When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God, for these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune-tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do this.(Deuteronomy 18:9-14 *)
Saturday Outreach
Hollywood
10/31/2015
Another Halloween has come and gone, and with it another opportunity to preach the gospel of our Lord in Hollywood. While we don’t take joy in the holiday’s celebration of death and immorality, we are grateful for these opportunities because people are in a generally celebratory mood, allowing for more tracts to go out.
It's been noted that, as dark as the holiday and area is, more people tend to get angry with us on a normal night in Burbank than on a Halloween night in Hollywood! Of course we thank the Lord for that, as we were in a very tight area along the curb, nearly standing in the midst of the throngs as the evening progressed.
The Lord was pleased to allow us a very small team this week - a drop in a sea of dead people - but we serve a great God who also allowed us to give out over 1,000 of the giant $100 bill tracts we had brought! He also provided two men for the box so that the proclamation could continue non-stop for the evening, with them taking turns.
The last few years we’ve been able to set up a box right in front of the Chinese theater. This is really prime “real estate” when it comes to the gospel and tracts going out and, once again, we had that key location.
While we only go down to Hollywood a couple times a year, there are plenty of men from other churches who regularly visit this area. Steve met this young man from a church in West San Gabriel Valley on a Wednesday morning a few weeks ago at the North Hollywood station, where they graciously refrained from preaching to allow the CBC evangelism team's normal outreach to continue. At Hollywood they were equally supportive, providing encouragement and standing nearby, holding illuminated "verse signs" while our team preached.
There was also another preacher walking around. His message was a little hard-edged, though there was nothing that really stood out as theologically wrong about it (though this author doesn't remember hearing anything about the atoning work of Christ). The problem was that he had a giant amp and was walking on the sidewalks, between the people. It was so loud that it hurt the ears whenever he was near! This is a good reminder that it is to be the gospel, not the amp, which should be the offense!
In all, we were there for about 2 hours. Near the 8:30 point, the police kindly asked us (along with several others in the area) to move on because traffic was starting to jam up.
Lord willing, next week we'll be back in Burbank. Consider joining us as Christmas approaches and an anticipated increase of shoppers!
Come Join Us - 6-9 pm
See the calendar on the upper, right-side of this page for our location each week...
Tracts and Bibles supplied!
Abortion Clinic
Mission Hills
10/31/2015
There is never a great outreach when it comes to the abortion clinic (except, perhaps, those extremely rare times when no one comes for an abortion), but this weekend was a particularly bad one with a new record of 16 couples going into the clinic during the 2 hour outreach.
Sadly this record would be broken just a few days later on Wednesday with 21 couples. In some ways, we should be surprised that the record is only 21 and grateful that the Lord has restrained as much death as he has at the clinic. However, anything over none is heartbreaking, and 16 and 21 is just too horrible to think about.
Please pray for the Wednesday and Saturday teams that they would be encouraged and take comfort in the knowledge that these deaths have not gone unnoticed by our Lord. The abortions numbers have actually been quite low over the last few months, and this unexpectedly high turn out was discouraging. Pray also that the Lord would work this for good among the regular team members through growth in humility and in their reliance and trust in Him.
Every Wednesday and Saturday at 8-10 am
10200 Sepulveda Blvd
Mission Hills, CA 91345
No Experience Needed and no need to say anything if you are not ready - come hold a sign, pray, and bring encouragement to those who are standing for the innocent.
Articles and Media
Voddie Baucham
The Supremacy of Christ and Truth in a Postmodern World
James White
October 27, 2015 Dividing Line (bi-weekly, live show)
Reviewed comments by Dr. Peter J. Williams on the subject of evidentialism and presuppositionalism, and then moved to a review of key verses you might want to be familiar with in sharing with various groups, including Roman Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals, Secular Humanists, "Gay" Affirming "Christians," and finally…with our dear beloved Arminian friends. Hope it is useful!
Quartz
Philosophers have been debating a similar moral conundrum for years, but the discussion has a new practical application with the advent of self-driving cars, which are expected to be commonplace on the road in the coming years.
MIT Technology Review
CRISPR Gene Editing to Be Tested on People by 2017
...Editas CEO Katrine Bosley said the company hopes to start a clinical trial in 2017 to treat a rare form of blindness using CRISPR, a groundbreaking gene-editing technology.
If Editas’s plans move forward, the study would likely be the first to use CRISPR to edit the DNA of a person.
* All Scriptures from the ESV unless otherwise noted
