Gospel Call Update #6

Hello everyone, my prayers are with you as we head into the winter and all that God promises us through the changing of the season. Sometimes we wonder if God is listening, or if He answers our prayers. There is a country song that says He always does, it's just that sometimes the answer is "no".
Bad music aside, we do need to be reminded that we are victorious in Christ Almighty in the face of ALL opposition and seeming defeat!

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,


“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”


37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:31-37
                                                                                     
Oh friends, if this precious reality lives in you, then you must sense the urgency to proclaim it! As God keeps us and tests us let us remember that His gospel is the greatest news that could ever be told. If we are saved we should have a burning desire to tell others of His holy sovereignty and judgement as well as His amazing free grace and wonderful love.
  
    "The Love of Christ compells me!" as Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

This Paul declared for the world to know so that many would come to.....
....... know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:19

So last night Michael and I showed up on BSU campus and we shared the priceless Gospel. Michael spoke at length with an African man who claimed to be Catholic. After asking His beliefs it became apparent he had fallen into the lies of Universalism and believed that all return to a state of purity at death and are saved to Heaven. Michael brought him to the hard truths of the opposing claims of different religions and made the man to reason that not all could be correct. In the end this person was of the mind that no one could ever know whose "sacred book" was right. We explained that Christ was the only One who ever stood in the gap between us and God. He said it was a Western concept that there had to be a payment for something. What!?  He had to go and we lamented that we could not have had more time with him as he was a pleasure to speak with and a challenge to debate.

It was raining so we just decided to make a loop and come back while we passed out tracts and looked for more conversation about God. Stopping in front of the library I preached a short, loud sermon that brought a man out who yelled that folks were trying to study. I asked if he were studying the Bible. Another man said I was being intolerant, because I had spoke ill of his religion. I asked him which religion and he said, "Science." When I attempted to ask him more questions he feigned irritation with me so I kept on preaching. I had another heckler who just hollered at me while he kept on walking. I told him I couldn't hear him and to come speak to me, but he kept on going. I finished a proclamation of the Law and Judgement of God, repentance of sins, and the only Way of Christ our Lord just as the campus clock sounded out the booming gongs of 7pm.

Michael and I moved on laughing and praising God, all the while handing out gospel tracts. We even made up a few stanzas to a parody song about being "just a good person" which we hear as a response so often. You kinda' had to be there, but let me tell ya' it was hilarious.

As we go out more and more often I may combine the updates, but please consider joining us or at least comitting to praying for our exhortation in the Word and for the cultivation of the fallow ground of the hearts of sinners.

Blessings to you and more free grace in our Lord  and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Gospel Call Update #5

Ok, so I turned the camera.......please forgive me.

Other than that I thought this was a good snippet of what it's like to open-air preach on the streets of Boise.

Now, whether you are called to witness and proclaim the gospel on the streets or not, you are most definitely called to love the one doing it.

I am extremely elated in the Glory of God  having just returned from the streets with Shawn the Baptist! The above video is from just one hour ago as we tested out the BoDo's(Boise Downtown) area for Gospel preaching. Today we spoke with police in a meeting at the precinct and received clear instructions on what is lawful and what is not. We have amazing support from the local force who are largely Christian or liberty minded. They need our prayers. We ran into folks from Calvary chapel who were also evangelizing, and Marlin and Justin along with Calvary youth were quite a blessing. As we made our way through the nasty weather to an almost empty BoDos we were asked for a Bible from someone who had gotten a tract earlier. Once there, as I was preaching, a friend from a few years ago named Katie came up and actually asked me if she could use my phone.  I spoke with her on campus while we were preaching last Wednesday, and I believe God is speaking to her about some things and am praying that He would do a mighty work in her life. I can tell you that as my wife and I prepare for a wonderful morning of worship with The Well tomorrow, I cannot thank the Lord enough for His sovereignty in my life and what He is doing in my heart and and all around me. Praise Him!

God is doing amazing things in Boise and if we see a revival it will come from the street level as it always has at every point in history when it has been authentic. What Joy of Joys to be in the employ of Christ our King and be His mouthpiece!! Won't you pray for us? Pray that God would give us clear messages and clean hearts. Pray for the Lord of the Harvest to send more workers to assist us in the work of the Kingdom. The Great commission is not, "Go into the four walls of your church and proclaim the Gospel to the few poor creatures who come inside."  The Great Commission is "Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel!"

