Saturday 02-19-11

Leigh, Tom, Marcus, Alan, Ronnie, Stan, Sean, Norm, Phil and I, all braved the weather to witness to the lost out on Mill Ave. 

One of the girls who was out last weekend playing guitar was out again with some other friends tonight.  She’d been drinking and told us again that she was in the Army (not yet been through basic training, though), and would be defending our right to free speech on the streets.  She first claimed that she was fine with us exercising those rights, but she later revealed that she really didn’t like the conviction of God's Law on her life (John 3:20).  She felt that she should go out and get drunk without consequence (1 Cor 6:10) because of her future military record.  We explained that this is like attempting to bribe God with our "good works" which are nothing more than filthy rags in God's eyes (Isaiah 64:6).

There was a guy who came over as we were getting set up to tell us that our “religion sucked.”  Ronnie tried to talk with him, but the guy had no intention of any sort of intelligent dialogue to back up anything he said, he just wanted to complain and mock us (Prov 1:22) to see what sort of reaction he could get.

We set up Tom’s new sign and were giving away glow sticks to anyone willing to take the test to see if they were a good person or not (Prov 20:6).  This drew quite a few people and he had some good conversations.  I didn’t.  I got a guy who wanted to take the test, but when I told him we were going to base it on God’s standard, he said that he didn’t accept that standard (2 Tim 4:3), so he went on his way.

It started pouring down rain a little later, and we had a small patch of shelter under an overhang at the post office.  A bunch of people piled in there to escape the rain, so we talked with them for a bit before they went back out into the rain.

While Norm was doing some Open Air preaching, our atheists showed up to argue with their bull horn.  Then a couple of Oneness Pentacostals stopped to condemn us for sharing the Gospel and claimed that we should be displaying signs and wonders.  Marcus quoted Jesus as saying, “A wicked and adulterous nation asks for signs" (Matt 16:4).  They decided that they’d rather hang out with the atheists than with us, proving a couple more Bible verses, "They went out from us because they were never of us" (1 John 2:19) and "They will know that you are My disciples by your love for one another" (John 13:35). 

I talked to Rocco for a while on what “born again” might mean and how he sees it as judging others when we use the Good Person Test in witnessing.  I tried to explain that we are not judging them, but asking them to judge themselves by God’s standard, but he still considered that to be judging.  The Bible tells us to "judge righteous judgment" (John 7:24), and people use their judgment all the time in every day life.  Come to think of it, he was actually judging us by saying that.  Hmmm.  He also stated that he thought we’d gotten the Bible so wrong, that if it really were true, we’d all be in hell with him as an unbeliever.  1 John 5:13 comes to mind.  Rocco says some crazy stuff sometimes. 

He thought that if we were “born again” that we would no longer sin.  I explained that that was not the case (1 John 1:8), but that we struggle with sin.  We won’t be completely sinless this side of heaven, but we do not sin purposefully (Hebrews 10:26-27) - the difference being between slipping into sin and diving in.  Of course, he disagreed (what else can you do as a self-proclaimed atheist?)  Please continue to keep Rocco in prayer.  I don't see any hope of him ever turning to Christ, but with God all things are possible.  None of us could come to Christ without the Father first drawing us (John 6:44), so pray for his salvation to the glory of the Lord.

Soli Deo Gloria