Grace in the Rain – Portsmouth Evangelism

After living in the UK for nearly five years, I am slowly getting used to the weather. One minute it's fine but cloudy; the next, it is raining. Today, as we went to Portsmouth, the forecast was overcast, but no rain. But we soon discovered that wasn’t accurate. Throughout the outreach, there was a drizzle of rain; normally, when it rains, the outreach grinds to a halt, but today, we saw more engagement than we’ve had in recent weeks. It was a time of God’s grace in the rain.

We set up the free Bible table in a different location to see if it’d be more effective; immediately, we saw people coming up to browse the literature and take the material. We then saw a large group of older school kids come by – all took tracts. It was wonderful to see many reading the leaflets as they walked on.

Even though it was wet, I thought it would be worth preaching. I spoke from Romans 5:8 about God’s love and how we cannot earn grace through penance or deeds. A couple of hecklers walked by yelling out, including one who shouted, “I have a wicked heart!” I agreed with her but pointed out that Christ could change her heart. As the rain gently fell, a few people paused to listen, and one took a copy of John’s Gospel.

After I finished preaching, Margaret invited me to join her for a conversation with two young ladies who said they were Christians who attended a New Apostolic Church. As I began to speak with them, something wasn’t right. They were friendly towards Christian things, but it was all religion – works and efforts. They spoke about being saved, baptised, filled with the Holy Spirit, and sealed by Him. But there was no Jesus in what they said. So, I asked them, “Imagine, I’m not a Christian; what would say to me, so I could know God?” Both young ladies couldn’t answer, so I turned the question around, “Imagine you stood before God tonight, and He said, ‘Why should I let you into my Heaven?’ what would you say?”

Both young ladies answered by pointing to their goodness and works. One of them said she was the daughter of a New Apostolic pastor/evangelist, so she knows all about the teaching of the Bible. Then they revealed they were lesbians and that their church told them it was not a sin. The conversation continued to be friendly, even though we disagreed. The two of them denied the perfection of Jesus, and they doubted the accuracy of the Bible. Their trust was in whatever the ‘Spirit’ revealed and what their church taught. Gently, I walked through the gospel with them, explaining that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. I also stressed repentance and dealt with the sin of homosexuality.

These two young ladies were polite and friendly; since I had a Christian love for them, I had to share the truth. I explained that biblically, they were not Christians and that they needed to turn to Jesus. They took my comments well, and I encouraged them to read a couple of passages of Scripture. Before they left, they took tracts and thanked Margaret and me for speaking with them.

During this time, Roger began to preach. He gave a bit of a Bible overview and pointed to the gospel. As he spoke, a young man listened, then took a New Testament. Two Iranian men also listened to the preaching and then chatted to Mick. One claimed that Jesus had appeared to him in a dream, so he was now interested in learning more about the Bible. We gave them a copy of John’s Gospel in Farsi and a booklet.

To finish the outreach, I decided to preach one more time. As I started to use the ‘Good Person Test’, an older man walked right up to me. He was well and truly inside my personal space, so I engaged him. He declared that I was delusional as he believed God didn’t exist and that we were currently in Heaven. I asked him if he ever had pain in his day-to-day life; when he said he did, I pointed out that Portsmouth can’t be Heaven as Heaven is perfect.

He continued to declare that I was wrong and that God wasn’t real, so I asked him, “How do you know that is true?” His answer was to say, “Because I believe it is true!” We went back and forth on this matter, with him admitting he had previously believed things that weren’t true, but in this case, he was adamant there was no God. I worked the gospel into our discussion and challenged his worldview. The good thing is that he caused more people to stop and listen, with some then going to the free Bible table.

After a while, the atheist left, but then along came a Scottish heckler who was agreeing with me, even though he wasn’t a Christian. He didn't know how to get to Heaven, so we went through the gospel. As I explained repentance and faith, he said, “My grandmother used to tell me that all the time.” He took a copy of John’s Gospel and said he appreciated us talking with him.

As we packed down the board and table at the end of the outreach, we saw that many tracts had been given away. Despite the rain, God’s grace spread. Please pray for all those who heard the good news.

SDG!

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Josh Williamson is a full-time evangelist with The Open-Air Mission. Since 1853, OAM has been sharing the good news on the streets of the United Kingdom. To stay updated about the work of the Mission, please sign up for the free quarterly magazine and monthly prayer notes.

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