Witnessing
Posted by preachgospelblog.com | Filed under Illustrations of Bible Truths
1. Results of Tract Ministry
A man was giving out gospel tracts on a steamer. One gentleman whom he approached accepted a tract graciously but said, “I haven’t much faith in that kind of work.” The Christian worker replied, “It was through a gospel tract given to me twenty years ago that I was converted.” Asking for particulars, the gentleman discovered that it was he who had given him the tract! He had ceased to do this because he saw so few results from his efforts. He added, “But by the grace of God I shall start again.”
2. A Fisherman
During the first and second centuries, the symbol of Christianity was the fish. A present-day Christian decided that a fishhook would be the proper emblem for a soul-winner to use for winning people to Christ, so he had a little golden fishhook made to be worn on the lapel of his coat. When people asked him what it meant, he told them that he was a fisher of men. A little newsboy from whom he bought a paper one day said to him, “Mister, do you belong to a fishing club?” “Yes, I do,” said the Christian, “and I think fishing is pretty nice, don’t you?” “Oh yes,” the little fellow replied, “Do you ever catch any big ones?” “I have caught 250 pounders,” replied the man. “Go on!” said the lad incredulously. “Yes,” said the Christian, “I have caught a 250-pound fish.” “Those sure are big,” marveled the boy. Then leaning over, the Christian said, “Sonny, to tell you the truth, I would rather catch small fish than big ones.” He exclaimed. “No!” “Yes, about your size.” The little boy looked down at himself as if he were thinking, “I am not so small.” Then the Christian told him that he was a fisher of men, seeking to win souls, and that if he would believe on the Lord Jesus Christ he would be saved. The newsboy took him at his word and came to Christ. Here was a fisherman for Christ who used a gold fishhook on his lapel to catch souls with. You may have some other kind of hook. It makes no difference as long as you catch fish.
3. The Convincing Witness
A man traveling along a dark road one stormy night met a man coming from the opposite direction who said to him in a hesitant manner, “I think maybe the bridge is out. At least I heard something to that effect.” The traveler was not impressed and decided to proceed. A little farther on a man came rushing out of the dark to him and said, “Stop! Don’t go any farther. The bridge is out!” So passionately convincing were his tones that the traveler turned back, and his life was saved. That is how we are to witness, with passion and conviction.
4. Thank You, John
When John Broadus was sixteen he accepted Christ as his Savior and at once began to introduce others to his newfound Friend. His first convert was a school friend. These two lived most of their lives in the same city, Broadus a professor in the university, the other a truck-driver. Broadus said that whenever they met during all those years his friend touched his cap as they passed and said, “Thank you, John, thank you.” “I know just what he will say when I meet him coming down the golden street of heaven,” said Broadus. “It will be just what he said this morning, ‘Thank you, John, thank you.’ ”
5. A Witness Who Came Too Late
Far up the Amazon River, a Baptist missionary was using a flannelgraph to aid her in telling a group of school children about Jesus. As she talked, an elderly man with stooped shoulders and gray hair joined the children. He listened with rapt attention as the missionary told the story of God’s grace as it is revealed in Christ. After the children were dismissed, the old man came up to the missionary with this question: “May I ask, Madam, if this interesting and intriguing story is true?” “Of course,” the missionary said, “it is in the Word of God.” With countenance and voice revealing his doubt, the old gentleman said, “This is the first time in my life that I have ever heard that one must give his life to Jesus to have forgiveness from sin and to have life with God forever.” Then with a note of finality he concluded, “This story cannot be true or else someone would have come before now to tell it. I am an old man. My parents lived their lives and died without ever having heard this message. It cannot be true or someone would have come sooner.” Although she tried hard, the missionary could not convince the old gentleman of this truth from God’s Word. Turning to make his way back into the darkness of the jungle and the darkness of sin, he kept repeating the words, “It cannot be true; it cannot be true, or someone would have come sooner.”
6. The Christian’s Walk
St. Francis said one day to one of the young monks, “Let us go down into the town and preach.” They passed through the streets and returned to the monastery without having said a word. “You have forgotten, father,” said the young man, “that we went down to the town to preach.” “My son,” Francis replied, “we have preached. We were preaching as we walked. We have been seen by many: our behavior has been noticed; it was thus that we preached. It is no use, my son, to walk anywhere to preach unless we preach everywhere as we walk.” “Wherefore, seeing we are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us play our part nobly, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith” (Heb 12:1).
