Battle Log

• Battle Log
• Page 206

It was another fruitful outreach today in Brisbane city, as we shared with people the good news of the gospel.

One really encouraging and exciting thing that happened today was that a man named Jason came by. I had witnessed to him 2 to 3 months ago, and he returned today to say that he is now trusting in Christ for his salvation!

In fact, on Sunday he started going to the church in the city that I had recommended to him. He said he loved it, and met the people there and the pastor. He said he wants to start going to one of the Bible study groups, and even attend both services on Sunday.

When we share the gospel, we keep sowing the seed, and whether we hear back from the person or not, it's always a success. Even if the person we share with rejects the message, it's always a success whenever God's word goes out.

Also this afternoon, a few of us on the team preached using the sketchboard, as people stood back and listened. It was also great seeing someone preach for their first time using the sketchboard.

There were plenty of good gospel conversations had. In fact, if you notice in one of the photos, three separate witnessing encounters are being had all at once. Glory to God for His marvelous work!

  

(Click on photos to enlarge)

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Praise God that the gospel went out today in Woodridge. We had seven of us on the team across the afternoon, and together we handed out hundreds of gospel tracts. The wonderful thing about tracts is that they speak even when we are asleep. Plus they can be taken home to influence even a whole household, and then be passed on to others!

This afternoon at Woodridge we had several really good gospel conversations. One thing I love about evangelising at Woodridge is that it's such a multicultural place with dozens of different nationalities of people living there. That means without us having to travel to each of the countries where these people are from, they have come to us! And this afternoon we got to talk to a young man named Chekole from Ethiopia.

When we asked him about whether he will go to heaven when he dies, he wasn't sure. But he was open to listening to the message and asked a few questions. After explaining the good news of Christ to him, he asked for a Bible in English that he could take home and read. So we gave him one.

Praise be to our God who is calling a people for Himself from all the nations!

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It was cold and windy as the team met this afternoon for our weekly outreach in Capalaba. The beauty of this outreach location is that it's a great place to have chats with people as they wait for their bus.

One of the people I spoke with today was a young man named Kevin. He's a high school student from China, and over the past 3 weeks I have been sharing the gospel with him.

It's amazing how over these few weeks he has really opened up, from initially not wanting to talk at all, to now calling me over when I am in sight of him.

Today I wanted to see if he remembered the gospel I had explained to him. Unfortunately, he still thought it was his good deeds that would save him. So I spent quite a bit of time explaining the gospel in different ways to him so he would understand it. And by the end of our chat today, he appeared to.

I had given him a gospel of John last week and he said he had read the first few pages so far. I encouraged him to start reading the Bible everyday, and to help him get into the habit, I said, "Say to yourself: No Bible, no breakfast. No read, no feed".

I think Kevin got the idea as at the end of our conversation today, he said "No Bible, no breakfast." Please pray for Kevin.

There were plenty of other good chats that the team had today, so to God alone be all the glory!

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We only started with two of us on the team last night at the start of the outreach in Brisbane city due to the rain, but after praying for more labourers, we ended up with 10 of us! The city was quite busy with people and I knew that being a rainy night, there were going to be lots of gospel conversations to be had.

We talked with a variety of people, including a Satanist, some Muslims and Atheists. We also talked with a man from Istanbul who is currently studying in Brisbane. He said he was brought up as a Christian but now denies God's existence and lives life his own way.

Interestingly, he quickly came to realise that God exists, after we pointed out that things made must have had a maker for them. So we talked about sin and how the only way of forgiveness is through repentance and faith in Christ. This man saw this conversation as a wake up call from God. But he expressed how he loves sin. His name is Aras. Please pray for Aras as he counts the cost of following Christ.

It was also wonderful to hear of another answer to prayer last night. Someone on the team has been praying for his father's friends who are Muslims, that they would hear the gospel, and last night these men happened to be walking through Queen St Mall and someone on the team witnessed to them. Praise God how He answers prayer!

To God be the glory.

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Today we had a great day sharing the good news of Christ with the people of Brisbane city.

