Post by messengermicah on Mar 1, 2008 16:42:27 GMT -5
Monday February 18, 2008-Jacksonville, Florida: Woke up today intending to spend another day preaching at University of North Florida. It was raining, and continued to rain as the time to leave approached. The weather report was forecasting a 70% chance of rain. I was planning to leave for Florida State after preaching anyway.
I decided not to take a chance on going to the campus and get an earlier start for Florida State. This probably turned out to not be the best decision as the weather cleared up.
Tuesday February 19, 2008: We spent the night in a rest stop in Tallahassee. I was planning to go to campus this day, but by the time we arrived where we were staying and got set up it was already close to noon. The campus was about an hour away with another half hour needed to walk to the preaching spot. I decided to wait until the next day to begin preaching.
Wednesday February 20, 2008-Florida State University-Tallahassee, Florida: I began preaching around 11:55 AM. Soon I gathered a small crowd of 30-40 and things were going well.
Soon several students dressed as robots, promoting the school radio station came out. They were playing a boom box radio (not too loud) and dancing. The crowd found this amusing.
The crowd increased to about 40-50 and a male student came out with a banjo. He would stand next to me and play as I preached. This musical heckler even played while I sang some songs on the perils of sin. The crowd continued to grow to about 120-150.
As I preached and answered questions the robots, the banjo player and some members of the crowd formed a small circle within the crowd and had a dance among them.
I moved down some to get away from the noise and circus then began to address the students on the other side of the crowd. The crowd was fairly rowdy but somewhat civil. They would usually listen well as I preached and answered questions.
After some time the dancers, the robots, and the banjo player left and the crowd continued to grow to over 200 at times.
I believe it was a very effective day of preaching as the crowd was large, somewhat playful, yet fairly civil, and listened moderately well.
I answered questions while preaching being heckled and accused from students in every direction. I had to preach through all the questions, as this school has not had as much preaching as some of the other Florida schools I have been preaching at have had and as a result is not as tame. It was the most physically demanding day of preaching I have had in a while, but the time went by fast.
I expect more of this type of preaching over the next few weeks as I plow through fallow ground of several schools that do not get much preaching.
I continued preaching until 3:35 PM. The crowd was still lively and large (around 120) and I turned them over to Sister Elizabeth.
She preached and maintained the crowd for almost another hour (until about 4:30 PM) before calling it a day. While she preached I had some good conversation on the sidelines. One student had listened to me a lot last year, asks good questions and is fairly honest. Others were not as sincere but I was able to effectively destroy all their excuses and worldly wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:19, Luke 21:15, Acts 6:10).
We left the campus around 5:00 PM.
Thursday February 21, 2008-Florida State University-Tallahassee, Florida: I woke up early this morning with a heavy burden of prayer for the souls of the students on this campus. Later in the morning I had an upset stomach.
As we made the one hour drive to campus it began to drizzle. We continued driving, and by the time we reached campus it was raining harder than a drizzle but not heavy.
We made the half hour walk to the preaching area in the rain and when we arrived it was still raining so we headed to the library to wait for the rain to stop.
We used the computer and read several chapters from the Bible. The rain did not let up but became much worse. It was raining heavy with no sign of letting up.
Around 3:30 PM we put on our raingear and headed for the shuttle. We got very wet going to the shuttle and going to the vehicle from the shuttle.
Driving back from the campus I felt disappointed. Monday I decided not to preach and the weather cleared up. Today I drove to campus, paid for parking, got soaking wet and did not get to preach.
I also began to feel physically sick coming back from the campus. I had aches and chills. Inside the trailer I was freezing with the portable heater next to me and several blankets on. My wife, who is usually cold, was not cold at all. I took my temperature and had a temperature above 100.
I cried out for God to heal me and by 10:00 PM my fever was gone! Praise the Lord!
Friday February 22, 2008-Florida State University-Tallahassee, Florida: It was supposed to rain again today. When I woke up it was overcast but not raining.
I did not feel sick, but I felt the effects of the fever from the day before. I was concerned about overexerting myself during preaching (which is easy to do with large, heckling crowds) and relapse.
I had peace about preaching today, so I decided to trust the Lord for my body and the rain and head for campus.
When we arrived it was still overcast but not raining. I wanted to get a few good hours in. I asked God to strengthen my body.
When I began preaching at 12:20 PM I felt as good and strong as I ever had. Soon I had a few listeners that quickly grew into a small group. Friday is a slow day on some campuses but on this one it is about like any other day.
The crowd continued to grow into as large a crowd or larger (200-250 at times) as Wednesday’s. The behavior and attitude of the crowd was similar also with lively, playful heckling, rowdy, but somewhat civil, and fairly good listeners. Again, most of the time I had to preach hard, fast and loud through all the heckling, questions, comments and accusations being hurled from every direction.
It began to rain some at one point, but I brought out an umbrella and so did most of the crowd and continued listening and standing in the rain.
Getting close to 3:00 PM the crowd was still around 100-120. At this point one of the students told the crowd to leave and stop listening to me and the crowd size dropped to about 30-40.
I was going to stop preaching at 3:00 PM, but right at that time a student ordered me to stop preaching and go home. I did not want to stop because he said to so I continued for another 15 minutes.
Around 3:15 PM this student told the crowd to stop listening to me and leave. The majority of the crowd left and I sat down and talked to the few who remained. As I answered questions of the few who remained the number of listeners began to grow again to about 20-25.
After about 20 minutes of answering questions I attempted to leave. Sister Elizabeth was talking to several students. We talked and answered the questions of the several students for another 30 minutes and then headed to our vehicle as we had a long walk ahead and the sky was black with rain.
