Dear Brothers and Sisters,I am pleased to report that God granted us much grace as I preached the gospel open-air today at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). Hundreds of people heard the gospel of grace from our lips. To God alone be the Glory!
The Report: I preached for over three hours with only one or two short breaks in between (yes, I was dog tired. :-). We had several hecklers that grappled with the truth claims of Jesus Christ and many of them were laid naked and open to the law of Christ and shown to be without excuse. We heard the usual objections about the reliability of the Bible, atheistic materialistic objections, statements like "I need 'proof' that the God of the Bible exists!", objections based upon Neo-Darwinian theory, pagan monistic ideas, etc. I capitalized on their sin of intellectual autonomy and then preached grace in light of their sin and gave them the hope that can only be found through Christ. We had several folks from our church who were able to interact one-on-one with several unbelievers in the crowd who heard my preaching. Thank you for showing up and preaching the truth! There was also a Campus Crusade for Christ worker that stood around for over an hour while I was preaching who thanked us so much for being there after we finished.
Our time was coming to a close at 12 noon when a sinless perfectionist heretic showed up. These types of people are like modern-day Pharisees and they have done much harm to the church both historically and recently. As I was wrapping up my preaching, he asked me if I still considered myself to be a "sinner". I've been down this road with these heretics several times. I said "not in the sense of a lost sinner; the pattern of my life is that of holiness, righteousness, and godliness and not that of sin" and he said, "but that's not the question; I asked you if you are still sinning" and I said, "I have sinned since becoming a believer and like James 3:2 says, I 'stumble in many ways', but sin is not the overall pattern of my life . . . I repent when I sin and receive forgiveness from Christ", then he asked me if I believed that a professing Christian could rape a woman and still die and go to heaven and I said, "I have no reason to think that a man who does that was ever truly saved to begin with."
This man then turned to the crowd and told them that I was preaching a false gospel. I told him that he was self deceived and did not have the truth because 1st John 1:8 says, "If we say that we have no sin we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us", to which he had no answer. I repeated the verse several times to him and the crowd. He then asked me how Job is described in Job 1 and I said, "As an upright and blameless man" and then he said, "See, Job was perfect, just like Jesus commands us to be in Matthew 5:48!" I responded "Then why did Job have to repent in dust and ashes in Job chapter 42?" to which many Christians in the crowd groaned, feeling the point. He then started preaching that I was a false teacher and at that time I pointed my finger at him and said to the crowd, "Folks, this man is a self-deceived heretic that does not have the truth according to his own Bible." I then stepped down off my stool retrieved my belongings and left him to preach his false message. After he preached for about 3 minutes the crowd that I was preaching to grew hostile and an angry professing Christian got up in his face, ripped one of the buttons off of his sport coat and yelled right in his face something to the effect, "How dare you tell these people that they have to be perfect in and of themselves to go to heaven?" The UNCG police showed up almost immediately and after we spoke to several appreciative Christian students and the Campus Crusade worker, we then left.
I preached for three hours with the friendly cooperation of the police with no problems. There was a tense yet generally respectful give and take between myself and the hecklers while I was preaching because I encouraged them to ask questions and not to interrupt each other but to wait patiently for their question. They appreciated that and it made things much smoother. However, I interrupted them several times; something I need to stop doing! (Cf. Proverbs 18:13) This is just further evidence that the Bible is true, for I truly "stumble in many ways." (James 3:2)
What I learned and was reminded of:
- Focus on Christ and His gospel, for only the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16).
- Remember that you are dealing with spiritually dead people that cannot love or receive the truth lest the Holy Spirit opens their hearts to respond to the gospel (Acts 16:14).
- Answer questions succintly with the Bible presupposing the Bible to defend the truth of the Bible (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10; Colossians 2:3; Hebrews 6:13). If people want more detailed and specific answers that are evidential in nature, direct them to the Creation Ministries International website or give them some of our CMI booklets that address their question.
- Don't interrupt hecklers when they are asking a question even though you have a pretty good idea of what their objection/question is going to be. This is because "He who gives an answer before he hears it is folly and shame to him" (Proverbs 18:13).
