Sorry for the delay and posting the England report.
Almost every day we preached, we had issues with police because sinner complained that they were offended in our banners or something we had said. The first night in London Kevin was almost arrested and taken to jail.
We knew there was going to be issues and for that reason I took a couple of American flags to hold and or fly atop our banners. This allowed us to preach with much liberty as the stories below are but a few highlights.
Operation Repent Europe Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQCsS4zmgc8
In France we went right to the Eiffel Tower and stood under the metal icon, raised our banners and started to preach with American flags atop our banners.
We lasted almost an hour before police and military moved in to question us as a police wagon was waiting on the street. But knowing we were Americans I argued that we were preaching and not protesting. I was informed that we could not do this anywhere in Paris, it was illegal and we would be subject to arrest. They were reminded that it would not look good for their country to arrest 6 missionaries from America.
Within time they allowed us to keep the banners and American flag flying, with the loud speaker and tracts to be passed out, IF we walked across the street. This was done and no one arrested and we continued to preach which was our main goal.
After we were done with the tin idol, we walked towards the ‘Arch of Triumph’ as police in riot gear watched us closely. We set op our banners right under the ‘Arc’ and were immediately involved with police who told us that we could not do this. We told them they we were Americans and we come to preach not ‘protest’ they understood but asked us to do it from across the street. Which was not a problem because there was only one way into the ‘Arc of Triumph’ and that was an underground tunnel, which was across the street.
Large crowds who were intrigued with our method, as many stood and watched and read our banners and took tracts, also the out loud preaching provoked many questions.
After about two hours of preaching at this location, the police were again called and said there is no ‘protesting’ in Paris and if we did not move we would be arrested. I refused and the police saw we were willing to be jailed, so they decided to say that we need to be in groups of two.
I complied and we continued.
Soon it was time to preach the rush hour as the city was going home, so we went to the crowded subways to preach and found a main artery. Every few minutes large crowds would rush by us hearing the word of God and taking tracts. Most understood English or certain words like “Jesus” “Heaven or Hell” and “Bible” and of course preaching at a subway your message is quick as people are in a hurry to catch another train or tram.
One Christian also was there to pass out tracts and was so moved by us he started to preach in French. He was nervous as he also said we could be arrested for preaching in the city of Paris. After we finished passing out tracts, we walked away and what timing as we saw police rushing up the stairs to stop us. One officer shouted “There they are,” but we were hidden inside the congested subway and moved on.
Back in London, we visited the grave of John Wesley and he is one of many open air preachers England birthed to promote the kingdom of God. Now I believe the reason so many street preachers feel akin to this man is because he was not only an open air preacher but proclaimed holiness to his world.
We as open air preachers see the bad fruit of ‘say this prayer and now you are saved’ that so many believe. God demands repentance or a change of mind, change of heart and a change of lifestyle as ‘fruit meet for repentance’ and Wesley promoted such.
The picture below is taken from St Paul’s Church in England and that pulpit is the actual pulpit John Wesley preached to a Church full of local judges as he exhorted them that they will be judged of God. The Pastor of the Church allowed me to stand behind the pulpit and say a few words.
Here is a little history:
*Wesley was born June 1703 and died at the age of 87 on here in London England on March 2, 1791.
*He was inspired by George Whitefield as to his method of preaching but in contrast to being a Calvinist.
*Wesley recognised the open-air services were successful in reaching men and women who would not enter most churches. So he took the opportunity to preach wherever an assembly could be brought together, more than once using his father's tombstone as a pulpit.
*Wesley continued for fifty years entering churches when he was invited, and taking his stand in the fields, in halls, cottages, and chapels, when the churches would not receive him.
*During his ministry John Wesley rode over 250,000 miles on horseback, a distance equal to ten circuits of the globe along the equator and preached two or three times each day.
*He preached over 40,000 sermons.
*Wesley preached in the open air to audiences estimated in the tens of thousands after pulpits were closed to him.
*Benjamin Franklin was moved by Wesley and printed Wesley’s sermon “On Free Grace” and several sermons by George Whitefield. Wesley, in turn read much on Franklin but the two men never met.
*Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist Church and if he could see what has happened to that once beloved Church today, he would no doubt agree, they have lost the method.
*Wesley and the Methodists were persecuted by clergy and magistrates for various reasons. Certain clergy attacked the Methods of Wesley in sermons and in print and at times mobs attacked him. They were denounced by formal public announcement as having strange doctrines, inciting religious disturbances; as blind fanatics, leading people astray, lying about miraculous gifts, attacking the clergy of the great Church of England, and trying to re-establish the Catholic Church just to have many detest him.