7. Not Ashamed of Christ
A young man got up to give his testimony for Christ in an open air meeting. Not being accustomed to speaking in public, he stammered a good deal at first. An atheist who came by shouted at him, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself standing and talking like that!” “You’re right,” the young man replied. “I am ashamed of myself, but I’m not ashamed of Christ.”
8. Dedicated Soul-Winner
Melvin Harper is manager of an eight-thousand-acre buckeye ranch and rice farm near Bay City, Texas. “Lord, send me cowboys who aren’t Christians,” is his daily prayer. Why? Because encouraging cowboys and youngsters to live for Christ is a kind of divine calling for the man who was the nation’s top bronco buster and steer rider for more than ten years. Through the personal interest of a pastor who began visiting Harper at the ranch so he could learn to ride and handle cattle, the veteran rodeo performer started attending church regularly and finally made his decision for Christ. Soon he began teaching a class of boys, but he doubts that he was doing much witnessing for Christ.
A new pastor came to the church, so one day the rugged ranch manager went by to see him. Their conversation soon turned to religion. Melvin asked his new pastor, “Do you believe in the Lord?” After receiving a quick and affirmative answer, Melvin continued, “Then if me and you prayed to God, believed in Christ, and asked for something, would we get it?” The prayer that followed is one which Pastor Eaves will never forget. Melvin and his pastor prayed that God would let him become a soul-winner.
Melvin didn’t sleep much that night. At four o’clock in the morning he was fully dressed and on his way to the home of a lost friend. He arrived before daylight and prayed as he waited in a pickup truck for the lights to come on in the house. The friend was won to Christ; that was only the beginning. Melvin’s pastor estimates that he has already won more than fifty people to the Lord. Five cowboys at the ranch have become Christians, and in his Sunday school class of thirteen-year-old boys, twenty-four have accepted Christ in one year.
When asked about the greatest thrill of his life, Melvin told about the year when he was the only rider to stay mounted on the nation’s wildest and best bucking rodeo horse in Madison Square Garden and in Houston. “But,” said Melvin, “this kind of thrill doesn’t compare with winning a boy, his parents, and a cowhand to Christ.”
9. A Responsible Position
A young man, a skilled mechanic, was driving a visiting clergyman from his home town, fifty miles across the country, to another city. En route, they passed a huge factory consisting of perhaps twenty buildings scattered over several hundred acres. “Do you see that red brick building over there behind this gray stone one?” the mechanic asked. “I work on the second floor on the south side. There are seventy-four of us in that department, and as far as I know, I am the only one in all that crowd who ever goes to church or tries to live a Christian life. Sometimes I have to remind myself that, as far as that department is concerned, I am all there is of the Christian Church. If I don’t do good work, then the Church has failed as far as those men are concerned. If I can’t be relied upon, then the Church is undependable. If I am careless, then some poor unfortunate soul may have to pay for the Church’s carelessness. It is pretty serious business being the Church in the midst of seventy-four other people.”
10. Win Them One by One
When Paul went to Rome, every morning a new soldier of the Praetorian guard was chained to him, until each Praetorian guardsman had Paul under his custody. People might have said, “What a pity that a powerful preacher like Paul should have an audience of only one man a day, and a different one every day at that.” But Paul could say, “God has enabled me to preach the gospel to the whole Praetorian guard.” Who knows how much the conversion of pagans in Rome may be attributed to Paul’s being chained to the soldiers of the Praetorian guard?
11. Joy of a Soul-Winner
Charles H. Spurgeon said, “Even if I were utterly selfish and had no care for anything but my own happiness, I would choose if I might, under God, to be a soul winner; for never did I know perfect, overflowing, unutterable happiness of the purest and most ennobling order till I first heard of one who had sought and found the Savior through my means.
12. Fishing for Men
In the business of fishing for men, it is not one’s skill or fine equipment that produces results; it is the power of the Holy Spirit. A fisherman who had all the equipment that the best sporting goods store could sell him was having no success. Seeing a country lad with a stick and a bent pin for a hook, he smiled condescendingly, then did a double take. On the bank beside the boy lay a fine string of trout. “How is it that I can’t catch any?” the man inquired. “Because you don’t keep yourself out of sight,” the boy replied. That’s the secret of fishing for men as well as trout. Preach Christ and Him crucified, and send the people away talking about Him instead of praising you.
