Nov 29 2008
Speaking Out
While I was out in line for Black Friday I witnessed something that kept me thinking for the past few days. I was crazy enough to sleep in line on Thanksgiving evening and around 2am a guy came out and started preaching the gospel to those in line. This would have been fine except he wasn’t just talking he was yelling so everyone could here him, even those trying to sleep. Sleep, yes this may sound strange but waiting in line overnight for 12 hours or more and people had tents and sleeping bags and were actually trying to sleep.
What the man said was all true information about the Gospel of Jesus and our need for salvation. I’m not sure that yelling this at 2am while people were trying to sleep was the best option though.
This man did have the attention of a captive audience who wasn’t going anywhere and while right now is always the best time to get saved because you never know when you’re going to die I’m still not sure that was the best idea. It may have been God’s will for this happen so that some might be saved so I can’t second guess God and I can’t say this was definitely wrong. I can say in my opinion I think he may have turned more people off to the Gospel and so talking so loudly to people at 2am may not have been the best thing to do.
He was brave because he did receive many threats and it seemed he was willing to accept those threats for the sake of a good cause. As I said he was brave and he was also willing to risk being talked down to and yelled at and even threatened for what he thought was right. There should be more people willing to do this.
The really disturbing thing however was how quickly and ugly the responses came from those in line. People started turning on their car alarms to blast him out and were mocking him. One man actually went in his car and put on a sumo wrestler costume and was going to tackle him. The police were called to insure everyone’s safety. I’m sure this wasn’t even close to how bad it could have been, but it was bad enough.
3 Responses to “Speaking Out”
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Car alarms. Priceless.
There was a woman when I worked at Walmart who would come in and sneak up on people and say something like “Jesus loves you” and just move on. She’s say it lightly in peoples ears. There were a couple of times she scared me because she’d get so close and personal and then just leave. I was not sure how to take it; if she was crazy or really trying to send a good message. Other people would often look angry at her as she walked away or they’d give me a look like I shouldn’t let her do that. Unfortunately it will only get worse as time goes on. =(
I think we’re missing the bigger question here is why are people sleeping in line to get in a store only to save a few bucks? Who’s crazy now?