Revival Time
The word “revival” refers to a renewed spiritual interest among Christians, caused by a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit. A true revival involves repentance from sin and spiritual indifference by multitudes of Christians. A true revival in the church will always result in an intense desire in Christians to witness for Jesus and an intense conviction of sin in unbelievers. Past revivals have resulted in the salvation of so many people that whole cities were transformed. The pattern for true revival is set forth in 2 Chron. 7:14: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Our nation has not had a true revival in many years. But there have been revivals and spiritual awakenings in other places, including China, Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and the former Soviet Union. Ed Silvoso was involved in a revival in Argentina before moving to San Jose, CA. According to Silvoso, many Christians in Argentina have been praying specifically for San Francisco, that God would send revival to this city.
At the Vineyard church, where we will be holding our SOS outreach, 100 – 500 Christians from different churches have been meeting seven nights a week for the past month to pray for one another. These meetings have been lasting late into the night. Ed Silvoso will be speaking at a city-wide spiritual warfare conference at the Vineyard on June 10-11, the week before SOS. At this writing, I do not believe that we are in the midst of revival. But I do ask that you pray that God would move mightily in this city and bring revival to His people. God, cause us to humble ourselves and pray, to seek your face, and to turn from our wicked ways. And give us a burning desire to reach the multitudes of lost people around us with Your glorious Gospel!
Letters to the Editor
One of the easiest ways to bring the gospel to your city is by writing a “Letter to the Editor” of your newspaper. As you read the paper, you will sometimes find articles that speak about Christian issues, usually from a biased viewpoint. This gives you an opportunity to give a Biblical view of the subject, use scriptures, and present some part of the gospel message at the same time. It only takes an hour or two to write and edit the letter. For the price of a postage stamp you can potentially reach thousands of people — many of whom cannot be reached by other means.
When writing your letter, remember that your goal is to present as much of the gospel as possible, not to express your political views. Look for an article that gives you the best opportunity to do this. Keep your letter short and spend some time editing it so it is clear.
I have only written a few “Letters to the Editor,” but most of them have been printed — in the SF Chronicle, Examiner, and most recently in the Oakland Tribune. On Easter Sunday I read two articles with a strong anti-Christian bias on the front page. So I wrote a letter that got printed in the Tribune and four other local papers run by the same publisher. In this letter, I was able to use two scriptures that convey Jesus’ teachings on Hell.
Anti-Christian message in story
I was outraged by the anti-Christian comment that concluded your front-page article in the April 3 paper headlined, “Pupils Ponder Easter Mystery.” What I am referring to is the statement that “A murderer and a rapist is a white-winged angel compared to a parent who would teach hell and damnation to a child.”
Bible-believing Christians have always taught about hell and damnation to their children. Your paper insulted millions of Christians on their most holy day by printing that statement unchallenged.
Then you followed it with an article that called religion a “mental illness…a form of psychosis.” Apparently Justice Holmes (or whoever really made that comment) thought that Christians ought to be imprisoned or executed like murderers and rapists for teaching the Bible to their children.
In Luke chapter 12, Jesus said, “Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell.” In Luke chapter 16, He told a story about an evil rich man and a righteous beggar named Lazarus. The rich man died, went to hell, and begged Lazarus to cool his tongue from the fiery torment. He also asked Lazarus to warn his five brothers, lest they come to this place of torment.
Nobody is forcing you to believe in hell. But if you choose not to, one day you may find yourself in the position of that rich man. If more parents would warn their children about hell, there would be a lot fewer souls in hell, and a lot fewer murderers and rapists on our streets.
Larry Rosenbaum, Oakland
Ministry News
In the past two newsletters, I told you about the problems we are having getting permits at the Powell St. BART station. The San Francisco Real Estate Department is proceeding with plans to lease the area to a coffee concession. According to an article on April 21 in the SF Chronicle, at least one coffee vendor plans to put in a bid for the area. The deadline is June 11. We have contacted several lawyers and Christian legal groups, but at this point it doesn’t seem we will be able to challenge the matter in court.
