Doing the Right Thing
Dear Christian friends,
Every Wednesday about six of us preach on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, near the University of California campus. Last Wednesday, we decided to split into two teams. Three of us preached on Telegraph and Haste with an amplifier, while the other three were preaching on the campus, bare throat. When I started preaching on Haste St., we had some opposition. Several people came up to us and yelled in our faces, pulling on our microphone and grabbing our sign. One man grabbed our microphone and tore the cord in half. This has happened many times, and we have learned to carry a spare microphone.
The rest of the day was relatively peaceful. By the end of the afternoon we began to have some excellent conversations. A backslidden Christian who was addicted to drugs came up to me asking for prayer. A short time later I spoke with a group of teenagers with “punk” hairstyles. As we were ready to leave, two young men approached me. Both told me they had recently come to the Lord and were living on the streets and in shelters. I spoke with them for a while and ended up bringing one to our house. The next day I took him to a Christian discipleship program.
On March 17, about thirty Christians joined us for a worship rally at the Powell St. BART station featuring Forever Grateful. Hundreds of people were drawn by the worship. Many stood around and listened for an hour or more. We gave out about 100 New Testaments and thousands of tracts. By the end of the afternoon, God’s Spirit came upon the area in a special way as about thirty people responded to an altar call, receiving prayer for salvation and other needs.
In March, we also witnessed in the Tenderloin, Haight St., Fisherman’s Wharf, Union Square, and Telegraph Ave. (Berkeley). One Friday night, we went to the Cow Palace to witness at an Aerosmith rock concert. We preached to about 5000 young people, gave out hundreds of tracts and had many good conversations. Another Friday night, we went to Castro Street. The movie “The Ten Commandments” was playing at the Castro Theater and we gave out tracts to several hundred people as they left the movie. The tract we gave out explained how we had all broken the ten commandments, and needed to come to Jesus for forgiveness.
SOS-San Francisco
August 17-25
Recently, our SOS Ministries Board of Directors met and prayed about the direction God is leading us for this year’s SOS-San Francisco outreach. We felt that God was giving us a theme for this year’s outreach: “End Times Evangelism.” We are indeed living in amazing times, with rapid, dramatic events changing the world every day. We need to understand how these events fit in with Bible prophesy and also learn how to communicate the gospel effectively to people in the 1990’s. During this year’s SOS outreach, we will be giving a series of teachings on this subject. This is the final decade of this millenium, and possibly the final decade of all time, and I am convinced that God is sending forth His servants to bring in one final harvest before He returns. Ask God if He would have you join us for this outreach. Also, pray for us as we prepare for SOS-San Francisco, that God will guide us and provide all our needs.
May Outreaches
We have scheduled two special outreaches on Saturday May 5 and 19. On May 5, the Liberators from San Francisco Christian Center will be with us. On May 19, Forever Grateful will again be leading us in a worship rally. The Powell St. BART station is the busiest location in the city, with about 300,000 people passing through on an average day. We have found that these outreaches, featuring anointed worship music with brief messages between the songs, is a very effective means of ministering to thousands of people in a single afternoon. By the end of the afternoon, almost all of our workers find themselves in conversations with interested people. With more workers, we could speak with more people and provide better counseling for those who respond to altar calls. Both rallies are from 2:30-6 PM at the Powell St. BART station, Market and Powell St., in San Francisco. Please try to arrive promptly at 2:30 PM so we can gather for prayer before the outreach.
Legal Update
After months of waiting, I can finally give you some news on our ongoing legal problems in Berkeley. Two of us had been arrested in Berkeley for preaching. One of the officers claimed we had pushed him, although we had not touched him, and we were charged with battery. The district attorney has agreed not to prosecute if we are not arrested again in Berkeley by March, 1991. Even though the charges against us were false, it would have been hard to prove in court. So this agreement may well save us a week in court defending ourselves against a case we could have lost.
In an attempt to stop the arrests, we filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city. Since that time, the attitude of the police toward us has changed dramatically and they have been extremely nice to us. The hostile officer who arrested us has been kept away from us. We are still trying to mediate a settlement to the lawsuit with the city, which has agreed to pay the costs of mediation.
The latest problem we have had is from the permit department. Last week one of their agents told us that one of our workers could not preach over the amplifier no matter how low the volume was turned, because his voice is too loud! We’re not sure where this will lead, but we ask you to pray that we will continue to be able to preach in Berkeley, and for a successful mediation to the lawsuit so we can avoid a lengthy, expensive court battle. Please pray for our lawyer Julia Spain that God would give her wisdom and provide for her needs.
Some Final Thoughts
This past month I taught a workshop on “urban missions” at the New Hope Missions Conference in Sacramento. As I was thinking about the tremendous response to the gospel in many parts of the world and of the many people who have never heard the gospel, I wondered about whether we should continue to preach the gospel in America. “Most Americans have heard and rejected the gospel. Why not let them go to Hell, if that is what they want?” I thought.
At the time, I was beginning to read the book of Jeremiah. God was speaking of the nation Israel, which had known His law, but turned away to idols. The amazing thing was that God was still calling out to the people of Israel, pleading with them to turn back to Him. He sent Jeremiah to tell Israel, “Return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you; for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever” (Jer. 3:12). As I read these words, I thought of America, how our nation has known of God and His ways, but has turned away. Yet, God’s desire is to send His messengers to plead with the people of this nation to turn back to God. Even when God brought judgment on Israel, His purpose was to bring the people to repentance.
I believe very strongly in world missions. I believe that God is calling many believers to bring the gospel to other nations. At the same time, for those of us who stay in the U.S., our job is not to decide that people here have had enough chances to hear the gospel, but to continue to extend God’s mercy to the people around us.
Again, I want to thank you for your prayers and financial support for this ministry, as we continue to reach out with God’s love to the people of San Francisco and the Bay Area. Please remember our ongoing expenses, which are particularly great this time of year as we are printing 250,000 tracts and other literature for SOS-San Francisco. Also, we still need some help with our office work and have openings in our evangelism house. Shannon, who was saved at the January 20 outreach, has moved in with a Christian family a mile from us and is growing in the Lord.
Our Tape of the Month is The Law is Our Schoolmaster by Ray Comfort. Ray is the author of a number of books, including Hell’s Best Kept Secret and, most recently, Someone Left the Cake Out in the Rain, about his experiences preaching and ministering to the homeless in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. This teaching was given at last summer’s SOS-San Francisco outreach, about the proper use of God’s law to let people know their sinful condition, so they can appreciate their need for forgiveness. We have found this teaching invaluable in our preaching and personal witnessing, and have been incorporating it in our new gospel tracts.
Yours in His love,
Larry Rosenbaum
