Street Preaching

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.

Luke 4:18

The last few years our family has been burdened to take the message of the Gospel into the streets.

For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.

Luke 9:56

One that goes out into the street, must have that burden in their heart, or they would never be able to tolerate the discouragement, vileness and the wicked schemes of satan and his followers to make you feel as if you were wasting your time. But each and every time there is that one and sometimes several of those that God allows you to share His truth with. THAT makes it all worth while and helps you to realize that you're not wasting your time and that if you had chosen not to go out, those certain ones would not have heard God's truth.

And that brings us to Wimauma and New Beginnings Baptist Church that we had teamed up in prayer with for two weeks prior, about this day.

Even with all the past preparations of Prison Ministry for 11 years and Street Preaching that I had done, I was fearful when we arrived at our destination in Wimauma, Florida. I was quickly reminded by the Holy Spirit that fear is contagious and through Scripture, many armies were defeated by fear alone. As soldiers of the Lord, we must remember who has already won the victory and what King we are serving!

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

1John 4:18

I quickly made a decision for the young boys to go with my eldest son, as we divided up in teams. I decided to stay with my daughters in the park as the others went door to door. No sooner had I made that decision in my mind that every man on the bus repeated what I was thinking, which was confirmation. One of the young men that was familiar with the area advised us that there were drug houses and many gangs in the area and it just wasn't safe for them to be alone.

After praying, we talked to a group of teenagers that were gathered at the entrance to the park. We asked them, "If you were to die today, where would you spend eternity?" They answered as with one voice, "We would spend it in hell." I thought to myself that if this is any indication of how the day was going to go, it is going to be a rough one. I was very surprised how it turned out.

The ladies set up in the center of the park, where their voices could be heard to as many people as were there as we had done many times before. What was different about this time was that there was no other music (bars playing LOUD rock music, concert bands playing LOUD rock music) to compete with. Even the gangs that were in the area, had no worldly music playing. So for the hours that we were there in Wimauma, all you could hear was the sweet melody of God's Word being sung. I'd never seen the impact that God's music truly has on demons, until this day.

And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.

1Samuel 16:23

We could talk for hours about the effects that rock music has on young people and the conclusion would be that none of it is good. The truth is that God's music does make a huge difference in men's hearts to receive the Gospel.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.

11Corinthians 10:4

And one of those weapons is music...

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord...

Ephesians 5:19

It is sad that so many churches, while sharing the truth of the Gospel, bring in a spirit of confusion with the wrong kind of music, weakening all that are there.

It truly was a joy to share the Gospel, while hearing the melodious sound of "Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus", while sharing with the many men and ladies that passed through the park that day. What I thought was going to be a hard day, was one of the sweetest.

As we all came back together, we heard testimony of 20 first time commitments to the Lord and 2 were from the group that we met at the entrance to the park that said they would spend eternity in hell.

Hallelujah, What a Saviour!!

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Romans 1:16

God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

1Corininthians 1:9

Posted by: Ben