Interesting Day

The Lord allowed me to make it down to the Downtown Des Moines Farmers Market this morning. What a beautiful day here in Central Iowa. The Market was busy, but not packed wall-to-wall like it is on some weekends. There was a guy with a banner in the middle of 4th & Court Avenue, so I tried setting up on the corner of 3rd & Court. But the band at an outdoor restaurant across the way started jamming, and a saxophone on the opposite corner made it too loud to speak. I moved down to 2nd Street where there was less music, and set up on the southwest corner across from the Stam Greenhouse booth. Brent Stam is a brother in the Lord, and he's always been an encouragement to me when speaking down at the Market.

Well, I have to say it was a very interesting day. I had 4 or 5 encounters that stick out in my mind, some of which are on this part of the audio I captured from the open-air preaching. Click on the link HERE and hit the play button on the upper right of the Internet Archive screen to listen.

So here's an overview of the day:

• I encountered Jack, an angry man who has a major problem with God. You'll hear him at the 12:40 mark in the audio. Let me say that Jack has a wrong concept of what it means to be a man, and unless he repents and turns to Christ before stepping into eternity, he will remember the words he spoke today to his eternal regret.
• Three men stood to my right and listened for quite a while, and then approached me, wanting to pray for me, that I would be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. You can hear Larry and 2 young men with him around the 19:30 mark. Now, I am not of the Charismatic or Pentecostal persuasion. There is much regrettable doctrine taught and believed by these brothers. But I do pray for the Holy Spirit's power, especially when I go out to publicly proclaim the gospel. Frankly, I am scared to speak in public. I don't like to be looked at as a religious nut. But the Lord has called us to go out and preach the gospel, so I cry out to God for boldness, as the believers did in Acts 4:29. So when Larry and the other men said they wanted to pray for me, that's great. I need all the encouragement and prayer I can get.
• Patrick got a gospel tract and came back to talk about it. I'll post some audio of him later, but briefly, he's got little confidence in the Bible, does not believe we have the "mind of God" (his words), and that people in other religious practices may be saved some unknown way. I explained that we do have God's mind, according to 1 Corinthians 2:16, and that the Bible is God's mind about everything. We had quite a discussion, (as you'll hear in that future audio), and we parted well, with Patrick promising to read Romans 1:18-20 and following, regarding the fact that God has revealed himself in all men everywhere, so that they are without excuse.
• Finally, I had a very short exchange with a woman who claims that you cannot be saved unless you know the Hebrew name for Jesus Christ. I rejected her claim, and told her she was twisting the scriptures, as Peter warns as "wresting" the scriptures in 2 Peter 3:16. I can only say, may the Lord rebuke her.

All this said, our focus here is about the Lord Jesus Christ, what he has done and is doing, and not so much about me, Mary or Frank. I hope this encourages you in some way. If you are a follower of the Lord Jesus, come out and join us some time. We have our calendar of ministry events posted here on the website.

And if you cannot make it out with us, that's okay: go out into the highways, supermarkets, the gas stations, the Wal-Marts and the street corners of your Jerusalem, and hold out the offer of forgiveness and eternal life to your friends and neighbors, in the person of our Mighty Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Maranatha!