The End is Nigh!

I caught the 11:53pm train home from Central last night. It was a crowded train. I sat down on an empty three seater, the only one left and a man with a lot of baggage came and sat next to me. I had seen him earlier at Town Hall preaching into a mobile PA system. I like a good street evangelist and here was one sitting next to me on the train, a real, live street preacher.

I sat there trying to work out if I could have a chat with him. I was interested in how a effective a street preaching ministry is, As I sat there on the train he put a tape on on his PA system (I think it was Benny Hinn worship) and started doing a Bible study.

Suddenly during the Bible Study he turned to me, looking me straight in the eye and said “There’s been two earthquakes you know, in Indonesia. God’s judging them! He sends a warning, then he judges”

“In Indonesia?” I asked

“Yeah, in Indonesia, and in Sydney. We had a $2 million hailstorm because Clover Moore wants to be a Mayoress, and she wants to have her poofter parade, and we’re going to rain on the their parade, me and Jesus. We try and give them unfavourable conditions but they still keep doing it. God’s going to send earthquakes to Australia, lots of them, because he’s warning us. You know there are cards in your mobile, they call them smart cards, and they’re linked to the German bank. The bank also controls all the credit cards. They want to control the whole world. The worst two things in the world are credit cards and mobiles. They’re all linked to satellites and soon their going to freeze everyone’s funds and then they’re going to take over the world. They wanted to earlier, but they can’t because there are too many Christians in the world. There are 1 billion of us. But soon the anti-Christ is going to rise up. The German bank wants to start World War Three…”

He went on for a while. I learnt that the man next to me had stopped the Bosnian War by flying with Jesus and binding the demons and ending the war. I learnt that he and Jesus had also got the Australian troops into East Timor. He had rung up John Howard to tell him that. I learnt the anti-Christ is going to be Hitler resurrected, the German bank is going to bring him back to life. I learnt that Bush and Blair are making all the Middle Eastern Muslim countries invade Israel. They’re all going to invade but God will send acid rain and all the enemy will be killed. Then Israel are going to use the tanks and weapons for firewood for seventy days because apparently they’re all made out of a top secret material developed by the Russians that isn’t metal, it’s wood. All the tanks in the Middle East are made out of wood.

I learnt lots of other things too. I’m all set for the apocalypse now. As much as I wanted to say something I didn’t get one word in till the man got off the train. The only thing I said to him was “In Indonesia?” He talked all the way from just past Redfearn to Strathfield. At Strathfield the man walked backwards down the isle, carrying his PA system and pointing his finger at me, warning me of the impending doom.

As soon as he got off the train the whole carriage burst out laughing. Everyone looked at me in awe for having to put up with the man, for maintaining such a polite look on my face the whole time. “That guy there had to sit next to him!” “He had to listen to the whole thing.” “We should pay him for that! Where’s my wallet”

I was an instant celebrity on my train. I felt a bit bad for the guy, everyone was laughing at him. I thought I should do something.

“At least he was passionate” I said

“Yeah, he can have his view” The man behind me agreed

“That’s true” someone else said

“Yeah, he’s alright.”

“You should be a psychologist with a view like that” the woman behind me told me.

I turned around to look at her “You know what,” I said “I’m actually a youth minister, I work for the church so I get on with people like him. I don’t agree with everything he said, or most of what he said, but that’s ok.”

“Yeah,” said the man behind him “He’s not hurting anyone.”

“It’s people like him that make me happy to be Australian.” I said. And then with a laugh we all went back to our train journey, most of the train had various discussions with each other about the John Farnham and Tom Jones concert they had just seen. I started reading my book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and I hoped no one read over my shoulder just in case they thought I was as crazy as the guy who had sat next to me.