The obvious answer is NO! Absolutely NOT! Because there is no such thing as a real 3 and a quarter dollar bill.

Dave wrote:
Tracking down laws regarding street preaching and I the first site that popped up was "how to street preach and stay outta jail" I think this was in regards to the US. :-)
Anyhow it all boils down to local by-laws, in Australia there is as best as I can determine atm no law governing free speech (no provisions ) but due too discrimination laws it (street witnessing ,preaching bad choice of word on my behalf ) is legal , as I shouldn't be discriminated against because of my views on religion.
Well I'll see what transpires.

Just a brief word about police if I may.
Seek as much as possible to build a good as repectful relationship with them as possible.

When they have come up to me. I stop my preaching and ask them, 'How can I help you?' and then be honestly as cooperative as possible when they ask me things like:

What is your name?
Where are you from, where do you live?
Are you a member of a local church??

Dave wrote:
John , mike I'm going to .this week. Witness in public anyway

Trusting in God here, we will pray for you AND the people God leads you to speak to in church this morning

If I might suggest
prayerfully look up open air preaching on YouTube. There will be all sorts of types both good and bad and from them let the Lord cull from them and impress on you, what kind of attitude, content, location, interaction with people, loudness of voice you can in good conscience before Him be about (and especially trust Romans 8:28 to be so real for the child of God, because none of us does open air perfectly and we don't have to when God uses our efforts to serve Him)

Dave wrote:
Okay,
Am so ashamed of my past still.
But Thankyou John and mike,I was so embarrassed to share that but I must.be honest.
The only street preaching I've seen its ray comfot on DVD and he was pretty good from what I saw though

But know this according to Hebrews 2 the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is not ashamed to call you His brother

Here is an example of Paul Washer (famous for Shocking Youth Message) preaching open air

Dave wrote:
I haven't no, I really feel a desire
Do jjust that lately, funny you asked actually brother as it has been a regular discussion amongst our fellowship.
I got a huge problem though John , ah I'm far from blameless and

To me your humble thankful from the heart testimony to the Truth of God's word, is a better "preaching" of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ than the sophisticated intellecutal religius schlorship coming out of far too many modern day seminaries

IMHO and encouragement (trusting God is dealing with you in this) such a "message" of the reality and willingness of God to save sinners like us, is exactly what the Holy Ghost can use to speak to the hearts and minds of lost men and women to convict them Jesus is There and will be pleased to save them too.

Christopher000 wrote:
I know there are a lot of hoaxters in this age of photoshop and video manipulation, but even NASA has released raw footage of the unexplained, unidentified objects entering our airspace in the 50's, outrunning military jets and making right angle turns to evade

Perhaps you have listened to the late Dr. Walter Martin on the subject

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IskxyEKsAqw

UFOs - Friend, Foe, or Fantasy - A Christian Perspective

nat wrote:
We do need the power of the holy spirit to be effective witnesses. It's so important especially now.

I was speaking to a friend who read a testimony of an ex witch and she shared how they would send people in infiltrate church and seduce the elders.they would fake their spiritual gifts and encourage others to do the same. So that it was about the look not what was inside. And so you get an empty hypocritical shell of Christianity within the church and it would fall apart as it is not based on Christ and Christ is not the Centre.
Let us always keep Christ on the throne in our hearts!

nat has touched on something enormously important; spiritual gifts can be counterfeited / imitated

And the counterfeits can be used by Satan to infiltrate churches and ruin them from the inside

If memory serves me there is a propaganda piece/book, 'They Speak With Other Tongues' to accept RCs as genuine Christians (which they are NOT) because they spoke in tongues (with increased devotion to 'mary' and things Catholic)

And it is not just tongues that Satan abuses to slide corruption in On PURPOSE into church

seen it right off wrote:
There is no system in place to disciple Baptist churches.

Baptist should look into the Presbyterian form of government, of which I am now ????.

imho church governments fail because men don't fear God. We need the ministry of Prophets in our churches once again. I do not mean "fortune tellers" but men on fire for God like OT Prophets who continually proclaimed the Law of God to the people, urged men to obey God and warned of the consequences if they didn't

Think about it, many a man will be comfortable with this or that form of church government (even ones that become tyrannical)

but how many of us honestly want the blistering ministry of the genuine prophet of God who exposes our own hypocrisy and enmity against God in our attitudes, values and behavior and gets us off our self-righteous fences (excuses / comforts) to where we either repent and humbly return to a real obedience to God in our faith (ex real praying, real soul winning, real standing up and contending for the faith)?

