readers make a decision for themselves. As some ripped pages from the books I rebuked and stated that this was close minded, intolerant and was equivilent to a modern day book burning and censorship. Shame on you UC Davis!
When all was said and done we had passed out over 1500 books and God was glorified in the open air! We spent about 10 hours on campus that day and many heard the Gospel!
We look forward to participating in Living Water’s next big outreach! May God be glorified from the efforts of everyone involved across the country!
We have about 500 books left and are currently planning an outreach to Yuba Community College!
Soli Deo Gloria!
Related Tags: Ambassadors Academy, biblical evangelism, Evangelism, open air preaching, Origin of Species, Paul Kaiser, preaching, ray comfort, reformed evangelist, Ryan Dozier, street preaching, tony miano, UC DavisGreetings to those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. (Titus 3:15)
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