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ARE YOU LISTENING TO THE CALL?

November 25, 2013, Florida State University

   Classes are supposed to be in session through Wednesday; however, it soon became obvious that a significant number of students have already left for the Thanksgiving holiday. Brother Micah and Tom Short preached on this campus at last week. Tom has a national campus ministry sponsoring him so prefers to preach alone. Micah and Tom preached at the same time but in different locations.

   Ray and Pam White and their son, who are from Tallahassee, met me on campus. They had become acquainted with me through Facebook and have read one of my books on Romans. They were active in witnessing to several students. I held up my YOU DESERVE HELL sign. It was not long before a man wearing a Salvation Army loco on his shirt asked, "Why don't you have a sign which says, "God loves you." I explained the sign; he agreed with my explanation, but still he wanted me to have a sign which spoke of love. I spoke to him of the confrontational style and holiness message of General William Booth the founder of the S.A., which the Army slowly backed away from after the passing of Booth. The S.A. man thought I was being too aggressive. I answered, "Armies are supposed to be aggressive; that is how wars are won."

"I spoke to him (a Salvation Army member) of the confrontational style and holiness message of General William Booth the founder of the S.A..."


   The following are some quotes from General Booth (1829-1912) on Evangelism:

   No sort of defense is needed for preaching outdoors, but it would take a very strong argument to prove that a man who has never preached beyond the walls of his meetinghouse has done his duty. A defense is required for services within buildings rather than for worship outside of them.

   'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world."

   We are not sent to minister to a congregation and be content if we keep things going. We are sent to make war and to stop short of nothing but the subjugation of the world to the sway of the Lord Jesus.

   Joseph was a Social Studies major who admitted he had sin in his life. I exhorted him to depart from all sin; alas, he refused. I also warned him about the humanistic teachings, which advocated that the state instead of the church was to help the poor. He needs to study Booth's methods of helping the unfortunate.

"We are sent to make war and to stop short of nothing but the subjugation of the world to the sway of the Lord Jesus."


   Others gathered around me. I decided not to lift up my voice and preach, but to dialogue with those that gathered. Joseph stopped to converse; he admitted he had emotionally overreacted with anger to Brother Micah last Friday for which he was now embarrassed. Joseph was an honest seeker, who questioned me for almost two hours. Another young man stayed a few hours. He said that he had heard of me from his brother and was waiting to hear me. He was very interested and excited concerning my visitation, but when I pressed him he was not ready to forsake all for the cause of Christ. Several Christians were supportive. One young man, who is with Tom Short's group, talked of how I had challenged him to preach last year and as a result he had preached some on campus with a few of his Christian friends.

   Several students commended me for my low key intellectual approach today. But we cannot always (or even usually) give them what they want. There needs to be preaching which will prick their consciences. We are not usually to be seeker friendly evangelists, although there are times when seeker friendly approaches have their place.

  All in all it was a productive day despite the small audience and cold weather, cloudy, windy and only in the fifties today. A young man, Michael, who described himself as a "Christian with some doubts" walked me back to my motel which is just off campus. He carried my stuff so I gave him a copy of Walking in the Spirit and some other literature. There is rain predicted for tomorrow. So I may not preach again at FSU until after Thanksgiving break.
 
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FAST AND FURIOUS

December 2, 2013, Florida State University,

   Angela Cummings is preaching with me this week; for days before the holiday break she had no small stir at UT Chattanooga. She is a woman in whom there is no pretention. Sister Cindy is visiting the daughters in Missouri and Sister Pat is with Laure White and family in Philadelphia.

"Yet, we all intuitively know life has meaning."
   
   Angela with her booming voice held forth for the first hour. She is always interesting and fun to listen to. She knows how to draw students into her web. When she turned the meeting over to me, I spoke of how preaching a call to holiness. After  a
Angela with her booming voice held forth for the first hour. She is always interesting and fun to listen to. She knows how to draw students into her web.
ll, we are teaching from the HOLY BIBLE, which teaches "BE YE HOLY FOR I AM HOLY (1 Peter 1:16)." Our Lord taught us to pray, "HALLOWED (Holy) be thy name." As Christians we take on his name, so we ought to live holy. 
   
   Next I talked about the head on collusion with death which Paul Walker (I never heard of him before) experienced over Thanksgiving. [I though Fast and Furious referred to one of the many scandals of the Obama Administration which have been swept under the rug.] God was furious with P.W.; he was living life in the fast lane. He passed over that solid yellow line one too many times. It wasn't long before 25-35 gathered. They were subdued and courteous throughout the afternoon. Evidently, Brother Micah with shock and awe bombed them onto submission before the holiday break.