Oh friends, you must ask yourself if you are being a witness for Christ! Are you not just walking the talk, but

ARE YOU TALKING THE WALK?

The Word goes forth by it's proclamation and while we may not all be called to be preachers, we as Christians ARE all called to be theologians. Christ would have us know all things He taught.

15 Practice these things, immerse yourself in them,  so that all may see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. I Timothy 4:15-16

Let us come together and exhort one another to speak of the most profound truths we will ever know, those precious doctrines of God and His free Grace.

The more you desire these things the better you will become at presenting the gospel to anyone at anytime.

Study, Watch, Learn. then Go, Stand, Speak

Christian witness must always be forged anew in the fire of the question of truth. Otherwise it can in no case and at no time be a witness that is substantial and responsible, and consequently trustworthy and forceful.

Please, bow before your Lord and pray that He will give you a heart for the lost. We must be vigilant in these last days as the world crumbles down around us. Be like the preacher aboard the Titanic who ran to and fro preaching Christ till his dying breath. Be ready at all times to speak of your faith.

15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, 16 having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. 17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil. I Peter 3:15-17

A Word in Favor of Mature, Not-So-Restless Reformers



A necessary dose of Spurgeon



The following excerpt is from "Ripe Fruit," a sermon preached on Sunday morning, 14 August 1870, at the Met Tab in London.

The church wants mature Christians very greatly, and especially when there are many fresh converts added to it. New converts furnish impetus to the church, but her backbone and substance must, under God, lie with the mature members.

We want mature Christians in the army of Christ, to play the part of veterans, to inspire the rest with coolness, courage, and steadfastness; for if the whole army is made up of raw recruits the tendency will be for them to waver when the onslaught is fiercer than usual. The old guard, the men who have breathed smoke and eaten fire before, do not waver when the battle rages like a tempest; they can die but they cannot surrender. When they hear the cry of "Forward," they may not rush to the front so nimbly as the younger soldiers, but they drag up the heavy artillery, and their advance once made is secure. They do not reel when the shots fly thick, but still hold their own, for they remember former fights when Jehovah covered their heads.



The church wants in these days of flimsiness and timeserving, more decided, thorough-going, well-instructed, and confirmed believers. We are assailed by all sorts of new doctrines. The old faith is attacked by so-called reformers, who would reform it all away. I expect to hear tidings of some new doctrine once a week.



So often as the moon changes, some prophet or other is moved to propound a new theory, and believe me, he will contend more valiantly for his novelty than ever he did for the gospel. The discoverer thinks himself a modern Luther, and of his doctrine he thinks as much as David of Goliath's sword, "There is none like it."



As Martin Luther said of certain in his day, these inventors of new doctrines stare at their discoveries like a cow at a new gate, as if there were nothing else in all the world but the one thing for them to stare at.



We are all expected to go mad for their fashions, and march to their piping. To whom we give place; no, not for an hour. They may muster a troop of raw recruits, and lead them whither they would, but for confirmed believers they sound their bugles in vain. Children run after every new toy; any little performance in the street, and the boys are all agog, gaping at it; but their fathers have work to do abroad, and their mothers have other matters at home; your drum and whistle will not draw them out.



For the solidity of the church, for her steadfastness in the faith, for her defense against the constantly recurring attacks of heretics and infidels, and for her permanent advance and the seizing of fresh provinces for Christ, we want not only your young, hot blood, which may God always send to us, for it is of immense service, and we cannot do without it, but we need also the cool, steady, well-disciplined, deeply-experienced hearts of men who know by experience the truth of God, and hold fast what they have learned in the school of Christ.



May the Lord our God therefore send us many such; they are wanted.

                                                                                                             

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Gospel Call Update #4

                      The Lord is so gracious and He gives freely of His amazing gifts. The Bible says He will give you what you most desire when you take joy in Him.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4
When God raises a man from spiritual death, He gives that man a new heart and therefore new desires. Then, when that man prays for grace from God, the saved man's desires are actually God's desires.
 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh
Ezekiel 11:19
 My desire has been to evangelize and preach out in the open air. I have been making my way down to the streets of Boise to tell people about the Gospel for the last 5 years. I have had on my heart a great desire to open-air preach, but up until this past weekend have only evangelized  in conversational style with individuals and groups alike. So last Friday, I get a text from Shawn Holes and he says, "Let's go proclaim the gospel brother!"  I was glad he had returned. He and many others had just finished a several month long tour around the nation to 17 different Universities and respective cities, delivering the message of salvation. Now he was excited to do the same at Boise State and I had an open invitation.

