Evangelizing on Derby Eve

Louisville is hopping at this time every year with Thoroughbred racing, Derby hats, celebrities, and parties. Bardstown Road is no exception and I had the honor of going 'outside the camp' to reach the lost with the gospel on Derby Eve. I was very encouraged to link up with some faithful brothers in Christ who are just as zealous about preaching the gospel as I am. The weather was great and there was a buzz in the air as soon as I arrived.

Over a four hour period I passed out hundreds of gospel tracts and shared the gospel with more people than I can remember. This was a special night because I had one great conversation about God & the gospel after another. I encountered a mixture of some very hard hearts and some very soft hearts that God seem to prick as I was speaking to them.

Hard Hearts
I hadn't been out on Bardstown Rd. in a while so I kind of forgot how dark it was spiritually. While one of our guys was open air preaching multiple people were cursing at him & blaspheming God's name. The police showed up & tried to shut us down but we weren't on private property so we were able to continue preaching. When my friend Jerry was preaching a kid came up and mooned him! We were in front of Ear-x-tacy so lets just say we were doing our part to 'keep Louisville weird.' I even talked with a young man who claimed to be a Wiccan & he had died 3 times already. He was very obstinate & claimed he didn't care about God & was going to live the way he wanted to live & sin all he wants. I was able to give him a tract so I pray that will be a gospel seed planted for another to water soon.

Convicted Hearts
There were so many great conversations I had but I will highlight one specifically. As the night went on me, John, Danny, & Jerry decided to walk to a cafe a little further down the road to open air preach and continue witnessing. But when we arrived there was a band playing outdoors. It didn't matter because God was taking us to another spot that was a harvest field. By a dark bus stop next to a McDonald's we begin to have great conversations with people & they were very receptive to the gospel.

I witnessed to a group of 5 teens (first to the 3 guys & then to the two girls). I asked them, "If you died tonight & stood before God & He asked you 'why should I let you into heaven?' what would you say." They all told me about how good they have tried to be in life & that should get them in heaven. So I took them through some of the 10 Commandments to see if they were good in God's eyes since that is who they must answer to. As I was doing this they admitted they had lied, stolen, lusted, etc. you could literally see the conviction on their face. A couple of them looked as if they were about to cry! Once I explained that our holy God will punish all sin by sending the guilty to hell & that would be the fair & right thing for God to do they were stunned. They were ready for the good news that God doesn't leave us in our sins but provides 'the way, the truth, & the life' to heaven(Jesus Christ).

I explained that Jesus didn't die on the cross for his sins because he was perfect. I looked in the eyes of these kids and ask them, "Whose sins did Jesus die for if he wasn't dying for his sins?" They nodded their heads and said, "For our sins." After I finished speaking with them they said, "I want to get right with God right now!" This was amazing because I've never had someone say this to me so I asked them if they wanted to pray. I explained that praying doesn't guarantee they are saved because Jesus said 'the one who does the will of my Father' & 'the one who preserves until the end will be saved.' But right there on the street corner we prayed and they asked Christ to cleanse them of their sins. They said that they attended a church so I told them to tell their pastor what had happened & I encouraged them to begin reading the book of John in their Bible & praying for God to make them more like Christ.