*Wesley felt that the church failed to call sinners to repentance, that many of the clergy were corrupt, and that people were perishing in their sins. He believed he was commissioned by God to bring about revival in the church, and no opposition, persecution, or obstacles could prevail against the divine authority of his commission.
*Unwilling that people should perish in their sins and unable to reach them from church pulpits, Wesley began field preaching.
*Seeing that he and the few clergy co-operating with him could not do the work that needed to be done, he was led, as early as 1739, to approve local preachers who were not ordained by the Church of England to preach and do pastoral work. This expansion of lay preachers was one of the keys of the growth of Methodist Church.
Many people travel to visit his graveyard but would they have stood with him when he preached in his day or would he have been considered a heretic, radical, judgmental and salvation by works had they heard him in person?
And as with all the men of God we find in the Bible, they get their tombs cleaned by the same hands that would have demanded their death. How many Christians would consider Isaiah as going too far when he preached nude and told the religious of his day their good works were liken to a bloody rag.
Many consider that God raised Wesley for revival but today in his Church, it is nothing more than a museum run by little old ladies. That once Methodist Church that preached repentance and holiness is not even ‘lukewarm’ today. I doubt if they would recognize Wesley if he were to walk inside that Church today.
After we walked across the street from the Wesley Chapel we noticed the grave of John Bunyan as I gave a public teaching next to his tombstone and we planned on preaching in Bedford the city he preached in and was jailed in later but seen his grave across the street where Wesley is buried.
"A Voice From John Bunyan's Grave"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o_3XLYp374&feature=c4-overview&list=UUsJs_5_JdBEkYwQupGMa49g
Later that day we preached downtown London towards Piccadilly Circus and the crowds were as large as 42 Street in New York, bodies were everywhere as we marched on the sidewalk with banners raised. One mocker followed me for blocks trying to mimic my preaching.
We found a nice corner with plenty of lights, complete with humans everywhere and there preached. We all had crowds around us as they had never seen anything like this before. I had an atheist girl stand around and watch for hours.
Over two hours later the police were called as someone had said we were bashing homosexuals and this complaint also summons a paddy wagon. The officer in charge took me aside to question me and this atheist girl who stood around defended us. She told the police she heard the call and she lied, we did not say what she accused us of saying and the police agreed and told us we could continue.
There was another young man that stood with us for hours defending us and later told us he was Jewish and he also said he never seen Christian preachers like us before as we argued against Islam and sodomy. He was astonished at our boldness as hundreds of tracts were given out.
On Sunday we went to Hyde Park ‘speaker’s corner’ as this is the epitome of free speech in London.
We walked into the park with banners raised, megaphone blasting “There goes the neighborhood, here come the Christians” and we had an instant crowd around us. Mainly Muslims who saw me holding a Bible in one hand and an American flag with the other hand. I was told repeatedly that the megaphone was illegal, but I continued to preach against Islam. Engulfed with Muslims would be an understatement.
The police were called after about an hour and after a brief chat with the officers I walked back to the crowd as the Muslims cheered that the megaphone was shut down. To their surprise I continued to rant against Islam with the megaphone, it was at that point it was said that I was CIA.
We all preached and if we were not preaching we had a small crowd around us answering questions on many topics. Brother Kevin from San Francisco gave reason why God hates the sin of sodomy as he gave details of what homosexuals do. Our biggest foes were homosexuals, Muslims and atheists as we proclaimed what God thinks of such of those three evils with much liberty.
It started to rain and one group of Muslims set up a tent and within this canopy they had tables and booklets of Islam. I was invited to come inside and debate. So my body was inside the tent and I held my banner with one hand outside the awning and continued my debating of why Jesus is beyond a prophet. Then the hardcore Muslims came into the tent to argue and rebuked those that set up the tent for allowing me inside.
That’s when the fight broke out.
Muslims are rolling on the floor and tables hit the ground, literature is flying as other Muslims grab me and move me to safety. It was a Muslim on Muslim braw, all because of an infidel inside their tent.
I rolled up my banner as it was getting late as Petar came running to see if I was OK. He saw my banner was not up and he could see men on the ground fighting and he thought I was down.
After the fighters ran off like the cowards they are, I was confronted by one Muslim who asked for my American flag. I said “No” because he would burn it but he said he would not. He said, it would remind him of American Christians at Hyde Park and he promised he would not destroy it. He was looking over his shoulder to see if any Muslims were watching and when I gave him my flag he rolled it up and placed it inside of his coat, still looking over his shoulder so no one will see him.
The next day we were at Bedford England, home of John Bunyan. This was the city he got saved and preached in public, was arrested and jailed. While in jail he wrote several books one of them being ‘Pilgrim's Progress’ which has sold almost as many books as the Bible.