                           Friday at about noon I showed up to the BSU campus to see Shawn and two other brothers proclaiming the gospel and sharing Christ with several students. Their signs hailed the Lordship of Christ as well as pointed out certain false religions like Mormonism, Islam, and Evolutionism. When the students see these kinds of signs and witness the bold preaching they are extremely stirred to a variety of emotions. A college student sees the campus as his own, and therefore is offended when someone dares to speak aloud about a singular truth which is declared to be true for everyone. Whether or not the student will admit that he believes truth is relative, it is very clear that to many it is taboo to presume to tell anyone that your perception of truth is the only correct one. Doubting truth and trusting in oneself is to them the essence of humility. It is our job as Christians to point out that it is indeed the very opposite, it is the height of arrogance. Truth, by its very definition is absolute and therefore true for everyone. We must not trust in ourselves to be our personal source of truth for we will be very disappointed. Truth is outside of us and defines how we believe, our belief does not determine truth.

As Jesse preached the precious truth of Christ our King, another showed up with his own sign revealing his rebellion.

Striking up conversations with those students passing by, I found myself walking briskly beside a few students who sought to reject the gospel. They were annoyed that I was talking to them, however they revealed more of their unbelief as I pressed them with questions. Their responses were things like, "The Bible is fiction", "God is not real", "Philosophy destroys Religion", and "I don't need God".

Returning to the group, there began to be quite a crowd growing as Shawn and my two new brothers in Christ, Jesse and Ken, preached the full gospel. Someone had gotten offended because Shawn said that all LGBT people were hellbound just like every other sinner who is not under the covering of Christ. The police showed up, but did not tell us to leave. During the course of the 5 hours of preaching and teaching the police were called to the site three times. Each time was due to the outrage and anger from those present because of the gentle nudging and outright offense of the gospel. We were careful not to be offensive as we evangelized, however the gospel in its entirety is quite offensive to those who are perishing. The Bible says it is a stench in their nostrils. One girl asked Shawn if he knew that BSU is a secular campus. He said yes, to which she responded by asking why in the world he felt it necessary to preach there as no one was receiving the Message well. Shawn asked why wouldn't he want to! It is the Greatest News. We will proclaim it in the highways and the byways with vigor, gusto, and unending joy. When it goes forth it will do what God has ordained it to do. Whether those who hear stumble over it or are humbled by it, it is only the job of the preacher to preach. For truly, at the end of the day when the person lays his head down to sleep, he has heard the gospel and he is without excuse.

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
Romans 1:20

They severely disliked us, but we kept on preaching.

Many people in the crowd who were professing Christians and upset by the preaching were moved to decry the preacher in obvious guilt at their own lack of zeal for the Word of God. It is very clear that those who are angry at the preacher all the while saying they are saved, can only be very upset at themselves for not having told their friends about the saving grace of God for fear of offending someone; or of course they are just another one of the millions of false converts created by a watered down gospel. As a young girl got very angry, I was later able to talk to her and exhort her by the Word of God that open-air preaching is quite Biblical and showing her that Jesus and the apostles all did it. After a very good conversation with this girl I believe she showed true signs of life in Christ as she immediately calmed down and listened very intently, clearly processing what I was saying. She was quite thankful for talking to me and told me so. She actually left our little gathering happy and in peace with gospel tract and contact information in hand.

Folks listen to me. That young girl was a victory. When she or any other student attends class they are being taught by what is predominantly an humanistic, evolutionist board of professors. It matters little if their professor is a professing Christian as far as academics go. Their books and the entire system as a whole is designed to deceive and dumb down with a plurality of truths so that we are left with not a University but a Plural-versity.

The people who attend are subjected to the rantings of lunatics all day without speaking out against lies, and then when the beautiful gospel is preached to them they are compelled to disagree. We must not waver in our delivery of the gospel. I had several volatile discussions with students about Homosexuality, Islam, and the validity of scripture. They were not easy discussions and I am very aware of areas in which I can improve, but the Word of God is powerful and alive, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder soul from spirit, bone from marrow. We must not compromise when it comes to absolutes and lovingly reveal to those who are perishing that there is no unity worth the sacrifice of truth.

