Saturday 07-31-10

Tom and I went out to Mill Ave for Saturday night sharing of the Gospel. We met Alan, Joe, Marcus, Jennifer and Walt out there.

A guy named Danny stopped to ask about our cross. I was able to ask him a few questions about keeping God's law, but he wandered away before I could finish. Marcus said that he'd talked to this guy before. I guess he just didn't want to hear any more at this point, we didn't see him again the rest of the night.

Next, Jimmy and Mandy stopped to ask about the question on the cross that we brought out again, "Are you ready?" They said that they were ready to give an account of their lives to the Lord, and that they were Christians, but I took them through it anyway. They seemed to have a better understanding of why they believed when they left.

A drunk woman broke away from her friends to come over and give the cross a kick while Marcus and I were holding on to it. She came back a couple more times, but it's made out of 4 x 4's, so she wasn't able to do any damage. Lucky she didn't fall over herself though, as she was pretty unsteady on her feet. One of her friends apologized as she pulled her away and they headed down the street.

Our friendly neighborhood atheists came out with all their speakers and signs, as well as some of their "Anti-tracts" which generally take OT verses out of context in order to mock the Bible.
I refer to this local "think tank" of skeptics and free thinkers who actively oppose the Gospel as the Skeptic Tank. And what is a "free thinker" anyway, other than someone who doesn't get paid to think?

A young girl named Barbara was hanging out with the Skeptic Tank for a while, and then decided to come over and talk when I was doing some Open Air Trivia. I took her through the Good Person Test and we found that she was a self-admitted lying, coveting thief and a blaspheming adulterer-at-heart.
She knew she'd be found guilty, but was not concerned because she didn't believe in hell. I explained that our beliefs do not make any difference of if something is true or not. Atheists like to turn this back on us, but it is a correct statement.
Our belief, or lack of, makes absolutely no difference to reality at all. It's just a matter of aligning ourselves with what is true.

I talked with her for a while, and even though she was not convicted, maintaining her lack of belief, I gave the Gospel anyway because I was on the PA, and there were others listening as well.

She held to the idea that God's law couldn't possibly be written in our hearts. Even though everyone knows it's wrong to lie, steal and murder, Barbara claimed that the first commandment is not written on our hearts. She said that we couldn't possibly know that there was only one God unless we were taught that. Maybe she's got a point there.
Yet God's Law is written on our hearts enough to convict us of our own wrong-doing (Romans 2:15), and we go the the written Scripture to find more.

We do know enough to realize that there is a God, which is obvious as creation itself is the evidence for a Creator. That is enough to start. As most unbelievers do, she wanted to know about the poor person in the jungle of Africa who never heard the Gospel, what about them? Well, I don't know about them, but I do know that God is just and He will judge them in that righteousness. But, more importantly what about those who have heard the Gospel and yet reject it? What about those standing right before you?
Both would be left without excuse, but those who have heard it and reject it will be condemned per Hebrews 10:26-27.

Barbara asked what I thought makes people fall away and I explained that a true believer won't fall away, but that they were never saved in the first place. She claimed to have grown up as a Christian and so she didn't like that answer.

It was loud out there with others doing Open Air and the atheists bullhorn, so we went our separate ways. I asked her for her name to be able to pray for her, and she said that she appreciated the gesture. Please pray that God would convict her of her sins, open her eyes and reveal the Truth to her, and that she would forsake her sins and turn to Him in repentance and trust.

Soli Deo Gloria