“The Jehovah’s Witnesses are mad at me!” – Southampton Evangelism

It was absolutely freezing for this afternoon’s outreach in Southampton; even though the air temperature wasn’t too bad, it was the cutting ice wind coming in off the sea that made it extra cold. Yet, despite the weather, people were still out in the city centre, and the gospel went forth.

Mike Mellor was the first preacher up for the day. He began by speaking on “No Peace, Know Peace.” A couple of guys listened to him, which then developed into a good conversation. While Mike was conversing with the young men, Gary began to preach. One man with a guitar on his back was very interested in what was being said. Gary lovingly pleaded with this young man to trust in Christ. At the end of the open air, the man came forward to receive a copy of the Gospel of John.

It was now my turn to preach. I took a similar theme to Mike, as I spoke on “How Can I Have Peace?” In this message, I seek to look at the root cause of the lack of peace, and then I point to Jesus the Prince of Peace. The cold weather lowered the number of people stopping to listen, but we still had a few stop and pay attention. One of those listening was from Ukraine, Mike had a great chat with him, while another team member spoke to two ladies who were quite engaged with the preaching.

While another brother preached, I happened to see Will coming towards us. Over the past few weeks, I have been speaking to Will as he seeks to navigate the question of “What is truth?” The Jehovah’s Witnesses had managed to get their claws into him, but a couple of weeks ago Will broke away from them, but they haven’t given up on Will yet!

Will said to me, “I am in trouble. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are mad at me!” When I asked why, he said it was because he would no longer attend the Kingdom Hall and because he was talking to me. The JW’s hate that I have been able to share the truth with Will and directed him away from the cult. But the JW’s won’t give up without a fight; they insisted that Will meet with them for a Bible Study this afternoon; I asked if I could attend, but the JW’s had already made it clear I wasn’t to be there. I prepared Will the best I could and sent him on his way. Will did say he would try to get the JW teacher to call me, I doubted I would get a call, but I was wrong (more details below!)

After Will headed off to his meeting, I managed to get into a conversation with five young men. All of them had been given tracts, but they weren’t sure what the material was about. I stopped them by asking, “What do you guys think will happen to someone after death?” These thoughtful young men all shared their views, and we were able to joke around a bit with each other. As we chatted, some of them admitted they didn’t believe in God, so I engaged in some basic apologetics. Very quickly they admitted God’s existence, which then opened the door for me to present the gospel. At the end of our conversation, all five took copies of John’s Gospel and were thankful for the discussion. Please pray for them.

It was now my turn to preach again. This time I spoke on Romans 6:23 and the question of “Wages or Gift?” As I preached, I noticed a few people listening, though most were trying to act as if they weren’t. It is amazing how long it can take someone to smoke a cigarette while they pretend not to listen!

Once the preaching was over, we prayed and packed down the outreach. I thought the day was over, but this evening at 6pm my phone rang – it was Francis, the Jehovah’s Witness teacher. Francis was very friendly and polite, he called because Will had said that if Francis truly loved people, then surely, he would talk to me to teach me the truth. This must have put Francis in a tight spot because he called to chat.

The conversation started with talking about our families, but then it swung to biblical teaching. Francis went after the doctrine of Hell and insisted I explain how Hell can be reconciled with the God of Love. Using the Scripture I shared with him about the eternality of Hell and the seriousness of sin. Francis then quickly jumped to another topic, which I addressed, and then he went to another topic. It was standard tactics – he would jump from topic to topic, but not truly engage deeply. However, throughout our conversation, I was able to explain to him several times the identity of the true Jesus and share the gospel.

For thirty minutes we had a friendly discussion about Scripture, but it was very clear that Francis wasn’t expecting this kind of discussion. As we finished up, he said, “You aren’t a nominal Christian, are you?” Sadly, many nominal Christians fall prey to this cult, so we must ensure that true and biblical teaching takes place – may the Lord save many from these wolves.

SDG!