Pastors Peter Simpson and John Sherwood are preaching the gospel in Aylesbury town centre on July 26th, helped by Patricia and Adam Newman and Mr Damian Jankowski.
Mrs Newman spoke with a transvestite who asked her where God was with all the terrible things happening in the world such as sexual abuse and murder. The witnessing sister replied that all evil happens because men have sinful hearts and do not obey God, who is holy and hates all sin. Man needs to look at himself instead of blaming God. May the Lord speak to this person’s heart about the sin of men being ultimately behind all suffering and death.
Mrs Newman also spoke with a disabled young lady who was a Muslim. She said that she respected Jesus as a prophet. She was told that she needed to know the Lord Jesus for who He really is – the eternal God manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16). Revelation 1:17 was then quoted to her, where the Lord says of Himself “I am the First and the Last”, a title which is ascribed to God the Father in Isaiah 41:4. The Muslim lady then asked, “How can God die?”, and the the necessity of the atonement was explained to her. The Lord died on the Cross in his humanity (but not in His deity), and His death was the satisfaction of the justice of God upon the sins of all the world. May this Muslim come to realise that she can have no access into God’s presence apart from the Lord’s atoning death.
One of the posters on display said that climate change anxiety was needless, and was a result of society no longer believing in the God of creation, He who controls the climate. A man walking by took strong exception to this stance, arguing that science has proven the reality of climate change. He wanted the preacher to focus on the science, rather than quoting the Bible, but he was told that the word of God cannot be set aside so easily, because it specifically deals with the issue of the behaviour of the climate between the Flood in Noah’s day and the end of the world. In Genesis 8:22 the Lord declares, immediately following the global environmental disaster which the Flood constituted, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease”. Therefore, we have God’s promise that the seasons are going to carry on in their normal course, and with variations of cold and heat, as long as the Earth continues to exist.
Having laid the foundation of the word of God, Pastor Simpson reinforced this with the scientific reality that carbon dioxide levels represent only 0.042% of the earth’s atmosphere (or 420 parts per million – ppm), and that in any case CO2 was good for the planet, causing plants to grow. In fact, vegetation begins to die when CO2 levels fall to not much less than 0.02% of the atmosphere. In other words, we need to maintain CO2 levels in order to survive. It would actually take the UK 3,000 years to add just 1.62 ppm of CO2 to the earth’s atmosphere.
Concerning greenhouses gases allegedly leading to global warming, the reality is that water vapour and clouds have a bigger impact than CO2. It is a sad fact that the mainstream science on climate change employs computer modelling which fails to factor in the primary influence upon global temperatures of solar activity and storms, the sun being the primary determinant of what the climate does.
May many people today racked by climate change anxiety, come to put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, He who controls the climate and who every day is “upholding all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3).
At one stage a group of Hare Krishna devotees came and sang and danced in front of the preachers, who responded by holding up posters of Scripture verses and reading out loudly certain verses including John 14:6, which the Lord Jesus asserts that He is the only way to salvation and eternal life.
A young man came up to Pastor Simpson as he was handing out tracts and asked about the Christian teaching on LGBT issues. Taking his Bible, the minister showed him Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26-27 which plainly refer to homosexual activity. The young enquirer was thankfully polite and genuinely asking questions. May the Lord open his heart to see the truth of God’s word.
Another man approached Pastor Simpson as he was preaching, and claimed that political correctness (which the minister had denounced) was simply loving one’s neighbour, and that by speaking of the sinfulness of homosexuality the preacher was displaying hatred. Furthermore, he claimed that Jesus Christ never said anything about LGBT issues, but only taught “love thy neighbour”.
The minister responded that it is an act of love to one’s neighbour to warn about the seriousness of sin and to show men the way of salvation through faith in Christ. Regarding the Lord never referring to homosexuality, He frequently endorsed the Old Testament Scriptures, and in any case, all the Bible, including the Old Testament, is written by the Spirit of Christ. Indeed, in 1 Peter 1:11 we are actually told that the Spirit of Christ was working through the Old Testament prophets. This of course includes Moses who wrote the words of Leviticus 18:22.
May many who heard the gospel in Aylesbury realise that calling sin sin, and announcing the need for repentance from it, is not an act of hatred, but is a gracious offer of mercy which will lead on to receiving the gift of everlasting life.