It was not long after arriving that we got into a conversation with a Muslim lady studying a phD named Safa. She was really interested to hear about Christianity and how it differs from her own beliefs. Safa seems to be searching for the truth, so please pray that she finds salvation in Christ.

A few people on the team also did some open air preaching, using the sketchboard to illustrate the gospel message. It's great having the sketchboard as a visual tool, not only for during the preaching, but even afterwards, as it attracts people to have a look at it and try and figure out what it is saying.

As the afternoon progressed, two of us on the team had the idea of painting up a message on the sketchboard relating to State of Origin. We knew that a State of Origin match was on tonight, so we decided to play off that and talk about our state of origin, "Where do we come from?" Did God make us or did we come from nothing, and which of those two answers gives us purpose and hope.

After preparing the sketchboard, some State of Origin fans stopped to listen and we were able to bounce off them as we presented a clear presentation of the gospel. One young lady who stopped said she was an atheist, but as she heard the news of Christ's death and resurrection, she said, "This is starting to make sense. Deep down I really know there is a God." Her name is Ashley, please pray for her as she wrestles with the hope that Jesus offers.

It was another day without any hassles from the council, to God be the glory!

 

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It was another fruitful outreach today in Woodridge. It is great seeing people come to grasp the gospel for the first time.

Today, I asked a young man named Fire what he thinks will get him to Heaven. He didn't want to answer the question right away, but asked me to ask his friend the question instead. His friend thought that he would be let into Heaven because he has tried his best.

So I talked about sin and how we fall short of God's perfect standard and therefore our own goodness would never save us. I explained how Jesus died to take our sins, but Fire's friend didn't understand it at first.

So I then placed a pile of gospel tracts on my hand and said "Let's say these tracts represent all the sins you've done. God sees you, He sees your sin." I then pointed to my other hand, "This is Jesus' record, He is perfect. And 2000 years ago he took our sin from us and died for them, and He then gave us His perfection." While I said this, I transferred the tracts to my other hand.

Then it clicked in the mind of the friend, he came to understand what Jesus did on the cross for him and how he needs to respond in repentance and faith. It was so exciting to see this.

I then turned back to Fire and asked him what he thought would save him. He explained how he used to trust in Christ alone for his salvation and nothing of his own efforts, but he said he has now outgrown the need for the Bible. He said he has been influenced by an African preacher who says that he has learned about God more when he gave up reading the Bible, and unfortunately Fire has followed suit.

Fire said he hears from God in his own mind, and so he said, "What will save me? I used to trust in Christ's righteousness and sacrifice on the cross to save me, but now believe I will be saved simply because I exist." This unfortunately is what occurs when a person gives up on the sufficiency of the Word of God.

Please pray for Fire, and also for his friend who has come to grasp the gospel. To God be the glory!

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Thank you for praying for today's outreach. We started off with a conversation with two Mormon missionaries who frequent the area. Often the Mormons do not speak to us much because they have been told to avoid us, but today these two were happy to talk.

We shared with them about how the Bible says we justified by faith in Christ alone and not by baptism or any other work. They responded, "But we think faith is important too". For them, it's not faith alone. It's faith and works.

They were listening before they had an "appointment" to go to. A minute later another pair of Mormon missionaries came by and one gave me a handwritten letter that he had written expressing his thoughts to me.

I have been witnessing to this missionary for the past month or two. Last week he said that as a Mormon, he believes that he is co-eternal and co-existent with God! That is such a high view of self and such a low view of God. Please pray that he and the rest of these Mormons come to humble themselves, and repent and believe in Christ alone.

We also had some great conversations with other people, even some that went on for a long time (including the one shown in the photo).

Praise be to God the gospel has gone out!

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We had a great day today of sharing the gospel in Brisbane city. God brought in extra labourers that we didn't expect, which was wonderful to see.

One person on the team said, "It is a great day, even the Muslims walking by are taking gospel tracts!"

Dozens of gospels of John also were taken by people from our free Bibles table.

We sow the seed, God uses it in His timing and for His purposes.

Watch below to see a small extract of some of the preaching from today.

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Today at Woodridge the gospel went out. In fact, two of the people on the team thought they had enough gospel tracts with them, but both ran out! One commented, "There is no other place where people take tracts as readily as here in Woodridge."