13. Common Sense in Witnessing
The man who charges up to a perfect stranger and demands, “Are you saved?” may indeed be zealous for the Lord, but he shows very little understanding or love for his fellowman. His tactless approach indicates that he has no real interest in the man as a person, but only as a potential candidate for conversion, an object to witness to. Common sense is essential even in witnessing. Remember this. You should witness not for the sake of witnessing but for the purpose of winning souls to Christ. As a fisher of men you must exercise judgment in casting the net. Or, to change the simile, you must hold your fire until you see the target. Firing your rifle into the air will not accomplish anything. Let this be the judgment you exercise as a steward of the higher truths of life.
14. Two Lights Are Shining Now
A woman who came to know Christ as her Savior returned home full of joy-the unique gladness that overflows the heart of a repentant sinner. After a few weeks, she expressed a desire to leave the community in which she lived because it was so sinful. When her pastor heard this, he said with some severity, “How would you like it if the city removed all the lights from the dirty, dangerous streets and left lights only in the good neighborhoods where no crimes are committed? Didn’t Christ say, ‘Ye are the light of the world’?” (Matt 5:14). The woman accepted the rebuke, and some time later said to her pastor, “Now there are two lights that shine in our street.” She had led a soul to Christ.
15. The Reason for Happiness
In one of his books, Archdeacon Wilson tells a significant story. Some of the best and ablest of the students at a women’s Christian college started a class to teach the poorest men in a neglected suburb. They were fired by the noblest impulse- to give themselves to work for their unfortunate brothers. After some months of teaching elementary subjects, they asked the men whether there was anything in particular they wanted to hear more about. There was silence, and then a low whisper was heard from among them. One of the women went up to find out who had spoken. “What was it you wished especially to hear about?” she asked. “Could you tell us something about the Lord Jesus Christ?” asked one of the men. These men, as they looked upon these college students, did not covet their money, their education or their social position, but longed for that which made them what they were, Jesus Christ. This is what the world should be impelled to crave as they look upon us-not the things about us, or the lack of them, as the cause of our happiness-but rather the Lord Jesus Christ.
16. What Will Hell Be Like?
There was an old Scotch preacher who was passing a glass factory just before going to church to preach. As a door was ajar, and it was some time till the service, he stepped inside. One of the large furnaces had just been opened. He gazed into the white, blue, and purple mass of liquid flame until it nearly seared his face. As he turned away unaware of anyone being present, he exclaimed, “Oh, man, what will hell be like!” A stoker standing in the shadow heard him. Several nights later at the church a man came up to him. “You don’t know me, but the other night when you stepped into the furnace room I heard what you said. Every time I have opened that furnace since then, the words have rung in my mind, ‘What will hell be like!’ I have come tonight to find out the way of salvation so that I will not have to find out what hell is like.” God grant that our witness may lead many others to do the same.
17. Luminous Christians
The best argument for Christianity is a consistent Christian life. There is no argument against the silent eloquence of holiness. Actually, a lighthouse building would be dangerous but for the light it sheds abroad, and so it is with us. We may be lighthouses without light. Ships can break themselves on the rock. It is not merely what we say, or what we do, but what we are that matters. That is the witness that is convincing. The greatest thing about us is often our unconscious influence. 2 Cor 4:11 says, “that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” “Manifest” is a word meaning “brilliantly seen.” We accomplish more by our radiations than by our exhortations. May God make us luminous Christians. That’s what the light of Christ does for us. Have you ever put a candle within an alabaster or onyx vase? This is commonly done in Egypt. When a light is put inside, the whole thing becomes luminous. That’s exactly what happens when Jesus Christ comes into our hearts. We become bright, luminous. Other people can find their way to God through the light we shed abroad.
18. Outspoken Witness
Dwight L. Moody once saw a man freezing to death on the street in Chicago. Moody could not just talk this man into warmth. He pounded him with his fist and got him really angry. The man began to pound back and then got up and ran after Moody. That got his blood circulating and saved his life. Our loud and outspoken witnessing may make people angry, but at least it may awaken them from their spiritual stupor.