   I preached for almost two hours. The first hour was more philosophical as I talked about the meaning of life and explained without the promise of life after death, life becomes meaningless. Yet, we all intuitively know life has meaning. As soon as children learn to talk, they begin
"Be Holy!"
asking, "Why?" They naturally know that life must have meaning, that there must be a reason. On the other hand, if death results in nothingness, then life has no objective meaning.

   My second hour dealt largely with the sexual issues and the roles of men and women in the light of Biblical teaching.

   I expect the crowds to pick up tomorrow and the rest of the week as the weather warms up. Often the first day after a holiday will be slower as students are late in returning or concentrating on settling back into campus life.
 

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MASTER OF RELIGION

December 3, 2013, FSU

     I was sitting on a bench conversing with one of my regular listeners, Michael ("Christian with doubts"), when a man approached and said, "I understand you are a Master of Religion.  I have a question for you.  If God is all powerful, why does not he just destroy the devil?  I explained that God uses the devil to test men.  God allows the devil to rule and reign in men's hearts when they reject God's righteous rule.  When men refuse the government of God, he may give men tyrants (representatives of the devil) to maintain some semblance of order.  After he left, I expounded on this line of reasoning with Michael. 

 

"I understand you are a Master of Religion. I have a question for you," FSU student.

     

   Neijee, a young man from Lebanon, approached us to remind me that I had told him on November 25 that God has provided the gift of eternal life, but he must accept it.  He said, "Shortly after you told me that, I went to a Chinese restaurant and the fortune cookie read, "There is a gift waiting for you that you should accept."  He was excited because he considered that a confirmation of what I had spoken.  I challenged him to repent and accept the gift.  However, he had to attend class but indicated he would return tomorrow to hear more.

 

"The students were generally respectful and attentive."

    

   Angela arrived and started preaching.  She said, "When I go to the grocery store I can preach.  I see all the different fruits and vegetables and I don't think about apes or a Big Bang, I am reminded of a Big God."  She gathered an audience of 20-25 and eventually turned the meeting over to me.  There was a man who had an abundance of philosophical question which enable me to go into apologetic mode for the rest of the day. There were several atheists who kept feeding me with good questions which enabled me to expound on open theism, free will, the purpose of life, life after death, and so forth.  I really enjoyed the session, which required me to have to do a lot of thinking.  We continued in this mode until after 5 PM.  The students were generally respectful and attentive. 

Sis. Angela said, "When I go to the grocery store I can preach. I see all the different fruits and vegetables and I don't think about apes or a Big Bang, I am reminded of a Big God."
 

MASTER SHOWMAN

December 4, 2013, FSU,

      Yesterday, I was called a Master of Religion.  Today over Facebook I was called the "master showman." The comment was made in a derogatory manner by another open-air preacher, who does not like my style or content.  But I considered it a compliment.  Jesus and the apostles could put on quite a show.  I doubt if anyone ever found them boring.  I am often accused of making a spectacle.  I answer by referring my critics to 1 Cor. 4:9-10:  "For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised."  I trust my readers will catch the irony in Paul's statement.  A successful open-air preacher has to be humble enough to be regarded as a fool by the world.

"A successful open-air preacher has to be humble enough to be regarded as a fool by the world."

 

      Angela is also quite a showman.  She has billed herself as my warm up preacher.  And she excels in this role.  Over the noon hour they were playing amplified jungle music.  Under such circumstance I usually wait until it is finished because amplification is usually only allowed from 12 to 1 PM.   With Angela's booming voice she was not to be deterred by the loud noise.   Even though a group of students were fascinated by watching and videoing a possum in the tree, she stood upon a rock in the midst of them and said, "I am going to preach on possums."   She immediately got their attention.  She then turned to her concordance and read to see if she could find the word "possum" in the Bible.  She read several words starting with p.  Then she said, "No possums in the Bible."  

Sis. Angela is creative and a quick thinker.

 

   The girl is creative and a quick thinker.  Under the circumstances I would have waited until student's attention was no longer diverted by the possum.  One other thing I have noticed about Angela, she can remember the names of students with whom she had interaction last year and even what they talked about and what their hang-ups with Christianity were.  I am doing well to remember faces.  Either the girl has a great memory or she is spending consider time in prayer over individual students, probably both.  She has quite the dramatic flair; twice she had her back on the ground for an illustration.  Angela has come a long way in just a year or so of campus preaching.  She is quite intelligent but very down to earth.  Her earthiness may make the students underestimate her.  But she holds her own with those who have more secular education than she. Angela is the best product I have known to come out of the Brownsville Revival.    