- If you get the same question again from the same person, ask them, "I just answered that question for you, did you not understand my explanation the first time?" If they say "no I didn't understand" then patiently explain it again using gobs of Scripture and be patient with them (2 Timothy 2:23-26). If they refuse to hear your answer again, then continue preaching to the crowd at large.
- Don't get into arguments with hell-bound heretics or anybody else (Matthew 7:6). All the lost world will see is two people arguing over religion and the gospel will not be preached. If a heretic shows up while preaching and the heretic wants to argue about it and steal your preaching time; identify the error quickly, then either move to another location or stop preaching altogether for that day and return another day. Christ said that wrangling with people that have rejected the truth and made shipwreck of their faith is a waste of time since they are rejecting the very truth that they have been exposed to many times (Titus 3:10-11). "But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels." (2 Timothy 2:23)
Fascinating! I've always had the impression that open-air preaching is ineffectual. Do you see this or does it bear fruit?
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see the clips! I wish someone could do this at my university. We have a very active atheist group on campus. (UNIFI if you've heard of them, they won an international award for organizing a "Darwin Week" here last year).
Where do you go to school Lucas? There was a Darwin week at ASU a year ago, I think...
ReplyDeleteHi Lucas,
ReplyDeleteYou asked, "I've always had the impression that open-air preaching is ineffectual. Do you see this or does it bear fruit?
Great question. Jesus and the apostles used open air preaching and teaching as part of their evangelistic/discipleship work(cf. Matthew 5-7; Acts 2; 14; 17, etc.), so I take my cue from them.
As to it having no effect, this simply is not the case. Usually, the heckler is not persuaded, but those standing around listening to the back and forth between the preacher and the heckler are oftentimes convicted, even visibly so. This is where having folks from your church planted in the crowd to recognize and talk to these people is very helpful.
Our job is not to produce fruits of conversion, only to plant the seed of the gospel and answer questions as we are able. Remember, one plants, one waters, but it is God that causes the growth (1 Cor. 3:6).
There is something else I should mention. Campus preachers are a dime-a-dozen these days. What campuses need is not another campus preacher; they need a preacher that is solid in his doctrine, well grounded in systematic theology and general Bible knowledge, and a decent apologist. That is a rare combination these days, but I desire to attain to such as God gives me grace! Thanks for your encouragement.
I likewise can't wait to see the clips!
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is even though my company has a policy concerning YouTube, and thus I can't view YouTube videos at work, I can pretty much guess who the heretic was. And his heresy goes way beyond sinless perfectionism...
@Steve: I go to the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) though next year I'm going to University of Iowa. UNIFI means "UNI Freethinkers and Inquirers." Their website is http://www.unifreethought.com/. I'd love to see you shake them up if you've time. They're very stubborn and set in their error but I believe in you! =D
ReplyDelete@Dusman: Very cool! I've never seen a (good) open-air preacher so I suppose I can't really speak from experience. When do you think those clips'll be available?
Hi brother Ryan,
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't Jesse Morrell or Kerrigan Skelly. It was a guy I had never seen before. Apparently he has been there several times before because after I was finished he started preaching and the crowd seemed to turn on him almost instantly. He had little buttons on his shirt that said "porn", "lust" with little ghostbuster insignias over them. He was a legalist to the core and reeked of it.
Lucas,
I hope to have them up by this Saturday sometime, but don't expect anything stellar. Like I said in my post, I made plenty of mistakes, so when I do post 'em, constructive criticism is welcomed from any Christians.
To all who were interested,
ReplyDeleteI will not be posting the video for this outreach on YouTube or the T-blog. The video is pretty worthless as far as audio is concerned because we didn't use a remote microphone. You can barely hear me much less those who were heckling me. Sorry, we'll do better next time.
Interesting discussion! I'm in Iowa too, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ at Iowa State University. God has enabled both open air preaching and one-on-one sharing. Pray for the students in Iowa.
ReplyDelete