Why Are We Here?

Something else I've written that may find itself onto the back of a tract one day.

Ok, so why are we here on planet earth? The answer may surprise you. We are here to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Glorify God?? Enjoy Him forever??? Well, He has knit you together in your mother's womb. He has given you life. He is the God who has made you. That is why you should glorify Him. Secondly, as the source of all love and peace beyond understanding, there is no greater joy to be found in the entire universe. So, what is holding you back? Why would you turn from such joy and why wouldn't you glorify the One who has given you life? The Bible presents an answer. It says that you are an enemy of God in your mind through wicked works. Could this be true? Well, consider the following. God has written His law on your heart in the form of your conscience. You know it is wrong to lie, you know it is wrong to steal. Over and above the conscience He has given you He has also given His moral law, The Ten Commandments. So, ask yourself the following questions: Have you ever told a lie, stolen anything or used God’s name in a common, disrespectful way? If you have then in God’s eyes you are a liar, a thief and a blasphemer. This is the truth of the matter. If you have broken God's commandments then you are an enemy of God because you have decided to delight in sin rather than to delight in the One who has given you life. You have allowed the disposition of your heart to be hostile toward God because you have no desire in being accountable to Him. God is holy and He is just, and so the outcome for your transgression is punishment. The Bible presents hell as that punishment. Are you alone in your rebellion toward God? No. The Bible says that all have sinned and have fallen short of His standard. We have all broken God's law and we all deserve to be punished. However, there is good news. Because God is a God of love He has done the unthinkable. 2000 years ago He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross for sinners, and today, if you would repent (turn from your sin) and put your trust in Him He would save you. Jesus Christ died in the place of sinners so that through turning from their sin and trusting in what He did they could be saved. You don't have to go to hell. The sacrifice He made for sinners is sufficient to save all who would believe, so today, turn from your sin and put your trust in Him. He is the only One who can save you. Turn to Him today.

If Election Is True, Why Evangelise?

Operation 513 London: Tooting Broadway & Leicester Square (18th -19th April 2008)

On Friday evening myself and Philip met up with Antonio at Tooting Broadway to once more proclaim the gospel. We arrived just after 7pm. I had in mind to do a short open-air preach simply because my voice has been feeling a little strained of late. We opened in prayer and set about handing out tracts and speaking to people one-to-one. The first person I approached resulted in immense joy for all of us. A young girl was walking my way so I approached her with a tract in my hand. Being as friendly as I could and smiling broadly I asked her if she’d ever seen a comic before with the words “Are you a good person?” on the front of it. She smiled back and said no, she had not. 40 minutes later we were still talking. I shared the whole counsel of God with her. We spoke of sin, righteousness, judgment and the amazing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. As I was reasoning with her I could tell that the message was starting to have an impact. I asked if she’d ever heard anything like this before and she said no. I then asked if what I had shared with her made sense and she said, “It does now that you have explained it to me.” Finally I asked her, “Would you like to surrender your life to Christ?” She responded with a yes and so I explained to her that she needed to turn in prayer to God and surrender her life. I must stress that upon hearing from her that she wanted to surrender her life to Christ I went over the message with her one more time. I wanted to make sure that she had weighed up the cost and that she knew what it was she was about to do. So often we hurry a person into the kingdom, not realising that they haven’t considered the cost, the result of which ends in them making a superficial commitment to the Lord. We cannot know for sure but we owe it to the person to trust them. The genuineness of their commitment will be tested and ultimately it is only the person and the Lord who truly know whether or not they have completely surrendered their life. I did not lead her in “the sinners prayer,” I simply guided her as to what she should pray and then allowed her to pray privately by herself. It was wonderful to see her turn to the Lord. Before she left I gave her my contact details and invited her to my church. She said that she would not be able to make it that Sunday but would be able to make it the following Sunday. Please pray for her and that she would be able to make it to church.

