"May I have a Bible?" - Brisbane Outreach

The Lord indeed blessed us with yet another beautiful day in Brisbane. The weather was perfect, with spring arriving early. We arrived in King George Square to see that the Operation 513 evangelism team was already engaged in witnessing. It is always encouraging to partner with them in the gospel work.

Upon arriving I began to set up the Answers Missions free Bible and literature table. While I was doing that, two people approached to ask if they could have a Bible. It is always a delight to give people a copy of the Scriptures. As a society we are rapidly moving away from the foundation of God's Word, yet even in the midst of the darkness the Lord is still giving people a hunger for truth.

Once everything was set up I began to hand out tracts and try to engage people in conversation. Many of these tracts are Answers in Genesis’ materials including Is Natural Selection the Same Thing As Evolution?, The 7 C’s of History, Doesn’t Carbon–14 Dating Disprove the Bible?, The Purpose and Meaning of Life, and many others. If you were in King George Square at that moment, you would have been able to look around and see numerous gospel conversations underway. Everywhere you looked people were hearing the good news of Jesus Christ.

After handing out tracts and chatting for a couple of hours, I thought I would stand up to preach the gospel. My text was John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The focus of my message was how the whole world was in darkness because of sin, but Jesus, our Creator, had come to bring light and hope to all peoples. As I preached one lady began to shout objections. I engaged her in open-air discussion. It turns out that she is a professing Christian, but thought she would be going to Hell. I tried to explain the gospel to her and called on her to come to the light of Jesus. Before we could engage any further, her friend took her away.

As I was preaching I looked around and noticed that there was an increase of interest in the materials on the Bible table. The preaching was having an impact and stirring up curiosity. My prayer is that the Lord would take the seed that was sown and use it to save many.

After preaching for about fifteen minutes I concluded my message, and went back to handing out tracts. While I was witnessing I began to think upon Psalm 119:130, "The entrance of thy words giveth light." As I meditated upon these words, I was reminded of John Wycliffe and the Lollards from the 14th century. Something they did was travel throughout Britain reading the Word of God in public. As they read the Scriptures, seed was sown and people began to learn of Jesus. As these thoughts turned over in my mind, I decided that I would try something similar, so I stood up and began to read the Bible out loud. For thirty-minutes I read from Romans 1–6.

As I read the Scripture aloud, I noticed that there seemed to be an increase of traffic going to take copies of the Bible and gospel/apologetics material. The Word was going forth, and people were intrigued.

Not only were non-Christians showing interest, but we saw numerous Christians stop to tell us how encouraged they were to see believers out in public proclaiming Christ. May the Lord Jesus raise up more workers to take the gospel back to the public sphere!

SDG!

Visit Josh Williamson' blog at Answers in Genesis

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