Christians and Muslims Discuss the Cross – Portsmouth Evangelism

It was a beautiful sunny day in Portsmouth; in fact, as an Australian, it is embarrassing to admit, but I found today warm, and I even got sunburned while on the outreach! If this keeps up, I may need to surrender my Australian citizenship!!

Due to the lovely weather, the city centre of Portsmouth was busy. As soon as we arrived, we set up the open-air board and the free literature table. Nearly immediately a lady approached the table to ask for a Bible. As we chatted, she told me that she feels that she needs to find God, so she is hoping the Bible may provide answers. She took a copy of the New Testament and “Why Christianity?”

Roger was the first to preach today. He did a great job starting with creation and building towards the gospel. He probably didn’t see it, but as he spoke people paused behind the open-air board to listen, and then they made their way over to the literature table. It is always encouraging when people hear the preaching, and then look for literature as this indicates they are interested in the topic. Please pray for all those who heard the good news.

I was the next to preach. Today, I spoke about “Hope for a Broken World.” As I spoke about brokenness and sin, a few people listened. One man who listened took issue with me saying everyone had sinned. He objected, calling out, “I’ve never sinned!” I replied by asking, “Are you perfect?” He boldly declared he was perfect. I had to ask, “Are you married?” When he confirmed he was, I followed up by saying, “What does your wife say about your perfection?” He laughed and walked away. At the end of the open air, one lady who was listening came up to the board and took a copy of John’s Gospel. It is always encouraging to see people responding to the message.

After this open-air, the team spent a few minutes handing out tracts and chatting with people about the gospel. It was then we saw a busker coming to set up right next to us. We have spoken to this busker before, and he doesn’t seem to mind if he interrupts, so while he was setting up, I decided to quickly start preaching again.

I began to talk about “The Way to Heaven,” and as I did so, one older gentleman walked past and let fly a string of profanities. I challenged him on this point, so he called out, “There is no God!” I asked him to support his claim, so he came back and began to engage. This man was wearing a Soviet-style cap with a communist star on it, so I had a clue what kind of arguments he was going to employ. This man ranted that he knew that God wasn’t real and that all people who believe in God do so because of psychology. I pushed back by stating that all people groups naturally know that God exists, but atheism is an unnatural and learned behaviour. This man was a bad heckler as he would rant and ask questions, but he didn’t want to hear answers, in fact at one point he told me he wasn’t interested in any answers I had. But his big objection is that I said all people are sinners; he did not like this truth. The mere fact the idea of sin fired him up, told me that his conscience was alive. If he truly believed in atheism, then my talking about sin shouldn’t bother him. Why should he care if he ‘knows’ that God doesn’t exist? In the end, his friend told him to leave as it was time for lunch, but this heckler had done his job, people had gathered around to listen to the preaching, including a group of young Muslim men.

The Muslim men objected to me saying that Jesus died on the cross. They were polite, friendly, and keen to talk. So, I began to engage them. The argument they put forward is based on 4:157 in the Quran, which states that Jesus was never crucified, rather someone else was made to appear as Jesus. I asked the Muslim men to explain what they believed happened at the crucifixion. They replied by saying, “Jesus wasn’t there, rather Allah made someone else die on the cross and caused that man to look like Jesus.” I followed up this statement by asking, “At the foot of the cross there was Mary the mother of Jesus, and the friends of Jesus. Did they think it was Jesus dying?” The Muslims affirmed that Mary and Co. would have thought it was Jesus as Allah made it look that way. I then asked them, “So, what you are telling me is that Allah deceives people. If that is the case, how do you know Allah isn’t deceiving you right now?” One of the Muslim men paused and said, “I hadn’t thought of it like that.” I pushed this topic of deception further, but they weren’t keen to address the issue, instead, they wanted to talk about the Trinity.

I did my best to answer their misunderstanding of Trinitarianism, but then I brought everything back to the God of the Bible being the One who does not lie or deceive, and to the death and resurrection of Jesus. I stressed that the message of Christ is for all people, including Muslims, and that Jesus calls on them to repent and believe. At the end of our discussion, two of the Muslim men took copies of John’s Gospel, and one took a booklet explaining the doctrine of the Trinity. One of them even began to follow me on TikTok!

These Muslim hecklers were used by the Lord to bring people in to hear the gospel, as a result, conversations were occurring around the open-air board. At the end of the day, we discovered that five copies of John’s Gospel had been taken from the board because of the open-air preaching.

Please pray for all those who heard the good news today, and especially for the Muslim young men.

SDG!