Grace Trumps Perversion in Miami
Thursday, February 25th, 2010Everything about the Super Bow
l festivities was nothing short of wild. The Saints and the Colts would compete in one of the most watched Super Bowls of all time. My Super Bowl three-day weekend was spent with like-minded brothers in Christ. Two days were spent all day long, from early in the morning to around ten o’clock at night, on Miami Beach, not as a tourist, but evangelizing. Then on game day we were out even earlier doing street evangelism. Talk about rewarding! It is beyond description!
The atmosphere on Ocean Drive just off the beach can only be described as rowdy, undisciplined, unruly or riotous. I think the main reason for this was that approximately 80% of those there were Saints fans–the sin factor was up more than usual if you know anything about New Orleans, the Saints and Mardi Gras then you would understand the height of the sin factor that I am endeavoring to portray for you. Getting in and out of the “party” area required a lot of patience due to the incredibly thick traffic. Once our vehicles were able to arrive, it was time to pull out the tracts, New Testaments, the Bibles, our Bibles, and the amps. The days were long. Our bodies were weary, but our spirits were joyous and extremely grateful for the encounters the Lord was bringing our way.
Throughout the time down in Miami I was privileged to meet and speak with numerous people, but I will just briefly share four conversations with you. They were with Gory, Parish, Patty, and Ronnie. 
Gory, was a young man that had a mouth full of gold teeth. I guess that’s normal for the younger set. I explained the Gospel to Gory. At the end of our time I asked if I could pray for him. He agreed. We prayed! Our time of prayer was right there in the thick of all that bare skin, drunkenness, cussing, and whatever you could imagine. Prayer knows no boundaries!
Parish was a police officer that guarded the Tide (soap) demonstration (huge area). As we conversed he reflected on when he, a black man, had not been allowed onto Miami Beach. He too, amidst all that was going on listened to the whole Gospel presentation.
Then there was Patty a loner. She was a young woman that could have graced the cover of any Vogue or Cosmopolitan magazine. She had a sharp mind, yet she was a wanderer, hitch hiker, one that would rather remain as invisible as possible. She roamed about with her dog and a beaten up guitar.
As we were talking, I could tell by the scars etched in her face that she had been beaten a few times. In the course of the conversation she told me she had been raped by a pastor, a pastor that her parents trusted. The rapist pastor would only get a few years in prison and still claim to be a “Christian”, and this would cause distrust in people like me. Now here I come along and proclaim the Good News of the Gospel to this one who has been beaten and raped by someone who proclaimed the same thing. I could have given up and just left her with a tract and claimed Ezekiel 33:9. NO WAY! Would I actually go to Miami to proclaim the Gospel just to leave this woman with a tract? I could not live with myself, especially knowing I had, on this particular day, been provided a day Christ set aside for a time like this. I had as much time as I needed to exegete some of the text for her.
I let Patty talk for awhile. I wanted her to know I actually cared and would listen. I told her that before I left I had to make absolutely sure she understood the TRUE GOSPEL, not a false, self-serving gospel from the mouth of a lying rapist. I began by asking her if God were to take her life that night would she be ready. Her answer was, “I don’t know for sure, but I think I am.” Interesting I thought. I jumped to 1 John 5 where God tells us that we may KNOW we have eternal life. I went through the Law so it would convict her of sin (Romans 7:7). I explained why God must punish sinners. When I quoted Hebrews 4:12 and related what joints and marrow were, she smiled and said, “I know what it is, I hunt.” (She hunts with a bow.) I explained that there was no goodness within her that God would accept. All her greatest achievements in anything good would be a stench to a Holy God. Before I moved on to the Cross (Grace), I made it clear to her that she had to understand her sins would never be cleansed by anything she could do. She had to have righteousness from someone else. (An alien righteousness).
Patty listened intently as I explained clearly the Cross (Grace) and of Christ who suffered and died at the hands of men. How He endured suffering, humility, loneliness, pain, and agony. But, all His suffering in our eyes was as nothing compared to what His Father did to His Son. Isaiah 53:10, “But the LORD was please to crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering. ..” Now because God was satisfied to crush His Son, and the wrath we deserved was canceled forever for those that repent, turn to Christ as Lord and Savior. Turn from your sin and turn to Christ. He will change your blindness to sight, your deafness to hearing, and your heart of stone to a heart of flesh so you will have a new ability to please Him. God justifies the ungodly. He would look on you as though you had never sinned (whether in the past, now in the present, or in the future) and He would look on His Son as though He became sin (even though He never sinned). At this point, He makes you a new creation (1 Corinthians 5:17).
