We had six of our eight men from last time. It aided greatly in canvassing the Main St. area with tracts. Once we had finished covering about four blocks of Main St. on both sides, we took some time in front of the Old State House to preach. God had laid on my heart Matthew 11:28, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Men are heavy laden with sin, labouring in their religion to try to appease God, but there is no rest until you come to the Saviour!
Harry preached after myself. It was after several minutes of preaching that the Lord gave us another opportunity to see Him work as only he can. A police cruiser pulled up just past where Harry and I were, and the officer stepped out of the car with his nightstick drawn. I figured we had probably had a complaint, so as he approached where we were I introduced myself and asked how we could help him. He confirmed my suspicions about the complaints and requested that we cease and desist preaching. (Harry was continuing to preach.) I asked him why he felt we were not within the bounds of our free speech rights, to which he reiterated the complaints and informed us that he could hit us with breach of peace and criminal trespass should we not quit. Because of his direct request to stop, I asked Harry to quit preaching, and we both returned to the officer to further discuss his complaint. You could tell he was expecting some jerks to challenge his request, but our compliance seemed to dispel some of his expectations. As we discussed our liberties, two other cruisers pulled up with what he told me were the beat cops of the area (their nightsticks drawn as well). When they showed up, the original officer told them everything was okay, and that we were just practicing our free speech rights. (Was he being sarcastic? I don't know, but I knew from that point, we were okay.) The second officer, after our introductions, informed us that tracts could not be handed out without a permit. I told him we had been doing this for about twelve years, expressed my lack of knowledge of any such an ordinance, and told him I'd check it out. He commented that the ordinances may have changed. I then explained to him plainly what our manner and schedule of ministry was, that we had no intention of antagonizing people, that we were on the
officer's side of the law, and would they like for us to move down the block. It was then that the strangest thing happened. The second officer told us, "No, you can stay here and preach and pass out your literature." (!) I had to ask him again to verify what I heard, which he did! They had just told me I had to stop preaching, leave the premises and couldn't hand out tracts without a permit. Now they just gave us license to do all three again! Needless to say, it was a sterling example of "The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will." (Proverbs 21:1) I did phone the Lieutenant of that district, and left him a message commending his beat cops for their handling of the situation. We are instructed to submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, and I know the kind of junk the officers have to put up with on a daily basis. They don't need some "Christian" jerk sullying the name of Jesus because of his "rights." The Lord and He alone turned the outcome of that situation 180 degrees, and He will get all the praise for it.
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