Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
What Is the Gospel? - R.C. Sproul
There is no greater message to be heard than that which we call the Gospel. But as important as that is, it is often given to massive distortions or over simplifications. People think they’re preaching the Gospel to you when they tell you, ‘you can have a purpose to your life’, or that ‘you can have meaning to your life’, or that ‘you can have a personal relationship with Jesus.’ All of those things are true, and they’re all important, but they don’t get to the heart of the Gospel.
The Gospel is called the ‘good news’ because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I’m not. And at the end of my life, I’m going to stand before a just and holy God, and I’ll be judged. And I’ll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness – or lack of it – or the righteousness of another. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn’t possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God.
The great misconception in our day is this: that God isn’t concerned to protect His own integrity. He’s a kind of wishy-washy deity, who just waves a wand of forgiveness over everybody. No. For God to forgive you is a very costly matter. It cost the sacrifice of His own Son. So valuable was that sacrifice that God pronounced it valuable by raising Him from the dead – so that Christ died for us, He was raised for our justification. So the Gospel is something objective. It is the message of who Jesus is and what He did. And it also has a subjective dimension. How are the benefits of Jesus subjectively appropriated to us? How do I get it? The Bible makes it clear that we are justified not by our works, not by our efforts, not by our deeds, but by faith – and by faith alone. The only way you can receive the benefit of Christ’s life and death is by putting your trust in Him – and in Him alone. You do that, you’re declared just by God, you’re adopted into His family, you’re forgiven of all of your sins, and you have begun your pilgrimage for eternity.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Operation 513: Islam is Peace
I was running late for the city tonight, but Ryan was able to cover me. Upon arrival, I found that we had a serious preaching problem. Normally we need three preachers to get us through the night, but this night we only had two. Blake had lost his voice so was unable to preach. But by God’s grace Ryan and I would be able to preach through the night.
After a bit of a discussion Ryan got up first and began to preach. Following the usual outline, Ryan preached and Wayne heckled.
During Ryan’s open air, I was able to have a discussion with a man who has study the Bible with Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons and other cults. He was telling me about his Hebrew and Greek studies, but it soon became clear that his understanding of the original languages wasn’t very good. He like Wayne wanted to show the Bible is full of contradiction, but each one he produced showed the Scripture had no internal errors.
At 11:30pm I stood to preach and nearly straight away Wayne began to heckle. He used the same old arguments, so I answered and presented the Gospel. Then about five older hecklers arrived, all of who were drunk out of their skull. They began to slur and heckle, I couldn’t understand what they were on about, but they were convinced of something.
Monday, 14th June, 2010
“God save our gracious Queen, Long live our noble Queen, God save the Queen! Send her victorious, Happy and glorious, Long to reign over us, God save the Queen!”
The Queen’s birthday public holiday was here, many people were off work and going to the city for the day, so we decided to head in and talk about the King of Kings.
Jeremy, Blake (with voice back) and I caught the train into Central. Shortly after getting on the train we noticed a couple of men hop on also. One of them had the biggest crucifix you have ever seen and he was reading Augustine. We picked them as being from the local Catholic seminary so we got a Catholic tract out ready for them. A few stations later when they got off Blake handed it to them. They have read it and since sent an angry email. Please pray for them.
As we were coming into central station I thought it would be a good idea to preach for about 90 seconds between stations. So I stood up and began to share the gospel. At the mention of Jesus one man stormed out of the carriage into another, but the rest of the people listened and many took tracts afterwards. One man even walked up and shook my hand at the end of the preaching.
By now we were at central station, so we made our way into the city centre. As we approached King George Square we ran across a lady (we think) sitting on a chair with a sign sprouting how we aren’t to think but feel (I wonder if she used thought to write the sign). I questioned her a bit on her belief, she didn’t have many answers and in the end she promised to read a tract. Please keep her in prayer.
After this we went and preached on Elizabeth street. Jeremy was the preacher and he did some good preaching. It was good to see him get up and preach again. He is quite a gifted speaker, may God use him for His glory.
Saturday, 19th June 2010
There was a chill in the air tonight as we went out preaching. Unlike last week, this week we were awash with preachers. As we prepared for the night I toyed with the idea of preaching in speakers corner to those in a café opposite, but for some reason it never happened.
At 9pm we set up as usual, but unlike our normal routine there was no Wayne. So we began by just preaching. Jeremy was the first man up and he preached for near on an hour.
During this time I ended up in a conversation with a Muslim man from Afghanistan. He was sprouting all these lies about Christianity and when challenged he couldn’t answer. It even turns our we knew the Quran better than he did. The man kept saying Islam is a religion of peace, they never hurt anyone. And then it changed. All of a sudden he went running off after two teenage girls, as I watched him I noticed he became hostile to them, he got right into their faces and started abusing them. He even raised a fist. I went down after him and put myself between the girls and him. He continued to threaten them, and I informed him that would not be a wise path to walk down. He then tried to intimidate me, that didn’t work, so he left swearing and cursing and threatening us. Good proof that Islam is “peaceful”.
By now Jeremy had finished preaching and it was time for Yarran to preach. He did a great job and got a good size crowd. Then the atheists descended, so he tagged in David Gee to deal with their objections. Dave answered all their questions on atheism and evolution, but these hecklers weren’t overly amused. Then it went to the gospel, and they were less happy.
It was midnight when Dave stood down, many had heard the gospel and the atheists had some things to think about. Praise God for a good night.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Full report with pictures: http://www.operation513.com
For other Operation 513 team reports visit: http://www.operation513.com/battlelog.php