Dorcas wrote:
Michael Hranek wrote:
...neither delight they will perish in hell...
What true Christian would wish that?
:shake head:

Really wrote:
I was simply looking for a verse where Paul says what you say he says.

Got an errand to run
Sorry, I missunderstood your question
For me and what I try to encourage others in is that the context will help / show us what the words me far better than tearing them apart with definitions that fit our feelings (or prejudices)
thanks

Frank wrote:
Now since you praised her

For me I feel there is a difference between weakness (and ignorance) and out and out wilfull knowledgeable evil and determined wickedness AND at the present I would rather be pray for as President an imperfect Carly F than a determined enemy of God like Hilary C.

Here is where I am at. It is always the will of God that we love our enemies (friends too) and pray for them, that they be saved and become truly obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is always the will of God that we seek Him with all our heart and sanctify God in our hearts to have rightful preeminence above all others (to be our fist love, our very reason for being and living)

To get back to the thread right now this (I hate to use the word) "church" in the news is our enemy and worse is an enemy of Christ. We need to pray and interceed for them, to love them with the love of Christ, NOT whitewash their sin, and Neither delight they will perish in hell or turn our head and act like that doesn't matter.

Frank wrote:
Carly Fiorina is simply a Sarah Palin with a brain. That makes her much more dangerous by the way. I hope and pray she isn't successful.

Here is why I am watching "politics" ... it tells me a lot about where people are coming from, helping me in communicating the Gospel of Christ to them in words they can get ahold of.

CF's quote seemed like a starting point', a parallel if you will, to address us as Christians to how serious the fight we are in is. Politicans are infamous for gripping about the other guy and at the same time unwilling to fight for what is right ... kind of like "church" people.

I trust that God is sovereign and can use imperfect and flawed people in government for our good, or for the consequences our sins deserve. Sorry to ramble so much. Please do vote for whoever you feel led to and I'll do the best to do the same myself.

Really wrote:
Where does Paul say this?

Mike wrote:
I agree, Michael. I'm just wondering how speaking to God in a closet, in an unknown language, without an interpreter to tell him what he was saying, is what Paul meant?

Mike
In my humble observation the way out of debating the Holy Ghost and in entering into the experiential knowing of Him and His present day minsitry is in getting to know Him, in seeking Him, in desiring Him and His ministry in our lives. He after all lives whether we like it our not lives in evey born again believer

Again for the child of God, He is our greatest ally in living for Jesus Christ, the best friend we could every have in having and living in genuine Biblical faith

Mike wrote:
Matthew 6:6
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."
If you're speaking to God in private, as we are informed we should, it should be clear there is no need to use any but your own language.

Did Paul get it wrong? In private he apparently prayed in an unknown tongue.

PLEASE DO NOT MISSUNDERSTAND ME. I am not posting to say you need to speak in other tongues. I am posting to say once agains ALL OF US DESPERATELY NEED the Present Day MINISTRY of the PERSON of the HOLY GHOST, His Power, AND HIS GIFTS as He sees fit to give them in our lives, in every part of them, not just Church on Sunday morning.

nat wrote:
Thank you Michael. That was encouraging.

To everyone here, myself included
we, and let's get this right, we ourselves need repentance, a fresh obedience to Jesus Christ

a whole lot more than we griping about how bad this church is (and it is bad worse than we might imagine the apostasy in this former SBC church)

nat wrote:
I'm not arguing the necessity of tongues.

We do NOT need the traditions and what appear to be the so scholarly teachings of men that sabotage genuine Bilbical experiencial faith mishandling the word of God (wilfully or unintentionally) because of the prejudice of men against the Supernatural (natural men do NOT accept the things of the Spirit of God and cannot know them if they are not first born again of the Spirit, see John 3)

story:
I had an old timey Pentecostal man ask, 'Are you trying to get to heaven?' And I missunderstood him at first. He wasn't talking about salvation, He was talking about pursuing the fullness of God, the kingdom of God, the Righteous, Peace and Joy, the power of God in prayer and soul winning, and for victory in spiritual battles.