About 8:10pm we hopped on the tube and headed up to Leicester Square. Antonio said his goodbyes before we left. After arriving at about 8:40pm we entered the Square and headed to our usual spot. Carl was running a bit late so we decided to wait for him. My brother James joined us also and arrived within 10 minutes of our arrival. I decided to try a different part of the Square just to see what sort of response we would get. As we moved over to the area we noticed that there were some Christians who were singing songs and praying. They had obviously come out to do some evangelism of their own. An idea quickly came to me and so I went over to talk to them. I told them what it is we do and that very shortly I would be preaching open-air. I then asked if they would mind being a “rent a crowd” for me, which meant I started preaching with an already formed crowd. They agreed, which was a real blessing. At this point Carl had still not arrived but we knew he was on his way so I stood up to preach. Within minutes my “rent a crowd” had grown to about 30 people. It was great! Many people got to hear the gospel. I was being heckled from all angles at one point but that was fine because I was able to answer their objections, which is awesome because it educated the crowd concerning the truth. Over the years I have read many books and educated myself with the help of some awesome resources (LivingWaters, Answers in Genesis, Way of the Master, etc.)

As I continued to preach two young men became more and more animated in their objections, saying that Christianity is just another religion that cannot be proven and that evolution holds all the answers. It was not difficult to counter what they were saying; the only difficulty was that they expressed themselves in a rather domineering way, coming up really close to where I was standing. You have to learn to handle these situations in a rather forthright fashion, insisting that they stand back and give you room. Eventually I came down and continued to dialogue with my two main hecklers. Their names were Paul and Kelsey. It was quite evident that they had both been indoctrinated from the world system. They kept making assertions as if they were factual and so I had to keep pointing out to them that what they were saying is not true, and I did this by pointing them to the facts. I took them to the book of Job, for instance, to show them that dinosaurs are mentioned in the Bible (Job 40:15-24). Although they were both quite resilient in their views, they had a friend (I believe his name was Fabien, but don’t quote me on that!) who was more open and willing to listen. There were times when he asked both Paul and Kelsey to keep quiet so that he could hear what I had to say. When I spoke with him on a one-to-one basis I could tell that although he was open there was still a fair amount of worldly knowledge built into him that caused him to conclude by saying, “We could sit here forever and a day discussing this and never come a conclusion as to who is right and who is wrong.” I had with me a little booklet written by Ken Ham (Answers in Genesis) that is entitled “Is there really a God?” and so I gave it to him as we parted company. We can use the law to bring conviction of sin but we still need to reason with a person’s mind as well.

Before we left Leicester Square Carl stood up to preach. He did not preach for long but did a fine job in pleading earnestly with the people that they should repent and turn to Jesus in faith. It was now getting late and so we said goodbye to the Christian friends we had made and headed for the train. The gospel had been preached, many conversations had transpired and many tracts had been passed out. Praise God!

Saturday morning rolled around and it was time to once more head to Tooting Broadway tube station to preach the gospel. The weather was quite miserable and so there were not many people out and about. Phil was of course with me and we were joined by Antonio and Andrew, both of which are from my church. We arrived at 11:30 and spent our time speaking to the people who were there and of course handing out tracts. I preached open-air but did not get many people stopping to listen. Even so the Word was preached and for that I rejoice. We’d had a wonderful weekend of ministry.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Perseverance Of The Saints

Are You Ready?

This is a little something I wrote that may find its way onto a tract one day. Feel free to critique what I have written.

