The Sidewalk Scribe

The Lord gave us a great sunny warm day to do gospel work on the streets of Portland this past Saturday. One never knows what may take place when you step out in faith to sow the seed of the word of God in open air. The spiritual give and take is living, dynamic and always changing; but we go in faith believing the gospel is the "power of God unto salvation". It is not pragmatism that drives the gospel ministry. We do need to be creative in presenting the gospel....but the speaking of the gospel in the open air is foolishness to the unbeliever; this will never change. It always be foolishness to the sinner until God's quickens his heart in repentance and faith.

Today something new happened.  I was on the box preaching and a man began writing on the sidewalk while I was preaching. First he wrote,  LOVE.....LOVE....LOVE... . I thought to myself, "I can go with that..." "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son...." "For God did not send His Son to condemn the world but to save the world..." I then went on to explain the consequences of neglecting and rejecting God's only provision of salvation in Jesus Christ...,  "He that believes on him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already..." After having extrapolated on sin, condemnation and the lake of fire, the sidewalk scribe then wrote, "You are scaring me!" To which I proclaimed, " Do not fear those that can kill the body, but rather fear God who is able to cast both body and soul into hell fire!" The fear of God is good and with good reason as it will drive you to Christ, the only hope of salvation. Finally he wrote, "Tell me something good!" The good thing is that today is the day of salvation! There is none good but God. For God made Him (Jesus) to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ" Now that is the Good news of the gospel!

Many received the gospel tracts and many heard the gospel preaching....pray that the LORD prepares Portland to really "hear the gospel" in the biblical since.

Luke 10:2

Therefore said he unto them, "The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few: pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his harvest."

Do you have any questions about open air gospel ministry? Please ask! Sign up on our Prayer Partners list, follow the new of what is going on in Portland. 

WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS!

P.S. More news is coming...we had another first happen on Saturday! So stay tuned.

The Persistant Witnesses

Today I decided to stay home. After all it was raining and Molly and the girls had been gone for two days and I wanted to visit with them and take it easy before going off the work. But I have to admit that I did feel a tinge of guilt. That is a good thing if it is for the right reason. Liz looked up from her hand work and said, "Who is here?" I turned to look out the window, "Looks like a J W coming to visit us!". 

I grabbed the tract "A prayer from Hell" and headed for the door. Our house has no front door. When people come to the house for the first time they sort of hang around in front of the house wondering where to go! I come out to face off with my visitor, a fit medium sized man in his late fifties with white hair and a penetrating blue eyes.
"Hi, want can I do for you today?" I began.  He is reaching for a piece of literature as he begins to speak, "Hi there!" "You're a Jehovah's Witness, right?" I said holding out the tract, "Here is something to tell you about the hell you do not believe in." He had gotten his 'Watch Tower' about half out of the bag when he looked up with a start. His hand went back in the bag with his literature, "I can appreciate that your mind is made up...".

"I'm pretty settled in what I believe...not much chance of either one of us convincing the other....we'll just have to wait until we die and then we'll find out who is on the right side of things." To which he countered, "Yep we'll know in the resurrection...".
"No, 'To be absent from the body is to be present with the LORD' (2 Cor 5:8), now we can joust for hours if you like....it's sort of cold today..." He turns and trudges back to his van, "Maybe we'll see you next time...", he said over his shoulder. "Maybe...or maybe not...God knows," I replied.

We have been up here on the hill for over twenty years. We have been visited faithfully by one church multiple times during those years and it is NOT the Christian church! Not one Christian has ever come to visit us with the gospel! But the Jehovah's Witnesses have visited us not once, but at least four times! Years ago a young man, I would guess to be about 14 years old, came to the house (He had a driver...looked like his mother). He was sincere and earnest in his presentation of his belief. It was like the story of the rich young ruler. The scriptures records that Jesus looked upon the young man and loved him. My heart went out to this young man! He was so sincere and yet so wrong! On his way to hell was the best of intentions!

Let us learn a lesson from these persistent false witnesses. First, we need to learn from their diligence and faithfulness to go, stand and speak!  We have the true gospel! We should be ashamed that we are not more diligent to get the saving message of the gospel to lost souls. Second, we must be faithful to take our children with as we serve the Lord in evangelism! Handing out tracts should be an activity our kids see us involved in.  Don't go alone, take your young person with you!

So here I am 'AWOL' from preaching the gospel down town today and the LORD sends a persistent witness, an example in faithfulness...the ever diligent heretic!

How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation; if we neglect so great salvation: which at the first began to spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him... ( Hebrews 2:3)

Note that it does not stay 'they'; as in the lost, but 'we', the people of God! How shall we escape the condemnation of our Lord if we do not obey the last command that He gave before going back to heaven? Even the Apostle Paul said, " ...Woe unto me if I preach not the gospel!" (1 Cor 9:16b)  May the Lord work in us to be a faithful and persistent witness of the true gospel!