Sunday February 24, 2008: Attended Sunday morning services in the local church where we were staying. I was invited to preach in the evening service.
I preached from Matthew 6 on having “A Single Eye” for about 50 minutes.
Monday February 25, 2008-Florida State University-Tallahassee, Florida: I began preaching at 12 noon and soon gathered a crowd of about 50-60. Soon it dropped down to about 25-30 and stayed that way for some time. I answered questions and had good discussion time.
Around 1:00 PM the crowd began to build up again until it reached the 200-250 range and at times probably neared 300. They were more rowdy today than they had been and at times it was somewhat of a circus.
A guy came running out with a mannequin and began “making out” with it and simulating sex acts to the delight of the crowd.
Several female students flashed me (this also happened last week), two guys simulated sex acts with each other, a heckler who was standing next to me most of the day and would tell filthy jokes to the crowd simulated sex acts on me, someone grabbed my water jug and drank out of it, and someone else later stole it, put something in it and gave it back to me. I poured it out.
There were several hecklers who stood near me holding signs most of the day, and others who would constantly shout at me things they wanted me to answer after I had already answered them.
There is another guy at this university who always comes out when I am preaching and gives the crowd personal information on me and my family. I don’t know how he obtains this information but I think this guy is a psycho and needs to be watched.
Throughout all this I tried to preach as straightforward as I could and avoid all the foolishness. Due to the behavior of the crowd the quality and depth of the interaction was not what it was last week. I mostly just preached to them simple messages of repenting from sin, turning to Jesus Christ, being born again, what it means to be saved, without holiness no man shall see the Lord, the fear of the Lord, and showing them their rebellion against God.
There seemed to be more of a homosexual presence in the crowd today than the previous days. This always brings the level of the interaction of the crowd down. Our society has become so “brainwashed” by the homosexual agenda with most students convinced homosexuals are “born that way”, saying anything against the vile act of homosexuality is “hate speech” and “being hateful”, and almost everyone is afraid of opposing this abomination to God for fear of being labeled a “bigot”, “racist”, “intolerant” or “homophobe”.
The homosexual mindset is totally unreasonable, and does not think. I see it spreading more and more all over the country with very little opposition. God had to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah when this abominable sin became accepted in society and I fear He will have to do the same to America sooner or later.
I turned the crowd over to Sister Elizabeth at 2:30 PM. She did an excellent job of preaching and maintaining the large crowd until 3:30 PM. Actually the crowd size increased from about 100 to about 170 during her preaching.
By the time I took over preaching again the crowd was down to about 40-50. It was very difficult to reason with them or get them to listen to anything for more than a few seconds.
On some campuses the longer we preach there the tamer and reasonable the students become. Other campuses the longer we preach there the angrier and unreasonable they become. The latter seemed to be the way it was at this school last year and this year seemed to be following the same pattern.
Of course there are always the majority of students who are trying to listen attentively, take what we are saying very seriously, want to know more, and seem concerned for their souls, but the hecklers, homosexuals, and hypocrites in the crowd often get in the way.
After preaching, trying to reason with them and answer questions from 3:30 PM to 4:00 PM I tried to change strategies and sat down. Most of them sat down also and we had a better discussion. I continued this way for about another 30 minutes before we needed to head out.
We stopped briefly in the library and then left the campus around 5:00 PM.
Tuesday February 26, 2008: It was overcast as we began making the hour drive to the university. The closer we got to the university the harder it rained so we turned around and came back.
Wednesday February 27, 2008-Florida State University-Tallahassee, Florida: It was a cold day today for this Floridian (in the high 30’s, low 40’s). I began preaching around 12:05 PM. There was a man with a sandwich board sign sitting down in the area. My wife pointed him out to me and thought it was Frank (who sometimes travels with Jeremiah).
We met Brother Frank in February 2007 at the University of North Florida. He describes his beliefs as being similar to the Independent Fundamentalist Baptists.
I was preaching for 5-10 minutes when Brother Frank called my name and said hello. We agreed I would continue preaching for a while, turn the crowd over to him and take turns the remainder of the day.
It took longer than normal to get a crowd today (possibly due to the cold weather). Soon I gathered a small group of 20-25 and was answering their questions as Frank stood by wearing his sandwich board. The crowd continued to grow gradually and then the dancing, music playing robots from last Wednesday showed up again.
They all (3-5 of them) began to dance in a circle. The crowd grew to 200-250. Some were listening to the preaching, some were laughing at the dancing robots and some were watching the strange contrast of preacher/robots and the large crowd.
I preached to the large crowd for some time above the noise of the music, dancing, and heckling. I wanted to be considerate to Brother Frank so I turned the crowd over to him around 1:20 PM.
Shortly after Brother Frank began preaching the robots left and with them over half the crowd. It was now down to about 70-80.
I had a very good but “spirited” conversation with a group of professing “Christians” on the subject of sin in the life of a Christian. Some were somewhat open and receptive but it was obvious others were not interested in truth, or what the Bible had to say, but only in hanging on to their pet sins and self serving lifestyles.
Brother Frank continued to preach and answer questions until 3:20 PM. The crowd gradually grew smaller and smaller until everyone left.
I was talking to Sister Elizabeth at a table and noticed everything was quite and Brother Frank had left. At this point I jumped back on the wall and began preaching again.
I gradually got a handful of listeners which gradually grew to 30-40. I preached and answered questions until 4:35 PM. and turned them over to Brother Frank.
Sister Elizabeth and I went to the library for about 25 minutes. When we came out Brother Frank was sitting and having a conversation with two students. We invited him to come eat with us and fellowship.
We had some good fellowship and conversation and then departed around 7:00 PM.