Wednesday, November 12/ LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND- Traveling most of the night from Edinburgh, we arrived into Liverpool around 3 a.m. in the morning, and found lodging in an old converted tobacco warehouse on the Dockside of the Irish Sea. Sleeping until 9 o’clock to allow the men rest, we assembled and entered the Centre City area of Liverpool around 11 o’clock.
In the words of Ruben Israel Chavez, “Liverpool gave America the Beatles, and now we pay you back with Jesus Christ.” In preaching in Liverpool to several thousand gathered about, Director McRae cried aloud, “Forty years ago, this city gave to the world four young men, who gained all that this world had to offer, but it profited them nothing. They gained all the money the world had to offer. All the fame, and all the pleasures of sin for a season. But it profited them nothing, as they lost their own souls in exchange. People of Liverpool, forty years ago, this city of yours gave the world John Lennon, who said in his lifetime, that he was more popular than Jesus Christ. Well we are here in God’s stead to tell you John Lennon is in hell today, but Jesus Christ “ever liveth to make intercession for” you (Hebrew 7:25). John Lennon died and went to hell with a bullet in his head, and found out too late, that happiness was not a warm gun. But happiness can only be found in Jesus Christ alone!” When asked about his statements, McRae said, “When I was a lost teenage drummer in a dance band, I was one of those fools that made the Beatles so popular. My entire life was governed by their damnable music, and the walls of my room were covered in the pictures of their depravity. God gave this old man a chance to redeem that sin today, and I would not have missed it for the world”. As the morning turned to the noon hour, the crowds in Liverpool grew beyond measure, and the SPF street preachers were soon surrounded again with an estimated 800,000 people. After approximately two hours, Brothers Dean Moore and Ron McRae were accosted by two British Bobbies, who informed them, “We have been given two complaints. I have them right here in my coat, concerning this small round sticker on the end of your preaching box. That sticker has offended two people, and we are here to arrest you both, unless you remove the sticker immediately!” Director McRae asking which sticker the Bobbies were talking about, the taller of the two officers pointed to the “No Homo” sticker on the end of the pulpit box. Feigning ignorance, the Director asked the Bobbie how that little sticker could be offensive?! Asked the Bobbie, “Tell me what it means and you will know why it is offensive!” To this the SPF Director replied, “It means ‘No Homogenized Milk!” And if there was ever an English Bobbie taken aback by an American, it was right there in Liverpool. With a smile, barely controlling his impulse to burst out laughing, the Bobbie replied, “Sir, I do not believe you think that is what it means!” Replied Director McRae, “Well Sir, I am from Pennsylvania, and we have a lot of dairy farms in Pennsylvania. And there is a big issue about homogenized milk where I come from!” “A
soft answer turneth away wrath.” With that, the Bobbie smiled to almost a chuckle, and there was no way he could muster enough courage to carry through with the arrests. Seeing the change in his attitude, Brother Dean Moore quietly slipped his sandwich sign off his shoulders, and placed it over the pulpit box, covering the stickers, and the Bobbies smiled cheerfully, and said, “Thank you. Carry on with your preaching.” And so they did!
Continuing the preaching into the afternoon, the SPF street preachers were inundated with so many people passing by them. In the midst of the throng stepped forward one man named Robert Ryder of Liverpool. A saved Baptist Englishman, who with much joy gloried over Jesus Christ that He would send street preachers to Liverpool. Talking much with Assistant Director Jim Grove, Brother Ryder expressed his heart felt intentions of joining up with the SPF, and helping carry on the work there in Liverpool.
Coming down on the last leg of the journey, the SPF preachers had
to cut short their stay in Liverpool, to continue on towards Coventry,
England, arriving in the early evening. While Brothers Ruben, Grove
and McRae drove to secure lodging, the remainder of the street preachers
entered the City Centre of Coventry to preach; being left out at
the heart of the traffic circle. Unknown to the SPF, as per the
typical church state government, the Anglican Church of England
had given the bishoprick over Coventry to the Catholics, and the
entire city was owned by St. Michael’s Catholic Cathedral.
Brother Dean Moore began preaching in his normal ‘caring and
sharing’ poise, and almost immediately, the local teenage
sodomite perverts swarmed with vengeance, displaying such vileness,
that Brother Moore’s grace was only sufficient enough to turn
the preaching over to Brother Gowen, lest he “tear them in
pieces, and there be none to deliver” (Psalm 50:22). As Brother
Gowen took his place in the midst of open depravity, the situation
quickly deterriated, with the help of Stephen McRae’s one-on-one
personal work, and the kindly Dr. Meador whose theological dissertations
did much to increase the anger and wrath of the hoodlum mob. With
such commotion, the expected Bobbies showed up in force, and again
the SPF’s “No Homo” sticker took first prize in
‘How to Offend the Queen’s Men’. Though Dr. Meador
tried repeatedly to pass the lead elsewhere, the Bobbies would have
none of it, and continued to set upon him to yield to their demands
and remove the sticker. Though the “beloved physician”
is handy at removing tonsils, and appendixes, and other unmentionables,
he flat out refused to remove the ‘No Homo’ sticker!
Such exasperated the one Bobbie who was in charge, that the open
agreement of the other Bobbies to the SPF preachers’ tormenting
of the local teenage perverts (they arrested the perverts), would
not persuade their supervisor in the least. After Dr. Meador had
moved the men across the street to help effect the Bobbies’
arrest of the perverts, still the supervisor was not cooperative.
Said he to Dr. Meador, “I do not care about your preaching
or your banners and signs. The problem is not your preaching, or
your banners, or your signs. The problem is this town is owned by
St. Michael’s Catholic Cathedral, and WE DO NOT WANT YOU CHRISTIANS
IN OUR TOWN!!! You Christians have to leave our town right now!”
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