Sowers Went Forth to Sow

College student reading "A prayer from Hell"

 On Sunday evening on the 4th, I was home for a change (Not at work!). Our family sat down to watch a film called, "Go, Stand, Speak" , The Forgotten Power of the Public Proclamation of the Gospel. This  is a lengthy presentation with six segments, each dealing with an aspect of open air ministry. Afterwards,my daughter, Lizzie, said, "Dad, I'd like to go out with you on Saturday!" And so, Molly, and daughters Liz and Jo came with me and Larry Dubois out to sow the seed of the gospel.

We went down to the river side. The crowds came by in groups. Many heard the gospel and many received gospel literature.

Larry Dubois, from Citrus Grove California, spent the entire

Larry Dubois preaching the Gospel

week in Portland doing open air ministry. During the week we preached at and near the Pioneer Square, joining forces with Ron Roman and several that serve with him on a weekly basis at the Square from 11:00am to 1:00pm, on Tues, Thurs and Fridays. Molly and the girls handed out several hundred gospel tracts. I am very pleased that Liz chose to spent part of her birthday in the fields of harvest sowing gospel seed. This is certainly the greatest gift ever offered and someday she may have the joy of being introduced to a soul who believed the gospel after reading a tract from her hand on this very special day!

Jo, far left, Molly and Liz, right, offer the Gospel with a Smile!

Lady Reading "A Prayer from Hell"

You see in the picture on the right a lady reading a gospel tract, "A prayer from Hell"  This is not the first time I have seen or heard of people being impacted by this particular title by Holmes Moore. It is distributed by Chapel Library, Pensacola, Florida.     www.mountzion.org.

One particular time as Liz offered a Catholic man the tract, "A Prayer From Hell". He asked, "What is it?" "It is a gospel tract" she said. He retorted "Why should I read that?" To which Liz replied, "To keep you from going to hell..." she said holding out the tract with a smile...he traded Liz, taking the tract and giving her piece of Catholic literature..

Keep these and other dear souls in your prayers that light of the glorious gospel will shine into their hearts!

Divine Appointments

These kids were moving across the street slowly and Larry Debois offered them the tract, “A Prayer from Hell” by Holmes Moore. You can see that boys are holding the literature listening attentively to the evangelist. Although this does not happen to often in Portland, it is a good reminder that we are there for those chosen from the foundation of the world, brothers and sisters yet to be born spiritually. Larry asked them if they had ever heard that Jesus was the Messiah. “I have heard of that term…”, one of the boys responded. Larry then shared with them the main points of the Gospel, emphasizing that one must turn from their sins and follow Christ in righteousness.  Before they went on their way, the boys each received pocket Gospels of John. 

Brother Carlin preached last. He came a little late and we passed off the baton to him. Carlin has a gentle but fervent manner in preaching the gospel. People stopped to ask questions! You can see in the picture three guys standing there listening to the preaching and asking questions. A couple approached Carlin and asked the question, “What is the difference between Catholics and Presbyterians?” I could see he hesitated to answer so I offered to field the question. Lord opened the door to share a brief but thorough presentation of the gospel. I explained the difference between the imputed justification of God through Christ and a justification for which you must work towards by doing the sacraments.  

 To illustrate the point I told them the story of a Catholic man named Mitch.  "Mitch was a ‘hard’ living logger who drank and smoked throughout his life. Mitch lay dying of emphysema in the hospital.  When I came to the hospital early on a Thursday morning, Mitch was barely hanging on, struggling for every breath. I knelt down and spoke into his ear, 'Mitch there is only one man who has the power to forgive sins and that is Jesus Christ. He died for your sins and arose from the dead.' After praying for Mitch I encouraged him to call out to the living Savior for the forgiveness of sins…I waited. After a while I asked, 'Mitch, If you are trusting Christ for the forgiveness of your sins…squeeze my hand…' He nearly broke my hand off! As I left the room that morning he kept repeating something over and over again, and as I bent down, I could hear him whispering, 'Thank you! Thank you!'  Mitch died that evening! A Priest had come in earlier to give Mitch the last rites....but there was no peace or confidence of sins forgiven. But not until he called on the name of the living high priest, Jesus Christ, did Mitch have confidence that heaven was a reality!" 

I explained to the couple that this is the justification of Christ, imparted to the sinner by grace through faith.

   

Rom 10:8-9

8 But what does it say?  "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);

9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

May the Lord's Name be Glorified!

We are pleased to report that Brother Lawrence Debois is visiting with us from the Bay Area in California. God has called him to travel from city to city preaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lawrence will be in town for the entire week. The Lord is raising up his people to pray, give and to go in the work of gospel! For this we are thankful!

We are meeting up at 10:30 am at the Skidmore fountain in Portland. We have plenty of gospel tracts....for anyone who would like to come and join in the sowing of the seed! We covet your prayers for the gospel ministry Saturday and through out the week. Pray for us, that the Lord would grant us power and boldness to speak the Word. May the Lord be glorified!