The God who made this world is going to judge us one day. He's going to judge everybody according to what they have done. He's going to judge the fireman, He's going to judge the doctor, and yes, He's going to judge you too. If He finds you guilty He is going to send you to hell. Would that be justice? Yes, it would. The stark truth of the matter is that we are all sinners. All have sinned and have fallen short of His standard. Have you ever told a lie, stolen anything or used God’s name in a common, disrespectful way? If you have then in God’s eyes you are a liar, a thief and a blasphemer. We have all broken God's law and we all deserve to be punished. Yet because He is a God of love He has done the unthinkable. 2000 years ago He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross for sinners, and today, if you would repent (turn from your sin) and put your trust in Him He would save you. Jesus Christ died in the place of sinners so that through turning from their sin and trusting in what He did they could be saved. You don't have to go to hell. The sacrifice He made for sinners is sufficient to save all who would believe, so today, turn from your sin and put your trust in Him. He is the only One who can save you. Turn to Him today.

Operation 513 London: Tooting Broadway & Leicester Square (11th -12th April 2008)

Before I write about our weekend of ministry that has just finished let me point you to something else first. Last weekend I travelled up to Carlisle with my brother James and Carl to join with other Christians for a day of outreach. We travelled up Friday evening and stayed over in Sheffield with our good friends David and Anna Gee. Early Saturday morning we drove up to Carlisle. While I haven’t had the chance to write about the day Dave Gee has done a great job in unfolding the events of the day for us. Click on this link to read his report.

Friday evening saw us head up to Leicester Square in order to preach the gospel to the great multitude of people who are out “to have a good time.” Unfortunately we did not get the opportunity to first go to Tooting Broadway, as I had some errands to set about doing that afternoon. Myself and Phil arrived at Leicester Square at about 8:45pm. My brother James was due to meet us there and he arrived just after 9pm. After opening in prayer I stood up to preach. I started by talking about why we are here on planet earth. The people who are at Leicester Square on a Friday night are out to have a good time and rarely will they ask themselves the question, “Why am I here?” So I started by prompting the question to those passing by, “What is our purpose for being here?” I answered with a solid reformed response: “We are here to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” This allowed me to then talk about why we are to glorify God and why we are to enjoy Him forever. At this point a sizeable crowd had formed and I could see that some people were listening intently to what I was saying. After I finished preaching we continued to engage people in one-to-one conversations. By the end of the evening we had handed out over 100 tracts. We could not stay late as both myself and Philip needed to be up early the next morning to go to a men’s breakfast at my church. We left about 10:30pm.

Saturday morning came round and I was joined by Antonio and Lyudmila at Tooting Broadway. Philip had to help at the coffee shop at our church so it was just the three of us. I arrived at 11:30am but Antonio and Lyudmila were late in arriving so I went about handing out tracts. After they arrived I stood up to preach the gospel. Not many people stopped to listen but I noticed in particular someone who seemed quite interested. His name was Zeeshan and he told me that he is Muslim. We had a good chat and he mentioned that he would like to talk some more so I gave him my details. I have noticed that it is rare that someone will get back in contact even though they say they will, which is disappointing. Still, we must trust God that they will remember what they heard. Interestingly Zeeshan gave me his mobile number and so I will be contacting him soon to see if he would like to talk some more. This is something that I am going to try to do more often.

Lyudmila and Antonio are learning a lot and it is great to see them out each week. This Saturday I will begin a course called The Way of the Master Basic Training Course and will be leading them through it for the next 8 weeks. I am really excited about this and looking forward to seeing them grow during these next coming weeks.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Urgent Prayer Request

This afternoon I received a phone call from my good friend Josh Williamson. Josh is president of Operation 513 in Australia and heads up the Brisbane team. Yesterday two members of the Gold Coast team were arrested, handcuffed, and taken into custody. The charge? Preaching the gospel. They have been released but are expected in court in the coming weeks, the outcome of which could be that they will have to spend 6 months in jail. Of the two that were arrested one is a church Pastor and the other is a seminary student. Please pray for them during this difficult time and that God would strengthen them to endure. Pray too for their families. We do know that persecution is a very real reality for those who follow Christ (2 Timothy 3:12). Pray too that God would receive all the glory and that His will would be done.

I will post an update when I learn more.