       Angela turned the audience over to me and I preached a gospel message and gave reasons to believe.  I was interrupted with very few questions during my two, hour long preaching sessions.  The second time I even addressed the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the power of God for Christians to do mighty works.  I covered much of the second chapter of Acts.  Once again the students were respectful and attentive.  We scarcely got into the sexual issues.  The questions were more of a philosophical nature.  The last 30 minutes Angela had a group of inquirers and I had another group.  We departed at 4:30. 

    

She is quite intelligent but very down to earth.

     

    BTW, the same preacher who labeled me a mere showman suggested over Facebook that I might be a representative of the Illuminati or Jesuits to undermine true Christianity.   His comments made my day; I am still laughing in myself.  I have been accused of a lot of things but never of being an agent of these two groups.  He called my staff crucifix my "lucky charm."  He even suggested by carrying it, I would be protected from the Jesuits.  We do have our share of nuts in the fraternity of open-air preachers.  Of course, I suppose some consider me to be the nuttiest of them all.  Oh, well, I do enjoy what Paul called, "the foolishness of preaching."

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THE WRECKING BALL

December 5, 2013, FSU

   Angela, who calls herself the Drama Queen, warmed up the students again today. She got a lot of mileage out of Miley Cyrus' escapades. She told about Miley's latest video, which features the whore linking a hammer and riding a wrecking ball naked. Angela keeps up with the popular culture so that she can address it on campus. Most of the celebrities she talked about I did not know. Angela spent a year ministering on the streets of Malibu; she met and witnessed to many movie starts.
The Drama Queen!

   Sometimes, when preaching with Angela, Sister Cindy and Sister Pat, I feel like Barak. Not that I would not go to battle without these women but they are a big help, especially in getting students' attention. With their wisdom Cindy and Pat remind me of Deborah. Angela reminds me of Jael, who hammered the nail into Sisera's temples. With the hammer of the Holy Ghost, Angela drove the nails of God words right into the heads of the uncircumcised Canaanites. Angela rides a wrecking ball crashing down the walls of sin. She uses her tongue to speak Truth. Angela deserves all the attention that the devil and the culture are giving to Miley. Today, she preached for 90 minutes and for most of the time there were only a few to several listening. Finally, after the second class break, she asked me, "Do you want to preach?" I was ready and she presented me with a nice size audience.
Again today, Sis. Angela drew a nice size crowd.

   There were several Calvinists opposing me claiming that men did not have a free will and the God's will has always been done on the earth. They taught we can't help but sin. The sexual issues were pronounced today. I told some of my stories from my unregenerate days. There was a brazen lesbian who insisted she was a Christian, who argued with me for an hour. Women issues were prominent. Several times students asked me about my conversion. I ended up preaching and teaching until 6:30 PM. FSU has always been a good late afternoon and early evening campus.

   Jael got the honor in in the victorious battle against the Canaanites. Angela deserves the honor for holding forth for 90 minutes when the audience was sparse and in the end presenting me with an attentive crowd. Of course, Barak still earned his place in the Hall of Faith as listed in Hebrews 11.
 
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COUNT THE COST

December 6, 2013, FSU,

   Angela was already warming up the students when I arrived at noon. There were not that many who were passing. Braden, who is a regular, sat down to listen for a while; he told us that a lot of professors have already given their final exams so many students have by now gone home for the Christmas holiday. Around the university it is called the winter break. Nevertheless, Angela persevered until she drew around a dozen students. She has a wealth of experience and interesting stories to tell. She talked a lot about the Brownsville revival and Evangelist Steven Hill, who had a profound impact on her life. Angela is a jet setter, she told about her mission work in foreign countries.

"What does it mean to bear your cross?"--FSU student Daniel, asked.

   
   I preached for a couple of hours. It was a very good session. I talked about the nature of faith, the nature of the human soul, cross bearing and many other topics. There was some dialogue about the sexual issue but it was not the main issue. A soft spoken youung man, who listened attentively, identified himself as a Buddhist. I went over and over the folly of Buddhism. I may have made some progress with him for at the end of the day he said he was more of an agnostic than Buddhist. He was there all day and most of the day yesterday.

"Are you willing to follow Jesus to the death?"