Today, the woman who gives permits at Powell St. said she will not give us the permits I requested in June because she received a letter of complaint from the “Cable Car Turnaround Association.” We can still get permits at other parks, but they do not have nearly as many people in them. And we may soon find it hard to get permits at these parks as well, as people start complaining about the gospel preaching. Please pray that God will once again open up Powell St. for outdoor rallies and that we will continue to be able to get permits at the other parks at a price we can afford.
During the months of April and May, we have scheduled outreaches at Powell St. almost every Saturday and Sunday afternoon from 3-6 PM. While a few people have complained, most of those who hang out in the area like us. We were told that the area is now known as “Jesus Park.” One man named David caused us some problems. He was almost always drunk and would often threaten us and grab our tracts. On April 24, he approached me and apologized for his behavior. He said he had dedicated his life to Christ and was now attending Good News Church!
I first met David B. (a different David) when he was 16 — twenty-one years ago. He had just received Christ, but turned away because of rebellion and youthful lusts. He has been backslidden for 18 years, living in San Francisco. I saw him from time to time and encouraged him to get right with God. He stayed at our house occasionally and came to church, but he never repented. A few weeks ago, I spoke with him at Powell St. and he seemed much more serious about following the Lord. I took him home and got him into a discipleship program called Love a Child Ministries in Pittsburg. He has been there over three weeks now. Please pray for David, that he will grow strong spiritually. Please pray also for those who have written us in response to tracts this past month: Claude, Ricky, and Epifanio (San Francisco), Jim (San Leandro), and Edward (Pittsburg).
Last weekend, I went to San Diego to speak at Evangelism 94, an evangelism conference sponsored by the San Diego Coalition of Evangelists and Street Ministries. I was encouraged to see how this coalition is bringing together Christians who are interested in evangelism. They hope to have a city-wide outreach in San Diego like our SOS outreach.
Ministry Needs
Every time we do an outdoor outreach we must load a borrowed sound system into our ministry van and take it to the outreach. The engine in the van has serious problems, and each time we drive it, we do not know if it will make it to the outreach. We can no longer use the van to transport workers on Friday nights. Perhaps one of you has a van in good mechanical condition you could donate to us or sell inexpensively. Or perhaps you could help us purchase a van.
Our Tape of the Month is “Overcoming Fear in Evangelism” by Bill Henderson. Bill is Director of “Word on the Streets Ministries” in San Diego. He has ministered on the streets of this nation and around the world. He recently preached to a crowd of 10,000 at a bull ring in Mexico at which 3000 responded to an altar call. This is the teaching he gave at the San Diego Evangelism Conference. In this tape, he tells some amazing stories, including one in which God used him and his son to pray for a boy in a wheel chair with a withered hand and foot. As they prayed, the hand and foot grew out and the boy stood up and walked!
Don’t miss this year’s SOS-San Francisco outreach, June 17-25 and the March for Jesus on Sat. June 25 (see the enclosed bulletin insert for details). We have special outreaches in Dolores es Park, Union Square, Embarcadero Plaza and Civic Center. We have scheduled outreaches with Chuck Girard, King’s Kids–Honolulu, and worship groups from New Hope Christian Fellowship (Sacramento), Evangel Christian Fellowship (San Jose), West Heights Christian Church (Los Gatos), and Bethel Church (San Francisco).
As I said last month, the most important thing is that Jesus Christ will be there. But the question is, will you be there? Will you say as Isaiah did, “Here am I. Send me.”? If you can’t come the entire week, try to join us for at least one day of the outreach. If you don’t have the registration money, come anyway. We’ll cover the cost for you. Pray that the Spirit of God will move mightily upon the people of San Francisco during this week. I believe that this will be a special outreach, one that will represent a key battle in the war to take San Francisco for Jesus Christ.
Yours in His love,
Larry Rosenbaum