This is just a condensed version of at least an hour’s conversation on the Gospel alone without the other things I mentioned. At this point I asked her one more time if she died that night if she thought she would go to heaven? Would she be able to stand before a holy God? She came back with the same reply (a bit more certain than the first time), “I think I am.” I replied, “Okay, only the Lord and you know what is in your heart.” I pulled out a New Testament and put my wife’s and my name in it with our phone number. She was thankful.
Patty began getting nervous as the sun would soon be getting ready to set. She explained she needed to find a place to sleep. She turned down our offering of finding her shelter insisting she would be fine and thanked me again. Later that evening, Jose (one of the men on my evangelism team) and I were on Washington Avenue, the street parallel with Ocean Drive, when we saw Patty again. I asked if she found a place to sleep. She pointed to a little patio area between two buildings where she would be hidden until the morning.
Finally, on Super Bowl game day there was Ronnie, a limo driver. He just happened to be hungry at the same time that I was hungry. I ordered a Godfather’s mini-pizza (which happened to be in a gas station), and then turned to look for a table to find that all were occupied. I asked him if I could sit at his table. Of course, because God ordained it, Ronnie said, yes. He was from Canada. He spoke French and claimed to be an atheist. As we conversed, I informed him why I was in Miami, to preach and to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He asked me who Jesus Christ was. I told him that was simple. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Ronnie, in his raspy, hard core voice replied mockingly, “Son of God, eah! Son of God, Son of God, that’s all you say is the Son of God.” I responded, “The Bible very clearly says that only Jesus is the Son of God, and that Jesus is God and only God forgives sin.” By the end of our 30 minute conversation, we were friends. He even smiled at me. Not only friends, but he agreed to read the book of 1 John in the Bible that I gave him. I opened it up to 1 John and showed him three and a half pages. I said, “Look you could read this in 15 minutes.” He said, “Three pages, that’s all? Yes, it is simple, huh?” Furthermore, I pointed out and said, “There is more in these three pages than I could tell you in a life time!” (Big smile) Again, I could have given Ronnie a tract and claimed Ezekiel 33. No way, no way, no, no, no way! Back up for one minute and think through this. Order food, get the food, no place to sit, I sit with Ronnie an atheist who sits with a proclaimer of the Gospel. Coincidence? No way! God wanted Ronnie to go home with His very words to read it for himself. Think about that for a minute. An atheist holding a Bible because I feared God more than man! I have more true joy in doing this than anything else! No one will ever talk me out of doing this!
Once the Super Bowl started we packed up our evangelism gear and headed back to base camp. Once at camp we packed up our belongings, loaded up the van and made our trek back toward the French Quarter in Louisiana to confront more sinners. God is so incredibly good! I have many reflections of sadness at times and yet indescribable joy from our Miami trip! I know my Lord does much better than I to convert a sinner to His saving faith. God is indeed faithful.
One week has past and this past Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were filled with activities here in Dallas for the All Star Basketball game. On Sunday it was extremely cold–I do mean, frigidly cold. The only question you need to ask yourself while at home, nice and toasty warm is this, “Will sinners be out there?” If the answer is yes, then the evangelist should be out there to meet them because hell is not cold! To make it short for a testimony, I share this sure fire moment. On the corner of a busy intersection of foot traffic and auto traffic I was reading Isaiah 40 aloud. I was getting all kinds of reaction from “Idiot” to “Preach it brother!” This one man of great stature (a modern day Goliath) walked up to me. I looked up because I could not ignore him. I looked into his eyes and knew he was not to be feared for there was kindness in his eyes. I greeted him with a hearty, “Howdy!” He said that he really appreciated that I was reading from the Scriptures and to keep it up. He shook my hand and gave me a “God bless you” and went on into the game.
I praise my Lord for allowing me to do the work He set up for His chosen. Many new friends were made that were
Pit Stop in Louisiana
strangers to start. I guess that’s real friendship evangelism.