Truth is important, whether you think so or not, and unity without Christ is tyranny

We finished and I had some amazing fellowship with my three brothers in Christ inside the Student Union building drinking coffee and eating Chik-Fil-A. As we spoke I learned of Jesse's heart for mission work and his current project of translating and printing a new Bible for the people of Nepal. He explained that they have a grossly mis-translated one where it is apparent it has been manipulated by the Roman Catholic Church. It is a fine work indeed that he is doing. Ken is a Reformed brother and it was a pleasure to get to know him and very interesting to hear from him what is happening in his homestate as he spelled out the disaster in Deerborne, MI where they have implemented full on Sharia Law. Shawn Holes is a dear brother in Christ who has been a friend to me and my live introduction to open-air preaching. He has travelled the country as well as the globe delivering the Word of God and by the amazing grace of God, he has recently made Boise, Idaho his homebase. Please remember to pray for these men as they are doing the work of the Lord many times in a very thankless environment.

Well, we all went home and the next day made our way back to the campus only this time to the entrance to then football stadium to await the crowds for the last BSU game of the year. This day was to be my first day of open-air preaching and I was thoroughly looking forward to it. The day before, after we had finished at the campus, Shawn had told me that I would be going first to preach to the masses. With a short sermon in mind I preached through a PA system about Law and Grace, Judgement and Forgiveness using the Ten Commandments, the coming of Christ, and the urgency of repentance and bowing before Him now before it is too late. What an amazing feeling to preach the greatest news that has ever come to my ears! What joy to witness the power of Christ to others! I am dedicated to study and worship as the Lord disciples me through so many ways to be properly fitted for this important work.

This is me preaching before the crowds really got there. However, there were a number of groups tailgating directly across from us and they were doing a fair share of heckling while I preached. After awhile of this the head of campus security showed up and told us that we could not do what we were doing and asked us to move out to the sidewalk. We told him no and we said we wanted to abide by the law, but that we were going to preach where the people were.

The man talking to us was head of campus security. He was adamant that we leave, and told us to go out to the sidewalk. We then realized that the band was marching their way over to us. They stopped right in front of us and began to play. I am not sure if that is standard for them or they were actually responding to our preaching, but it certainly drowned us out briefly, and it was difficult to even hear the person right next to you.  The security guy continued to tell us to leave and said "let's go, let's go guys!" He then thanked us for moving and walked a little distance away.

However, we did not leave. He came back over and said he was giving us 5 minutes and then "taking it to the next level". We stayed and before long the police showed up, but not before the band had left and we  resumed preaching. The officer was a man named Tony and God showed us a great deal of grace through him. At first he asked us if we had cleared anything through BSU and we told him no it was not required for public property. He then talked with Shawn at length and we were allowed to stay as long as we stayed out of the main thoroughfare. We ceased using the PA and just preached Christ continuously to all those who were filing in to worship the god of statism and the god of football.

   So many people come to unleash a stream of praises and show unabashed excitement for something that will fail them and will certainly never save them(quite the contrary), but they are ashamed of the gospel and become offended and withdrawn when the most glorious News anyone can ever hear is preached, which is Christ and His perfect gospel. Why? Who ever said that we must not speak of the most critical issue you will ever face, your eternal salvation? How is it that the greatest joy ever known, that of Christ our King, is so easily forgotten for the rotting decay of fleshly pleasures? It is because the true gospel is not preached! For the last 100 years the gospel of Jesus Christ has been misused and misrepresented so that today we have a meely-mouthed presentation of a self-fulfilling, self-glorifying disaster of gnostic ideas, the consequences of which will be the very rending of the fabric of our nation. Many people will admit there is something wrong with the visible church, however they differ on the root causes. The cause of the effect of apostasy today is a man-centered view of scripture and of God. God does not have to save anyone. We do not deserve salvation. Man is totally depraved and under the curse of original sin. Man is dead in his trespasses and sin and completely unable to please God without first being resurrected from the dead by the decree of Almighty God through the power of Christ by the moving of the Holy Spirit. This will not happen without the "foolishness of preaching.." as ordained by God to be the ordinary and primary way in which His Word is ministered to the lost. This means delivering God's Word in its entirety, not structuring His Word to fit into a specific mold so that it can be "more relevant to culture". Heretics like Rob Bell, Joel Osteen, Brian McLaren, Todd Hunter, N.T. Wright, Joyce Meyer, and Rick Warren have contributed a great deal to the turning away from the gospel by not only the world, but professing Christians alike. Trashy Bible translations like the NIV, the Amplified Bible, The "Massage" by Peterson, and the vile "Word on the Street" have helped to persuade the minds of men already in love with themselves that it is man who is at the center of God's purposes, nothing less than a 180 degree turn from His actual purpose which is His own glory.

...contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.  For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jude 3-4

   If God glorifies Himself then we get the ultimate joy, for He is God. He will always get the glory no matter if we serve Him or hate Him. So despite these false teachers and warped translations of His Word, His Word will still go forth and transform those who would otherwise conform to their own way of thinking. Indeed, I have benefited from the NIV, but knowing what I know about it I would counsel anyone who is using it to leave it alone. The other translations I mentioned are more blatantly obvious hoaxes to an authentic Christian.

So we preached until most had gone inside the stadium. We handed out tracts and spoke with many about the Truth of Christ. I even spoke with a young man named Josh who had been in a youth group I was helping to shepherd back at my old church. He and his girlfriend actually appreciated what we were doing and before they left they had been exhorted to give me the gospel in two minutes as well as had tracts and contact information in hand.

That night, Saturday night, we travelled downtown to preach Christ to Boise's nightlife(one of my favorite things to do), and we were located at 8th and Idaho, right outside the gay bar, the Balcony. As we preached and witnessed, people were mostly unreceptive, however I did meet some young people who said they had felt called to Boise from out of state to hold Bible studies and teach people how to study the Bible. That is good, however when I asked them about hermeneutics they had no idea what I was talking about. No surprise there, but they did understand that private interpretation was wrong. They indeed had a high view of the free will of man and I simply pointed out the many verses that point to our depravity and deadness and that we cannot please God without Him first regenerating us. They invited me to their Bible study so that will be fun. 

We experienced an extremely vile and confrontive man come down from the Balcony and yell and scream at us so as to attempt to drown out the preaching. All he did was serve to bring quite a crowd up to see what was going on, to whom Shawn promptly preached the full gospel as the police eventually showed up and required the wicked man to leave. Praise God for the amazing grace that was shown to us through pleasant and obviously irritated cops alike! 

Before I left, two people were attempting to draw a large pentagram on the street in front of us using boxes of salt. They declared they not only disbelieved Jesus but Satan as well and would show us. They ran out of salt and could not complete the foul symbol which caused us to preach all the louder.

From our preaching and evangelizing we had many blessed harvests. A young Romanian man from the campus named Stephan came to my church on Sunday and brought his brother and sister. What a pleasure they were to have at service as we enjoyed the graces of God together and fellowshipped in the brotherhood of Christ. Stephan and I will be meeting for coffee. I talked with a man whom Michael and I had already evangelized at length some weeks ago and he was encouraged as he is struggling and grappling with the Word of God and its validity.  I also met a man named Kelly who was very taken  by our street ministry and has already called me to meet and talk about what we can do together for the glory of Christ!

Give God the glory for this wonderful weekend of proclaiming the Good News of His precious salvation! For without it this blessed gift of God's sovereign free grace, certainly not a one of us would ever have a hope of escaping His terrible wrath. He is God, and we are not. He has given us a life with a will enough to lead ourselves straight to hell. We get to do exactly as we please, and all we please to do is willfully sin against a Holy God. If you are not saved or you are a professing Christian who thinks you can play around with sin and doctrines of demons, please know that the invisible church, the Bride of Christ is chaste, holy, righteous, beautiful, and waiting in pure joy with lamp full and wick trimmed for the triumphant return of her glorious King when He splits the Eastern sky for all to see and all to bow. What will you say when He asks you why He should not kill you where you stand for all your curses against Him? What will you say when when you stand before His blazing eyes and realize your unbelief has been nothing but pure hatred for a God revealed in your conscience and all around you?

What will you say when He asks you why He should take you with Him?