Fall for Greenville - Saturday Night

Pastor McCurley and I went downtown from about 7:30pm Saturday night until about 9:30. This was the busiest time of the festival. We found a spot next to a curb and Pastor McCurley began to preach on the verse that says, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered."




Even though most people walk by, they know what we are doing, as is sometimes evidenced by the comments they make. There was quite a diverse crowd, people from many walks of life that would never step foot in a church. As many of them would never otherwise hear the Word of God, God brought it to them on the street.

A fella came up to us and it turns out that he is an elder at Downtown Presbyterian (PCA). We talked to him for a while; he was surprised to hear us preach because we were preaching from Romans and we didn't sound Arminian. He was encouraging to talk to.

I began preaching from 1 Tim. 1:15, that, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." At one point a woman in the crowd said "there are many ways; that is not the only way." As she walked by I preached in her direction that Christ said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me." She wasn't real happy and kept walking. People took notice of it.



Later, an older fella came up to me, put his hand on my arm, paused, and said real kindly, "This is not the place," and kept walking. I preached as he was walking away that this is exactly the place for sinners to be reconciled to God. He came back put his hand on me gently again, and said very kindly, "no one is a sinner." I preached in his direction as he walked off that the Bible says that none are righteous and he who says he has no sin is a liar. People heard the interchange, and it is through things like this that light is clearly distinguished from darkness. One is forced with the alternative to believe what the Bible says, or what what others say.

Later as the festivities were ending, we went down the road and preached as people were leaving.

A girl came up to us with some friends. She was going on and on how she knew she was going to heaven because she believed in Jesus, and her daddy, a preacher, had always told her that as long as we believe in Jesus, no matter how we live, we'll go to heaven. It turns out that she was drunk, said that she gets drunk all the time and smokes weed, every day, the guy she was with (who goes to church and reads his Bible) is a homosexual, and her father had a cocaine addiction (as a pastor), but is recovering. Pastor McCurley told her that 1 Corinthians 6:9,10 says that drunkards and homosexuals go to hell. She insisted that she believes in Jesus and therefore is going to heaven, because her dad told her that. Pastor McCurley, the following day on the Lord's Day, used her as an illustration in his sermon of someone having false assurance of salvation.