We had many good gospel conversations. One conversation in particular we had was with a high school student named Abid, whose family moved to Australia from Libya 15 years ago. He was a Muslim, but he was very open to hearing about Jesus.

As we were talking, he was beginning to see how he needs a perfect substitute to take the punishment for his sin - that being Jesus. And when he heard that Jesus said that He was God, it really shocked him. But he saw that it was more important to please God than just continue believing what his family had always taught him. He said he wanted to trust in Jesus today.

Abid was happy to take a gospel of John to start reading. Please pray for him.

It was also good today to see someone who we have witnessed to before and given a Bible to, who is now going to a church in the area and a mid-week Bible study.

Praise God that He uses our simple words in His mission and for His glory!

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It’s starting to get a touch cooler at Wello on a Sunday arvo, but it was very pleasant none the less as we prepared for another adventure at one of our favourite witnessing places. The tide was almost high and yes you may have guessed, there were more people to hand out tracts to and chat with.

We are so privileged to be able to have such a great opportunity to reach out in our local area, as all of the Wello team live here in the Redlands. We welcome any more workers, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. We experience so many open hearts, there are many that reject the message too but God is always glorified because it is His work.

Today we handed out a good number of tracts and had some short conversations, Gordon talked with an Indian guy (Mandi) who asked what the card he received (tract) was all about. Gordon told him that it was info about going to Heaven, he said "Oh" and started to walk off but Gordon followed with a few more questions which kept the conversation going, and Gordon took him through the law of God. Mandi didn’t seam too concerned about the message but took a comic tract that explains the gospel a little more in-depth and a Gospel of John booklet. We pray the Holy Spirit convicts him of his sin and leads him to salvation.

Also one lady that Lee- Anne talked with was very happy and was smiling and thanking her as she walked off.

The ladies on the team each got to chat with members of a family from India and encouraged them to believe in Jesus as He is the only way to heaven. We explained about God's law and how its the perfect standard we cannot keep. They took the cartoon tract and the way to heaven tract, the children also wanted to take one too. There was a group that the girls tried to chat with but one of the elderly men was really offended as we tried to reason with him. He told us he was turning his back on us, so we just pray that something we may have been said that God will use to convict him.

As the ladies returned back to the rest of the team, a man and an older lady went to take a tract from Gordon. As he did this, he reached into his pocket and gave Gordon one of his tracts that he hands out .This man’s name is Arthur and he looks after a lady that is in a home where he works. Both of them professed to believe and they were very excited to chat with us, Gordon and I checked Arthur and he seemed to be a true believer, based on his knowledge of the gospel. However, his gospel message seemed to be a bit soft and lacked sharing with people the bad news about God’s judgement for our sin and their need to repent. So I helped him to see this is a loving thing to do to warn people of hell and point them to our saviour to rescue them from the punishment that we all deserve and how Jesus paid our fine for our law breaking (sin).

Arthur and Margaret were needing someone to listen to them as they shared some hardships they have had in life so we spent a good amount of time with them. I stayed with them as the others had to leave and Glenda handed out some more tracts.

Two young men were open and ready to hear the message. One was from a Catholic school, and the other, Andrew, had no real influences but he had some really good questions that lead to a great conversation about God’s law, heaven, and our responsibilities to respond to Jesus. Andrew said he would investigate what Glenda told him about the Catholic Church - how they are works based (Jesus plus working to earn your way to heaven), which is the same as all the other religions. Christianity is not works but by grace we are saved through faith. It is the gift of God, it is Jesus alone and His finished work on the cross.

After explaining sin’s penalty and God's justice, and also how Jesus paid our fine and took the punishment we deserve, Andrew then said "And then you have to follow Jesus" and Glenda said "When you truly believe this good news you will want to follow Jesus" and she told him about repentance and being born again.Andrew said he has a friend who is born again so that led to speaking about how we are dead in our sin and Jesus brings us alive when we truly repent, then we will want to get to know Him through reading the Bible. They said they may come and see us again as they often are at Wello on a Sunday. :) Praise God He blesses us so much He has people already prepared to hear the Gospel.
 

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