We decided to visit his museum but it was closed on Monday, so what do six street preachers do in Bedford….PREACH outside.
Kevin started and it was not long before he had a large crowd of angry teenagers mocking and flicking cigarettes at him. They decided to call the Bedford police that we were preaching hate and of course the police arrived. It did not take long for the officers to see that we were not the problem as the young crowd started to turn on the police.
The officers told the mob that we had every right to preach and if they did not like our message to walk away. The police moved their car which was right in front of us and stayed to make sure we were safe.
After making no small stir, we were leaving when a couple of Christians were so moved by what they saw and heard they stood and started to preach in public. After they were done, we were followed by an angry mob so the Bedford police escorted us to our van and stopped traffic to allow us to make an
exodus out of Bedford.
We continued preaching in Birmingham Liverpool and Nottingham, where we had police called on us everywhere we stopped. If you offended someone, they called the police. In Manchester we preached at a soccer game and I must say that sport is like a religion as the crowds were massive and again the local police gave us much favor with banner, megaphone and the content of our message.
Exhorting the crowds in Liverpool home of the ‘Beatles’
Preaching at a ‘Manchester United’ soccer game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JpnRdBKVMc&feature=c4-overview&list=UUfX6f9_LsAGmuX8UEprnwCg
Next flew into Amsterdam and did one day in Amsterdam, if we had stayed two days that city would have had enough of us and if we did a third day, Amsterdam would have had us arrested and deported.
After our flight from London we traveled into Amsterdam and unloaded our bags to preach the city. Just before noon we walked the ‘Red Light’ district with banners raised with American flags and megaphone preaching.
It appeared that no one had done this type of preaching as the locals appeared shocked that we walked the streets and alleys exposing sin and exhorting all to the standard of God.
Like the Red Sea that opened for Moses, people moved away as we walked the city and many of the girls who displayed themselves in the window pulled the curtains to cover themselves and even opened the door to take tracts.
After walking into the sinful section, we were moved to go back to the train station because of all the people walking there. I preached for about an hour and turned the megaphone over to Larry as he exhorted the crowds of Jesus the Christ.
Soon I was talking to a man who pulled out a badge and identified himself as an undercover officer. He told me that he heard we had walked around the Red Light section and that everything we were doing was illegal. He then asked if I were an American, I said yes. He then said that he is going to allow us to continue and he would be inside the train station watching us, because he said the megaphone was illegal and we could be cited by a uniform officer. He told me the cost of the ticket would be about $70 American dollars but if he sees a uniform officer around us that he would walk into the conversation and move him. He also told me of another artery in Amsterdam that we should preach at.
Preaching in Amsterdam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMItascGjLI&feature=c4-overview&list=UUfX6f9_LsAGmuX8UEprnwCg
Later that day we did go to this other location and as he said there were many people and we preached to everyone. The police were called in but seen the American flag and gave us much liberty.
Also that evening we went back to the ‘Red Light’ district at night and rewalked those streets and alleys with the same result.
The Holy Ghost moved people so we walked slowly down the streets proclaiming the standard of a holy God, conviction was everywhere as we took light into darkness.
Our last day in London we were met with big news, that a hurricane was hitting London the day we were leaving. The city was expected to get hit hard and this was to be the strongest hurricane in decades, so we preached at Piccadilly Circus.
The crowds gathered around us and we preached against particular sins and Islam. The police I am sure were called but at this point did not respond as they were familiar with who we were from previous calls so we had much liberty.
One Muslim walked up to me and said he never heard an American Christian before and liked the way I rebuked a homosexual, a drunk and an atheist. He said he taped the entire time I preached and he would review it again. He was not alone as many standing around were Muslim and agreed with us….until…well until we preached that Jesus was the Son of God.
One ex-Muslim from India stood with us and defended what we were saying and he was also used to help pass out tracts to those standing around. He later asked me for my American flag and said one day he would like to visit America.
Petar from Norway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWleMQmtoRE&feature=c4-overview&list=UUfX6f9_LsAGmuX8UEprnwCg
Pavel Czech Republic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3gmQRfmJmI&feature=c4-overview&list=UUfX6f9_LsAGmuX8UEprnwCg
We were all able to leave London and that hurricane did hit the morning after we left Heathrow.
At the end of our trip we preached in several cities in England, France and Holland. We were used to inspire locals to be bold, we passed out thousands of tracts, had great conversations and one confirmed salvation where the young man got on his knees a prayed to God and lastly we were not arrested.
Most of Christianity is nothing but a museum for old people, the Church is dying if not dead already as Muslims and Hindus have eaten that once powerful country alive. America has a need to send missionaries to England and pray that we do not become as the UK.
.jpg){kind=logo}
