At the gates of hell reaching out to the lost!

Yesterday, a Sunday…while the Church as a whole sat in their buildings and heard yet another sermon on what God’s Word says, sang some more wonderful songs, and undoubtedly had some nice doughnut fellowship afterwards…some Christians took the road of Jesus.  The road less travelled by and boldly went before the unbelievers to proclaim God’s truth that they need to repent and turn their lives over to God.

Though outnumbered a thousand to one, like King David before Goliath these Christians went in the strength of their Lord and took the battle to the enemy. 

Satan’s minions shook at the sight of the Christians taking their stand and raising high the signs on which they had written choice words from God calling the lost to turn from their wicked ways and come to God. 

I was priveleged to be among them!

I had gone there to find out more about them.  To inquire further as to their methods with a view to taking the best of what I learned and applying it together with others in San Diego.   Just one day before I had “bumped” into some of these Christians and had stopped to talk to them, the Lord had laid on my heart the idea of holding up signs with verses together with others all over San Diego.

I had also wanted to ask them about their beliefs in the hope of being reassured that these Christians were not some wackos out to point fingers and do little more than condemn the unbelievers in a spirit that decidedly was not loving or Christian.

After a while spent asking questions and otherwise talking with one of them, I felt comfortable enough in who they were to start holding a sign myself…which I did. 

Holding that sign for Jesus was intimidating!

Until I held that sign myself…my interaction with them had mostly been through the intellect.  Asking questions, hearing responses, making statements.  But when I held that sign for the first time before hundreds and hundreds of people streaming into Qualcomm Stadium to watch a Charger’s game…something happened.   In my heart.   I plunged into putting what I had perceived by my intellect into practice. 

I didn’t stop to analyze what I was doing.  I didn’t think it carefully through.  I didn’t even stop to “pray about it” as the Christians are so prone to do when they don’t want to do something…I just did it!

And I kept that sign in my hands despite the intimidation.  Despite the feeling of being exposed before hundreds and hundreds of people as a Christian doing what many undoubtedly considered a rather Jesus freakish thing to do. 

A little later I returned the sign and left the Christian I had been with to continue around the Stadium to find the Jesus sign holder that I had previously met and had come out to see.   I shall call him J.

I saw J’s sign before I ever saw him (the crowd was rather thick around where he was).  As I made my way through the crowd and drew nearer to where he was I noticed that a young man (who could not have much older than 10 or 12 years old) was preaching out loud through a mega phone next to him.   Turns out that was his son.

I came up and stood with them while J held the sign and his son preached through a mega phone.

A whole host of demons seemed to enter the people

During the time I was with them, a whole host of demons seemed to enter the people around us who started taunting and otherwise harrassing us.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

At one point I offered to hold the sign for J and allow him a little break though no break was to be had. 

A woman came up to his son and started asking questions of his son in a half drunken accusatory manner not one foot from his son’s face!  J of course came near the woman and asked her to back off after which she turned on him and directed her tirade at him.

Others, grown men, in front or in back of us, stooped down on bended knee and did what has come to be known as the Teebow bow (Teebow being a quarterback who has been very open about his faith and who kneels on the field after a touchdown and otherwise).   They weren’t doing that out of respect for God’s truth or acknoweledging Him.  It was a thing of mockery. 

One man brushed past me and bumped me as he kept walking!

Still others yelled out comments mocking God and what we were doing.

One woman verbally lambasted J for letting his son do his preaching for him (never mind that his son was doing that voluntarily and of his own free will). 

Another one stopped and asked us a trick question about whether God answers every prayer in a rather obvious attempt to trip us up depending on our answer.

At one point a man dressed in some kind of funny looking leotard lay on the concrete barrier directly in front of us while others took photographs of him lying there before the Jesus freaks in the background holding up sings with verses.

Mockery, insults, taunts, even a physical bump of my person all for doing nothing more than holding up a sign with a couple of verses and a young man speaking out a verse or two he had memorized. 

The verses that talk about how men love darkness and hate the light came to life before my very eyes as I continued standing with J and his son. 

John 3:19

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

John 15:21

They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.  If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.

Do not think for one minute that we were doing anything worthy of the taunts, insults, and otherwise that came our way.  They hated Jesus without reason (John 15:25) and they will likewise hate us as Christians.   For no reason.

After the sign holding at Qualcomm I was invited to where these Christians are staying and joined them for dinner where I got to hear more from them about their experiences, where they are from, what they believe, and a fantastic testimony from one of them of how he became a Christian, turning from a life of radical and all out sin to serve the Living God. 

Most of these Christians have come from Japan to actually help evangelize the U.S! 

Back in the days just after WWII Douglas McArthur apparently sent out notice to missionary societies that Japan was wide open for missionaries with the result that a bunch came to Japan.

The Christians I was with yesterday are the children or grandchildren of that first wave of missionaries.  Coming back to the land of their forefathers to help win the present generation to Christ.

May the Lord watch over and guide my fellow sign holders for Jesus into the fullness of His will for each of their lives and bless their day off today as they get some undoubtedly needed rest and recreation.

May the Lord raise up a hundred others to join together to raise up banners for Jesus on every street corner in San Diego!  To His greater honor and glory and for the greater progress of the Gospel in this sin hardened, wicked city.

Carlos

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