Paul Washer

Paul is an inspiration to me. If you want to be greatly encouraged in the Great Commission watch this short testimony of God's faithfulness.

The Broken Glass

A couple of weeks ago Jim and Carlin were preaching at Santa Rosa Junior College. A young and rather 'buff' man was approaching them screaming "Shut up; Shut up; Shut up; Sh-..." On the last 'Shut up' the glass full of beverage he was holding fell out of his hands and smashed on the ground. He looked down in disbelief and then - quite embarrassed - skirted away without further ado.

As wicked King Nebuchadnezzar said long ago, "Those who walk in pride, He is able to humble" (Daniel 4:37).

Ministry Update

[This one's for you Marie]

Its been so long since I have updated this blog that I actually forgot what it was called and I had to go to my 'links' page on Facebook to get the site address.

Part of the reason for the infrequent updates is laziness. Another part is that I am always questioning my motives. The words of Tozer continue to haunt me: "Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice." Do I really maintain this blog for Christ's glory, or for my own? God knows.

Although the blogs have slowed down the preaching goes on. The Santa Rosa Jr. College devoted almost an entire newspaper to our ministry. We have been on several news stations and a friend just told me that our local newspaper reported that Santa Rosa will soon be clamping down and introducing new laws regarding public speech, most likely because of our ministry there. So much for the First Amendment.

Here is a story I want to tell you about: A young woman whom I will call 'Jane' was one of our most vehement opponents. I remember one time I was preaching and she stood right in front of me and stuck both of her middle fingers in my face. I remember looking in her eyes. They were so full of hate that I almost could not believe what I was seeing. If she could have ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped it to a pulp on the sidewalk she gladly would have.

For whatever reason the Lord put it on my heart to give her 20 dollars - just to bless her. So when we arrived at our spot the next week I saw her and realized that I didn't have any money on me. About a half hour later when Jim was preaching a man came up to me and said "God bless you guys" and handed me 20 dollars.

So I look up and who did I see but Jane. So I walked over to her and said, "Jane, you will never believe what happened to me. Someone gave me 20 dollars for preaching the gospel but I don't take money for preaching the gospel so I wanted to give it to you." Her jaw almost hit the ground.

About 10 minutes later I was back to preaching again and Jane and her friend walked by and made some evil comments like "Hey fool, thanks for the 20 bucks. We are going to get a big %$@#& hamburger with it."

What happened next was very interesting. For the rest of the night all her friends kept coming up to me saying things like, "Did you really give Jane 20 bucks?" They could not believe it - that a preacher was actually giving money away. Some of them were calling their friends and telling them, "Hey, remember those preachers? One of them gave Jane 20 bucks...can you believe that?"

Another very interesting thing happened. Jane softened towards me. Later that night she asked me for my e-mail and when I got home this is what I found:

"I don't believe in God anymore because of this: My Mom left me. My Dad left me. The only thing I had was my ex-boyfriend. I loved him. I actually loved him and I loved God. Then my ex tried to commit suicide multiple times. This led me down the wrong path and I tried to commit suicide as well. I always prayed for him. I read my Bible everyday. Then he turned on me. He told me I could go and die. So I tried, but it just left me broken and my heart literally died. I turned away from God. The only thing I had left was cutting. Yes I am a cutter and I can't open myself up to God. I have tried so hard to get Him back in my life but nothing happened so I gave up. The only reason I am telling you this is because I am so hurt and I just need someone to talk to...."

This is a very hurting young girl friends. Join me in praying for her...

Sebastopol Farmer's Market

This was a strange day...the demonic activity was off the charts. Sebastopol is a new age community par excellence. Yoga, organic everything, patroli oil pancakes and more curry than you can shake a stick at.

Jim and I started preaching and the place just came unglued. Two (significantly) older women began exposing themselves and shaking violently. The youth covered us with profanities. I think everyone that saw us preach had something wicked to say.

I did something interesting for this preach. I was well aware of this community's 'spirit' so I preached nothing but the love, love, love of God for the first 15 minutes. Not one single word about sin, judgement, hell or anything of that nature. Guess what? They railed me as much as if I was reading Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God right from the manuscript. Why cannot the modern church understand the most basic of all biblical doctrines: that man is naturally God's enemy and wants nothing of His grace and mercy until the Holy Spirit raises him from the dead through the New Birth.

A little later, a man who was a self proclaimed guru came over to me while I was preaching and started saying his mantra over me. I invited him to repent of his false religion. He lost all his inner peace then and started to put a hex on me. I told him it was pointless since I was indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He got so mad that he pulled my stool right out from under me and threw it away in the trash! Right in front of all his disciples too.

We preached for over an hour though and many chained souls heard the emancipation proclamation - the gospel of Jesus Christ!! Declare His Glory Among the Heathen!!!

Santa Rosa Street Market (8.11.10)

It has been a while since I have posted anything. We continue to preach the gospel all over Sonoma County but I find it very difficult keeping the blog updated.

We saw many breakthroughs on 8.11.10. My friend Jay and I got to the market early to pray for the Lord's help in the work before us. As we were praying a young man named Forrest came over to us and said, "I see that you two have Bibles and are praying and I really feel like I need God in my life."

So we prayed with him. He would comment later that when we prayed he felt something happen inside of him. Jay asked him if he knew the Lord or understood the gospel. Forrest replied no to both questions.

As Jay took him through the gospel Forrest began to weep profusely. We directed him to the local gospel mission. Later he returned and was actually rebuking those who were mocking us! He later prayed with Jay. We believe firmly that he came to Christ that night. He began witnessing to many of the people around him.

