Post by messengermicah on Feb 20, 2006 21:32:42 GMT -5
Elizabeth, Doug, John and Onica, and Emmanuel along with myself all headed to South Beach and arrived around 4:15 PM. We parked in the garage and walked over to the square across from the Majestic Hotel, and I began preaching on the step-up platform around 4:30 PM. I had a good crowd again here, with people gathering from all parts of the street to listen. The waiter came out and heckled me again some but not like last week. He even mentioned I preached the same thing last week. I preached until about 5:10 PM. In addition to all the people at the corners of the street and people to the sides and behind me, I could see many people in the hotel rooms watching and listening.
Towards the end a homeless, drunk man who I bought several meat pies and a coke a few weeks ago, came over and started heckling me non-stop. This of course attracted more people. After I finished I told him it was not nice for him to come and heckle me after I bought him food a few weeks ago. Everyone was listening across the street, and an African American woman was telling me from the third or fourth floor that I was not supposed to judge. I then ran across the street and started preaching to the woman on the fourth floor as well as the 20-25 gathered around watching and listening. The woman?s young son came down and was very angry at me for telling his mother she was wrong about what the Bible said about judging.
After things settled down some, the woman told me she really appreciated what I was doing. Later on in the day, she saw us down by the Clevelander and called us over to talk to us. She told us how much she appreciated us, and agreed with us, but just thought we needed to be a little easier on people. I explained to her that we had been coming out there for about two years, and were very aware of the spiritual state of the people here, and gave her Biblical reasons for why we do the things we do. She was very receptive, thanked us again and we moved on.
We saw some people over by the shower area on the wall across from Wet Willie?s and so Emmanuel preached here for about 30-40 minutes. We then moved down to the square right across from Wet Willie?s and John preached here for about 20 minutes.
We then moved down to the square across from Mango?s bar and Onica preached here and then Doug.
We then moved down to the area by the Clevelander Square and did not preach because of the noise, but Emmanuel and I stood on the sidewalk outside of the Clevelander with the banners and had some good conversations with a few people.
We then moved to the sidewalk across from the Lummus Park sign where we used to preach all the time. I preached on top of the step-up platform from about 7:00 PM to 7:20 PM. Many people passing by heard the preaching, and some on the other side of the street were listening, but I do not think anyone on my side of the street stopped to listen for any length of time.
We all got in the van and drove to the Lincoln Road Mall and parked about 7:45 PM. As we approached our spot we usually preach at, the empty store was now a combination of a Starbuck?s and music store fully open to the public. We decided to move a little further away and preach there anyway. John, Onica, and Elizabeth all preached here and had several people stop and listen.
Emmanuel went inside the Starbuck?s and they complained to him about us being out there. There are tables outside and I was apprehensive about preaching here because of that. Nevertheless, we continued preaching. Doug and Emmanuel both were able to get groups of about 15 to 20 people stopping and listening at times with some asking questions.
About 9:05 PM as Emmanuel was preaching an employee from the Starbuck?s came and told me some of the customers were complaining, they wanted to sit at the tables outside but we were there. He was very polite and asked me nicely so I told him to let Emmanuel preach about 10 more minutes and we would move.
There was a family on skates of father, son, and daughter who sat listening to the preaching of Doug, Elizabeth, and Emmanuel. When Emmanuel stopped around 9:15 PM, we moved across the street to the other side of the Lincoln Road Theater and the family followed us. Everyone wanted to leave soon so I was not supposed to preach very long.
As soon as I got on the platform an older man came up to me and started telling me about Micah 6:6, but I corrected him and told him it was actually 6:8, but then quoted him Micah 3:8. He was objecting pretty loudly to me preaching, and he was now talking to John off to the side. I also had a few more hecklers come up right away and start asking me questions. The one guy said he did not want us to preach over here because he worked here but I told him we needed to preach where he worked because he was a sinner and needed to hear our preaching. He also objected to hell. There were a few people sitting behind me listening.
In another few minutes, a lady from an outdoor restaurant came over and told me I was too loud and I was disturbing all the ?nice? people over there who were trying to eat, and besides that she told me, ?the first commandment is we are not supposed to judge!? I apologized for being so loud and admitted she had a point there, but I told her that her customers were not ?nice? people because they were fornicators, drunkards, and even homosexuals were in that restaurant. I also told her that I would lower my voice but if she wanted to tell me what the Bible said that was another story. She then started telling me she was a Catholic (a few minutes later she told me the ?F? word), I should not judge, etc.
By now the older Micah 6:8 man was back and I told the woman the reason I was so loud was because this man had come up and started yelling at me (this really was what happened). Of course now he was trying to talk all soft and gentle.
I went back to preaching and lowered my voice, while Doug and Elizabeth talked to the restaurant woman. She told Elizabeth she was the most ignorant person she had ever met (sounds kind of judgmental to me). Her main question to Doug and Elizabeth was why are we harassing her customers if we always preach at the other corner. Another complaint she hurled at us was the women were crying and the children were scared of hell. She stomped away to call the police even though she said: ?she wanted to throw tomatoes and rocks at us.? I preached a few minutes and two men walked by acting like they were homosexuals but they really were not. I rebuked them and one guy got really angry and acted as if he would attack me, but then moved on.
After a few more minutes of preaching (I think I was interrupted more in this time than any other), here come three police officers. The one guy gets up in my face and tried to talk tough to me and tell me I should not talk about people burning in hell with children around. I told him I thought I should, they need to know it, and parents should not expose their children to all the filth on Lincoln Road. He then started admitting to me he could not do anything about what I said. I told him it is not his responsibility to tell people what to say and not to say, but to uphold their right to say it.
Another officer then tried to be more diplomatic with me and tried to talk nicely to me. He told me I could not force my beliefs on others, but I told him that schools and society force their beliefs on children all the time (evolution, homosexuality, recreational drug use, alcohol, transgender lifestyles, etc.) He knew he could not really say anything to me or accuse me of doing anything wrong, but I told him we were getting ready to leave anyway.