19. Facing Death with Courage
Even today, in this so-called advanced state of civilization, we hear of brave soldiers of the cross who lay their lives on the line when they bear a fearless testimony for Christ. Dear personal friends of mine, Costas Makris and his wife Alki, were Greek missionaries to Indonesia. As Costas labored in the jungles, more and more natives were converted and then baptized. The chief became so disturbed about his people turning to Christ, especially the young people, that he decided to do away with Costas. He lined up his spearmen in front of this dedicated young missionary. In the distance Costas’ wife and three small sons stood watching their husband and father about to be executed for the cause of Christ. How would you feel in their place? But the face of this missionary shone with a heavenly glory that puzzled these savage people. How could a man face death with a smile? Of course, his wife and many others must have been praying. As the men lifted their spears for the kill, the chief called out “Stop!” He walked up to Costas, embraced him, and told him that a man who could face death with such courage and with such a smile on his face had something that they themselves needed.
20. The World Needs Light
Exactly what does the Lord mean by “mourning,” as we find it in the second Beatitude? (Matt 5:4) It is not just shedding tears or inflicting physical harm on ourselves. Church history tells us of a group of men called the Anchorites who lived in the fourth century. They dwelt in solitude, fasted, and injured their bodies. The nearer they could bring themselves to the level of the animals the better pleased they were. One sect of Anchorites actually grazed with the common herds in the fields of Mesopotamia, and they were hence called boskoi , or “shepherds.” They acquired a great reputation for holiness because of their mournful attitude toward life. One of the most famous of these monks was Simeon Stylites ( A.D. 395-451), so called from his standing for years on the top of a column sixty feet high until his muscles became rigid. Some of these hermits hung weights on their bodies; others kept themselves in cages; all endeavored to make themselves holy through being miserable. The motive of many of these men may have been truly honorable, a desire to escape from the vices of the great cities. But the greater the corruption of society, the more need for holy men and women to live in that society. The world can only become darker by the withdrawing of its lights and more corrupt through the removing of the salt scattered over it.
21. Opportunities
A businessman on his way to prayer meeting saw a stranger looking in the door of the church. He invited him to come inside with him. “All right,” said the stranger. That was the beginning of a Christian life for him and his family. He afterward told the man who invited him, “I lived in the city for seven years before I met you. No one had ever asked me to go to church. I wasn’t here three days before the grocer, the dairy man, the insurance man, and the politician called on me. You are the first one to invite me to church.” And it took seven years! Don’t wait to pick and choose among the souls of men, but consider anybody you meet as God’s field for you to work in.
22. There Is More!
A young man on a visit to Washington went into the National Museum. On one of the cabinets was a label with these words: “The body of a man weighing 154 pounds.” “Where is the man?” asked the young man. No one answered him. In the cabinet were two jars of water, along with other jars containing phosphate of lime, carbonate of lime, potassium, sodium, and other chemicals. Another section held a row of clear glass jars filled with gases-hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. The materials in those cabinets were shown in the exact proportions combined in an ordinary man. After looking at the assortment for some time in silence, the young man said, “And that is what I am made of? That is all that goes to make me?” “That is all,” said a bystander smiling, and walked on. But the young man did not smile. “If that is all that is needed,” said he, “so much lime, so much gas, so much water, we should be exactly alike.” There is something more which they cannot put into cabinets. God made us body, soul,and spirit. The soul and spirit cannot be put into bottles.
23. It Takes Only One
There is an inscription on a highway plaque in a small Minnesota town which reads, “On September 1, 1894, a forest fire swept over this area and 450 people lost their lives.” As a person reads this sign, he cannot help asking himself, “What do you suppose started that fire?” Along the highways throughout our national forests we see signs urging tourists to be careful with fires. Each has a stern warning that a single match carelessly thrown away can start a conflagration. One match seems insignificant, but think of its tremendous potential. One Christian can be a radiant witness for his Master if he will only resolve to do so and dedicate his life to soul-winning.
24. God’s “Helper”
Let us remember that wisdom never imposes itself, but it woos the hearts of others. It is true that we are anxious to help God accomplish His work in the hearts of people, but sometimes we are like the little girl who, after being out for a while, was asked by her mother where she had been. She said, “In the garden, Mother.” “What were you doing in the garden?” “I was helping God,” the child replied. She explained that she had found a rose almost blossomed and had “blossomed” it. She had only ruined the rose.
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