A highlight from Session 9 Evangelism

Automatic TRANSCRIPT

We are at Methods of New Testament Evangelism, number 2, page 26, and we have small letter A, Personal Evangelism, pair in one, examples, I've already given them to you before, I'll add one to it, Andrew brought Simon Peter to the Lord, and Philip brought Nathaniel to the Lord, another one is Paul led Onesimus, Philemon 10, Paul called Onesimus his son in the faith, and of course Paul called Timothy his son in the faith, and so you have those. Now the impact of these, number 2, the impact of these examples, the impact of personal evangelism is the very basic method of evangelism. That is basic, one on one, and reaching souls that way. If your church wins people to Christ, believe me, it's going to be one on one. They're going to be saved during the week and they just step forward on Sunday. Now I do believe it's important to have them step forward on Sunday, have them make a public profession, but you're not going to get very many who walk in the door and come forward and accept Christ. You get some, you're going to get them through personal witness during the week, and it's always good to get up and preach and know there are two people out there today going to come forward, because they've already been led to the Lord that week, and so the secret is getting people out there witnessing to them, getting people out there that will win them to Christ and bring them forward and see them come to know the Lord. And then we have public meetings. Right here is the, I forgot about this again, pardon me, now we're catching up. Public meetings, we'll catch you down on impact here. Public meetings, right here is the place where we make a big mistake. So often we've come to believe that unless a person comes to Christ through a public service, he'll not be saved. I don't know that that's plaguing any of you. In fact, many a believer depends on the services of the local church to do the work of the responsibility to be a witness. Now that is true. They figure we'll invite them to church, but it'll be the job of the church and the preacher to win them, and my responsibility is done with inviting them. Now they ought to invite them to church, but we need to train our people to witness and be witnesses for the Lord Jesus Christ, and so very, very important to do that. And any public service, if the public service is the instrument that brought them to Christ, now I was brought that way. I got saved in a public service, but I had a mailman get out of his mail car on the farm and walk out across the field and stop me on a tractor. I pulled back the clutch on the John Deere and stopped and talked to the mailman, and I respected him, and he didn't witness to me, but he did invite me to Christ. Had anybody witnessed to me? Yes, they had. I had an uncle in Kansas City, and that uncle had gotten saved, and I saw the change in his life. My parents had put me on a train in Colorado to go down to Kansas City to see my uncle and aunt, and I think when I was 11 I went down, 12, 13, 14, right in those years. My uncle had a dime store business, and he was seeing it go forward in a tremendous way, and he was just so involved in it, and he had a series of dime stores that he sold out to TGNY, and he had a number of dime stores, had a couple of dry goods stores, and I went down there when I was 12, and he went to Lutheran Church on Sunday morning, and then Sunday afternoon I'd go to church with him, Sunday afternoon they'd have sandwiches for Sunday dinner, eat quickly, and then pull all the blinds in the house and turn on the lights, have it dark in there, and then they'd have the money bags, and they'd pour out the bags on the dining room table, and we spent Sunday afternoon, all Sunday afternoon, counting dimes and quarters and nickels and pennies and dollar bills, but primarily the small change. We'd count and count and count. I'd take an afternoon, and then he'd pack it up in bags and take it to the bank on Monday, and man, that really impressed me as a kid, wow, all that money, I thought maybe that's what I wanted to get into, was a dime store, and I was 13 and I went down, and on Sunday morning we went to the Lutheran Church, Sunday noon we had a Sunday dinner, Sunday afternoon they didn't draw the blinds, they didn't pull the shades, they didn't pour out any money, they didn't do anything like that. He said, let's go in, we're going to sit down and read the Bible, and he read the Bible to us, and then he said, now, you boys, I had two cousins there, and you can do some things outside, but we'll go to church tonight. That night, got in the car and we drove over to Central Bible Hall, Kansas City, where Walter Wilson was the preacher, and I heard Walter Wilson preach. As the first time I ever heard a sermon about the blood, he preached, tonight I'm going to speak on the blood of Jesus Christ, and I thought, blood, what an awful subject, and in church, and I decided I wasn't going to listen, I was going to go to sleep, which I can do pretty easily, I can relax and fall asleep, and so I tried to sleep, I was sitting right between my aunt and uncle, and I was about to fall asleep, and I'd nod my head this way, and she'd nudge me, and up I'd come, and then I'd need the other way, and he'd nudge me, and there I sat, the whole service, and heard the message about the blood. I didn't get saved, I never forgot it. My uncle witnessed to me, he'd take me on his, as he drove from one dime store to the other and looked him over and told him what he wanted, drove to his warehouse, he'd talked to me about the Lord. He had been genuinely converted, and changing his life, and became a right good preacher, a lay preacher, he became a very good preacher. He told me one time, he said, I held every position in the Lutheran Church except pastor. He said, I've been a member of the Synod, I've been the treasurer, I've been the chairman of the Synod board, I've had every position that's possible in the Lutheran Church except pastor, and I wasn't saved. So he witnessed to me, he would write me letters, and beg me to accept the Lord. There was another man that witnessed to me. I was about 18, 19, I was out of high school, and I wasn't able to be in World War II, I wanted to be and never got to be because I was injured on the farm in a bad accident with a runaway team of horses, and my heart was so damaged I couldn't, and my lungs, every rib in my body was broken, and so I never got to be in the service.

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