We saw two other wonderful breakthroughs as well. We have received untold trouble from a man named Ray who heckles and mocks us every week for the entire time we preach. God has blessed us with the grace to always return blessings for his cursing. On this day, to our astonishment, he approached us literally trembling and said, "I have called you guys fools all this time but now I realize that I am the fool." Pray for him! He is close to coming to the Lord.

Perhaps the only mocker worse that Ray is a young skateboarder whose name I do not know. He hurls profanities at us for hours on end. While Carlin was preaching he began to weep harder that I have seen anyone weep in a long time - and that in front of all his friends. The Holy Spirit was powerfully with us on this evening. The personal conversations were incredibly powerful as well.

San Francisco Gay Pride (6-27-2010)

We set up at our normal location on Market and Powell and by 9 in the morning the city was more packed than it would have been at noon on a normal Saturday. A street preachers dream, to be sure.

At 10:30 the parade started. These 'Gay Pride' parades are traditionally opened by the self described motorcycle organization called Dykes on Bikes http://www.dykesonbikes.org/index.php. They ride their Harley's up and down the route and work the crowd up into an uncontrolled frenzy. The noise is deafening. All at once half a million crazed supporters start screaming at the top of their lungs. The spirit of rebellion that erupted was simply indescribable. I saw at that moment, perhaps for the first time in my life, why the Lake of Fire is absolutely necessary: it is the only possible thing, other than Grace, which can finally subdue the rebel's wicked heart.

After a couple of hours we wanted to move closer to the parade. We found a wonderful intersection that had been closed off to cars and began preaching there. Almost instantly we had several hundred people around us. The police came over quickly and asked us to move to the designated free speech area. We explained that if we were not breaking any laws then we would like to stay where we were.

To our astonishment they set up a free speech area around us. There we were, right in the middle of the Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco, preaching the gospel to thousands as the police surrounded us. Even with the protection it was a difficult venue. At one point someone hurled a rather large ice-coffee at Jim and I. It missed us and hit about four police officers square in the face. They were pissed and had the guy in a cruiser within 30 seconds.

We preached from that spot for several hours. Finally, about an hour after the parade ended we had to move as they reopened the intersection for traffic.

Jim suggested that we jump up on the nearest street corner and start preaching again. Within a minute we had another several hundred people around us - this time though the police had gone bye-bye. Things got ugly quick and soon Jim and I were covered in water, spit, fruit juice and whatever else they could hurl at us. At last a police officer demanded that we move on so we went back to Market and Powell.

One of the coolest things I experienced that day was a sweet man named Gerald. He was probably in his mid-fifties and when I was preaching he came up to me and told me that he had come to the Lord at the SF Gay Pride Parade over ten years ago!!! I asked him how. He explained that the Holy Spirit just simply convicted him of his sin, opened his eyes and showed him Jesus. I gave him the biggest hug I knew how. What a merciful God!!

We heard estimates that there were nearly a million people out celebrating sin that day in San Francisco and yet only about 5 street preachers...would you pray about joining us next year?

Santa Rosa Street Market (7-7-10)

Santa Rosa closes off an entire street every Wednesday during the summer and thousands of people flock to eat, drink and be merry.

We initially went down to the free speech area but there was not a lot of foot traffic so we walked back up to the main intersection where generally everyone enters. When we got there we were not sure where we should set up so we stopped and prayed. We then noticed that people were forced to wait on the corner for several minutes before the light changed and they could cross, so we set up there.

I started preaching first - simply lifting up Christ, explaining to the people His infinite glory. Soon we had a crowd. A young man jumped up on a trash can and started contradicting everything I was saying so I jumped up on the one right beside him and preached even louder. I noticed at the last second someone running behind me and towards me and I knew that they were going to take a shot at me so I was able to sort of jump right as he made contact and landed safely. Praise God!

I jumped right back on my stool and began preaching again. Soon we had about a hundred people around us. Most of them were youth - extremely rebellious youth. Many of them boasted about being either homosexual or bisexual and were clearly all soundly bound in their lives of sin.

I noticed that as some of them railed us they were actually crying indicating some profound conflict going on within them. One objected, "you have made three of my friends cry." I assured them that if they run to Jesus He would wash all their tears away in so many words.

When Jim was preaching there was a young man named Edgardo behind him visibly distraught. I asked him what was wrong - the sum of it was he came under conviction. I prayed for him and trust that something profound had happened in his life just then.

At the peak there was probably 200 people around us. I noticed one woman standing in the middle of the crowd crying as I was preaching. Later she introduced herself. She said that she has two grandchildren who were so lost - just like the kids we were preaching to. She was so sad that they were generally rejecting the message of God's grace, etc.

This was one of the most glorious times preaching the gospel that I have ever had.

**Attention: If you live in the Santa Rosa area and you have a burden for youth please pray about coming out. There are hundreds of very troubled kids out there and they need Christ. As Jim and I preach there are literally dozens of one-on-one opportunities to explain the gospel to these precious souls.***

Please pray for this ministry in particular - the spiritual warfare at this street market was more intense then I have ever seen. Examples of spiritual warfare included:

1) One 'local church leader' going around to the kids contradicting most of what we said.

2) Massive opposition form the homosexuals in the community.

3) Physical confrontations.

4) Hundreds of youth bound by Satan.

5) The leader of the Street Fair trying to run us off (even in the free speech area).

6) A young man claiming that we were not really from God because were we not healing anyone. This man some how found a big piece of cardboard and wrote in huge letters - HEALING MINISTRY. He was then praying for people to get healed - for example, one young man in a wheel chair. I could never figure out if he was serious or not but it was most certainly demonic.

Another interesting note - although many of the youth were 'outraged' at us, almost everyone of them stayed and listened for the full 2 hours!! Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!