   About 3:30 I called upon Angela again and she stirred the crowd. Meanwhile, Daniel sat down beside me looked me right in the eyes and asked, "What does it mean to bear your cross?" I explained, "The cross represents self-sacrifice, self-denial, suffering, pain, sorrow, rejection, abandonment and death. To take up your cross is to take a stand for righteous and oppose sin, which will bring the things I have mentioned into your life. Are you willing to follow the Lord Jesus unto death?"

  Daniel asked, "How do I do that?"

   I opened the Bible to Roman 10:9-10 and read the passage and explained that the beginning is to confess him as Savior and Lord? Are you willing?"

   He answered, "I am not sure."

  I replied, "Good answer. Jesus said, 'Count the Cost.'"

   This is a summary of our conversation which lasted over 15 minutes. All the time we were eyeball to eyeball; it was intense. I urged him to read the NT over Christmas break. Later, Angela informed me that she had prophesied over Daniel on Monday that he might be one to get saved this week.
Jesus said, "Count the cost!"

   At 4:30 Angela turned the meeting back to me and I preach until 6 PM. Two girls, at least one of whom professed to be Christian, Angela had stirred by appealing to their conscience. They settled down when I began to reason with them and explain how God could hate sinners and love them at the same time. After my explanation, one said, "Now I understand." One of the girls was impressed when she discovered that I was the same Evangelist, which she had seen in the film, "The Nature of Existence," which was shown in her sociology class. She asked, "I do not have the joy that you two have. How do I get this joy?" I answered, "Make sure you are living sin free since sin produces a guilty conscience which will rob us of our joy. Joy needs to be cultivated. When I am down, I often turn to singing something like, "The Joy of the Lord is my Strength" and I sing myself back
One of the girls was impressed when she discovered that  Bro Jed was the same Evangelist, which she had seen in the film, "The Nature of Existence," which was shown in her sociology class.
to a joyful state." I even sang the song clapping, my hands and jumping for joy. Later when these two girls left; they thanked me for coming and said that they had learned a lot.

Tara, who forsook her Christian testimony when she game to college must have spent as least ten hours listening and sometimes arguing with me this week. She said her favorite Christian song was, "What Can Wash Away My Sins?" I sang itfor her and she joined in. God can use a song to bring people back home. Students only hear their professors three hours a week. There was a well-read Roman Catholic boy carrying a Bible, who corrected the students throughout the afternoon whenever they tried misrepresenting my teaching. I left about four students with him at 6 PM.

It was a wonderful week, a good way to end the semester. The crowds were never over a hundred but students were generally attentive and usually had decent questions. I give a lot of credit to Tom Short and Micah Armstrong for taming the tigers. Students were pussy cats this week. I expect a lot of future fruit from this visitation to FSU.

In response to this post on Facebook, Tara commented, "I loved it when you sang my favorite hymn! Thank you so much for the great conversation. Can't wait til you come back next year. Who knows? I might bring out my ukulele so we don't have to sing acappella."
 
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 Our Mission Plans!
 
SCHEDULE  
Winter 2014
 
  This our tentative schedule for the spring semester 2014. Please take note when we will be in your area. Should you want me to speak in your church or home fellowship, I am available. Also, if anyone wants to offer hospitality for Sister Pat, Cindy and me, please contact us. We always encourage local folks to join us on campus. We need your help!!

Jan. 6-7, University of Florida

Jan. 8-9, University of South Florida

Jan. 10, University of Central Florida

Jan. 13-14, University of Central Florida

Jan. 15, University of South Florida

Jan. 16 University of Florida

Jan. 17 University of Florida

Jan. 21-24, Louisiana State University

Jan. 27-28, Stephan A. Austin University

Jan 29-31, Sam Houston State University

Feb. 3-7, Texas A & M

Feb. 10-University of Texas

Feb. 11-13, Texas State University

Feb. 14, University of Texas

Feb. 17-21, University of Arizona

Feb. 24-Feb 28, Arizona State University

 

March 3-7, San Diego area campuses

March 10-14, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Riverside

March 17-21, Long Beach State and Fullerton State

March 24-28, Fresno State

March 31-April 4, Texas Tech

April 7-9 University of Oklahoma

April 10-11, Missouri State University

April 14-May 2, IU, ISU, IUPUP, Purdue, UI,

May 5-June 6, Oregon and Washington


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In This Issue
Are You Listening?
Fast and Furious
Master of Religion
Master Showman
Wrecking Ball
Count the Cost
Fall Schedule
Contact Us
Donate
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