Good News for Southampton!
It is easy for us to miss the everyday blessings that the Lord provides. Today, the Lord provided the blessing of the gospel once again to Southampton. Even though the sin of this city is great, and the people of this community rightly deserve God’s judgement, He showed mercy and kindness in allowing the good news of Jesus to spread.
Normally, I don’t have outreaches on Saturday, but today we had a special event as my fellow Associate Worker with The Open-Air Mission, Tony Dancer, came down to join us. In total, there were about nine of us on the street from different evangelical churches. I'm always encouraged to see brethren from different fellowships come together for evangelism – the body of Christ must work together!
At 12pm, we set up the Free Bible table and the open-air board. Tony was the first preacher up for the day. He spoke from John 3:16 about God’s love for humanity. While he preached, a few people stopped at the literature table to take the material. At the end of his message, when Tony offered John’s Gospels to those who were listening, one man came forward to take a copy.
It then came time for me to preach. I spoke about “The Way to Heaven,” but before I could get too far into my message, a Muslim lady named Fatima began to heckle. She was not a fan of Christianity, as she has seen the hypocrisy of those in the UK who say they are Christians but don’t go to church. I pointed out to her that many people claim to be Christians, but not everyone is truly a follower of Christ. I said, “If someone said they were a Muslim, yet ate a bacon sandwich, what would you say?” She said they’d be fake Muslims; I used this to show that there are fake Christians also – those who say they follow Jesus but ignore His Word. Fatima didn’t like me quoting from the Bible, as she brought out the age-old fallacy that says the Bible has been corrupted. I tried to engage her on this topic, but she wasn’t interested in talking, so I made sure to explain the gospel, and then offered her a booklet that addressed her argument. She took the booklet and then began to walk away, but one of the ladies on the team engaged her in a conversation. They chatted for the next forty-five minutes; in the end, Fatima took a copy of the New Testament.
It seems today was the day for Muslims, as I also was able to chat with an Islamic man from Iraq, who said he was struggling to understand if God truly existed. I engaged him with basic apologetics dealing with God’s existence, and then I pointed him to Jesus. The man looked at me and said, “Islam teaches that Muhammad was the prophet of this world. But Islam can’t explain the other planets, or the stars Why would Muhammad not be for them also?” It was a bit of a strange question, but this seemed to be where the big challenge lay for him. I answered by saying that Jesus has authority over all of creation, including the stars and the planets. The man seemed shocked that Jesus was over all creation, and he said it was the first time he had heard anything like that. He took a gospel booklet designed for Muslims and shook my hand. Please pray the Lord saves him.
Tony, Ben, and I all preached a few more times throughout the day, and each time the Lord was kind to allow people to listen. It was also tremendous to see so many one-to-one conversations take place. But what encouraged me the most was seeing people take copies of John’s Gospel, and others taking the New Testament. Throughout the day there was a steady stream of people to the literature table. When I got home, I had the joy of restocking the table – just like the other day in Portsmouth, we ran out of copies of the New Testament. It is so good to see God’s Word spreading – please pray that we would have the finances to keep the Scripture in stock (if you’d like to support us in buying more copies of God’s Word, please donate via the link below).
Please pray for all those who heard the Good News today!
SDG!