Post by messengermicah on Feb 24, 2009 18:22:30 GMT -5
Wednesday February 11, 2009: I had planned to preach at the University of Florida this day and the following day. Some of these things sound good planning them and look good on paper but are not always practical. It had been such a long day the previous day with taking the trailer in, dropping it off, preaching for 3 hours on campus, driving a few hours to church, preaching in church, and then driving several more hours to make it to our destination, I did not think, I was in the spiritual condition to go and preach on campus. I also suspected, I would be asked to preach in the evening church service where we were staying. We did not go to campus this day and as I suspected, I was asked to preach in the church service that evening. I preached for over one hour on “A Gospel of Power” from Judges 2:6-13.
ONE OF OUR GREATEST DAYS OF PREACHING AT UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
Thursday February 12, 2009-University of Florida-Tallahassee, Florida: As we were driving to the University of Florida it was overcast. I thought it might be difficult to get the attention of the students on this campus since a week or so ago a large group of preachers preached on this campus for over a week. As we were driving the sun came out and it ended up being a great day both for weather and preaching.
I never bother to try to begin preaching on this campus before 1:00 PM since it is so noisy and distracting from 12:30 PM to 1:00 PM with all the bells ringing (I call these “hells bells”). There is a symphony of bells that clang noisily in the Turlington Plaza area (the preaching spot) from 12:30 PM to 1:00 PM each day.
VANILLA ICE OR RICK ASTLEY?
This ended up being one of our greatest days of preaching ever on this campus. I began preaching around 1:20 PM. Soon after preaching a young man came up to me and began following me around and dancing all around me. He looked like a combination of Vanilla Ice and Rick Astley. This began to build up a good sized crowd. He must have followed me around and danced for about 10 minutes and was sweating profusely when he left.
Soon after the dancer left some of the Christians on campus began opposing my message of “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11), “Repent of perish” (Luke 13:3, 5), “without holiness no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14), “He that commits sin is of the devil” (1 John 3:8), “whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin” (John 8:34), “ye must be born again” (John 3:7), and “whosoever is born of God does not commit sin” (1 John 3:9).
A young black male student who was with the Christians began to try to take over the ever growing crowd by trying to preach over me. I rebuked him and refuted his excuses for living in sin and his scripture twisting to justify living in sin.
THE POLICE SHOW UP
Soon two police officers rode into the circle of about 200 students on their bicycles. They asked me what was happening. I responded, I was preaching to the crowd, the black student was trying to preach over me and take over the crowd and I was not letting him.
STUDENT FIGHTING PREACHER
I asked the police officer why they stopped me from preaching. He told me, “We received a call that you guys were fighting.” For some reason this sounded very humorous to me. I told the officer we were having a heated debate but we were not getting physical and I had no intention of doing such a thing.
The crowd size diminished some as the officers asked the student some questions. Soon they left and I continued preaching. The student stopped interfering. Gradually the crowd size dwindled down to about 20-25.
A young black male student who I had good interaction with the last time I preached on this campus showed up again and asked many good questions and listened well. He is familiar with the Bible and comes from a Christian family but I do not think he is walking with the Lord. He acknowledged most of the points I made but would always find fault with my “reproving and rebuking with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2) while I preached as the Bible commands us to.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN THE RACIST
Gradually the crowd began to grow again. A tall, tall man dressed like Abraham Lincoln and holding books on Abraham Lincoln near where I was preaching was making comments in favor of Obama saying something to the effect of “We Don’t Want Any More Whities!” I guess he was not aware of what a racist Abraham Lincoln was and how he claimed he was opposed to equal rights for the black man, opposed to them holding office and believed the white race was superior. Oh well just more modern day American political correctness and hypocrisy.
I told the crowd he was obviously a racist since he was making anti-white people comments. He ran up to me and got in my face, towering over me and said, “Did you call me a racist?!” I replied directly “Yes, I did!” He replied to the delight of the crowd “Well I guess I am a racist!” The crowd roared with laughter.
RETURN OF VANILLA ICE/RICK ASTLEY
Around this time the dancer showed up again and followed me around dancing and taking off his shirt. He bumped into me deliberately several times as the police officer watched on and said nothing.
HONEST ABE THE THIEF
Later this same man came running up to me, stole my water jug, took a large swig of it, and then threw it on the ground. Not too honest of Ole Abe to steal someone else’s property.
One black woman who was listening to the preaching bought me two water bottles to replace the water “Abe” stole and gave them to Sister Elizabeth to give to me. She said her pastor preaches the same way and invited us to attend her church.
The crowd size continued to grow and eventually reached around 250. It was a great time of preaching, reproving, rebuking and exhorting with all longsuffering and doctrine.
I was opposed by atheists, homosexuals, muslims,sin every day all you want come as you are and stay as you are “christianettes”, general sinners, Christ and Torah rejecting Jews, etc.
HOW FAR WILL YOU GO TO PROVE YOU ARE TOLERANT?
One young heterosexual man gave a long passionate kiss on the lips to a homosexual to prove to me he was tolerant. The crowd applauded this.
The crowd kept a good distance for some time but around 4:00 PM they closed in around me. I stepped upon the planters and continued preaching.
From 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM I seemed to make some progress with many in the crowd who had been listening and opposing me much of the day. The crowd size was probably down to around 20-30 at this time. I came down from the planter and continued talking and answering questions to a small group of students until around 5:30 PM.
GREAT CONVICTION UPON A STUDENT
I noticed one African American male student had been sitting on the planter listening to the preaching for hours and never said a word to me. At the end of the day he introduced himself to me, told me his name, gave me a hug and asked me to please pray for him.
As it grew dark outside Sister Elizabeth and I remained in the Turlington Plaza talking with some of the Christians on campus. I had a good talk and seemed to make friends with one of the leaders of the Christian group. She had opposed my preaching throughout the day. At the end of our conversation she seemed to genuinely appreciate what we were doing. She earned a great deal of respect from me when I was preaching by telling me in front of the crowd she had voted for McCain. I had even more respect for her for admitting this in front of the crowd because she happened to be black.
We left the campus around 6:30 PM.