Irresistible Grace

Irresistible Grace is the next doctrine to consider as we continue to look at the Doctrines of Grace, which as we have seen has come to be known as T.U.L.I.P. The following link will take you to a message (mp3) preached on the subject by Arturo G. Azurdia III, Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Director of Pastoral Mentoring at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. Enjoy!

Operation 513 London:Tooting Broadway (Friday 28th March 2008)

On Friday evening myself, Phil, Antonio and Lyudmila headed to Tooting Broadway once more to share the gospel with the people of the area. The weather was particularly wet and miserable and at one point we considered whether we should go out. We arrived just after 6pm and were pleased to see that the weather had cleared somewhat. After opening in prayer I stood up to preach. A few people stopped to listen, which was encouraging. There is a statue of King Edward VII and I used this as a platform to preach from. I mentioned that even though Edward was an impressive king there is an even greater King, namely Jesus Christ, who is the King of kings and Lord of lords. I incorporated into this that His greatness is seen in the creation that is made and that since He made the world He makes the rules. This allowed me to then open up God’s Law and finally talk about His grace and love. As I was doing this a certain chap in the crowd became very angry and hateful. He started to shout obscenities at me and also obscenities about God. His biggest bone of contention seemed to be that a loving God would not allow pain and suffering in this world. He was incredibly angry and hateful and at one point came right up to me but I stood my ground and explained to the crowd that sin and suffering cannot be separated and that the reason there is suffering is because of the curse that has fallen upon this world because of the sin of Adam. This was probably the angriest heckler I have ever had but he served his purpose wonderfully in that he brought in a bigger crowd. Unfortunately his ranting upset the authorities and before long he was ushered away by the police. I concluded my preach by urging people to consider the value of their soul and the importance of turning to God in repentance and faith.

After I finished preaching we all proceeded to hand out tracts and talk to people who were stood nearby. Philip has grown much in confidence since he has started coming out with me and every week now he is seeking to talk with people whilst handing out tracts. Antonio and Lyudmila have also been a great blessing and it was wonderful to see them with us for a second time. They have a great desire to learn and to share the gospel with others. Antonio has been saved less than six months so to see him out with us on the street is a tremendous blessing.

There were three people in particular I got to witness to that I would like to mention. Matt was someone I spoke quite briefly with as he could not stop long to talk. He was quite open to the truth that there is a God and seemed quite enamoured with the idea that there is a God who is recording everything that happens in this world. I gave him a tract called “This was your life.” I do pray that he reads it that he comes to a saving knowledge of Christ. The second person was a young man called Demetri. Demetri is what you call a post-modernist. A post-modernist is someone who believes that everything is relative and that there are no absolutes in this world. He did not believe that right and wrong are definitive terms and so needless to say you will find it quite frustrating when talking with someone who is post-modern. We debated for a little while and finally I said to him: “So you sincerely believe that there are no absolutes in this world.” He answered with a very affirming yes and so I then said to him, “Are you absolutely sure?”, to which he then responded by saying, “No, you cannot be sure of anything.” At this point he left with some of his friends. We must reason with people and if it takes the simple statement I made concerning being absolutely sure for Demetri to exercise some basic common sense then we have at least done something to help him to think in a more sensible way. Please pray for him. The last chap I spoke with was a young man named Nathan. He was a very pleasant fellow. He had walked past me and I had handed him a million pound note, only for him to then come back and ask me why it was that I was handing out million pound notes. Oh the joy of using tracts! Who said witnessing was difficult??!!! I took him through the law and then onto the gospel and I could see that I had his attention. We spoke for a good while and I concluded by asking him what his next move was going to be. He said that he was going to give the gospel some serious thought. I gave him my card so that he can contact me again and urged him to consider carefully the importance of receiving Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. Please pray for Nathan!

The weather was turning sour again so we decided to give Leicester Square a miss. I have fallen ill far too many times already this year! Still it was a good night and we praise God that people got to hear the gospel.

Soli Deo Gloria!!