Reaching the Marketplace for Jesus

Sophie, 81 yrs old, Accepted Christ Monday Night 

First, some background (of course).  At our church our personal evangelism training is based on the Sword of the Lord’s Soul Winners’ Club curriculum. As part of the training, every week a trainee (someone new to witnessing) goes out with his or her trainer (someone that has successfully gone through the 12 week course at least once) to witness.  The idea is that the trainee will watch the trainer present the gospel several times over the first 6-10 weeks and, with God’s help, lead some people to a saving knowledge of Christ. My trainee this session is Mike. Mike was saved last December through a Bible study in downtown Washington.  We’ve been going out now for about 6 weeks and Mike has seen two people accept Christ as their savior. 

Monday night I asked Mike if he was ready to give the gospel to someone.  He said maybe. So, after we got into the car in the church parking lot and prayed we talked for a bit.  He said he could go through the plan of salvation but he needed to use a tract. He wasn’t sure, in the heat of the moment, if he could find the verses in the Bible (we use the Roman’s Road and show the people we are talking to the verses right out of the Bible – usually a pocket New Testament). 

I told him, if God provided an opportunity, I would turn it over to him.  All of our visits on Monday were referrals from church members. These visits are either people that had been visited on neighborhood canvassing and the person that talked to them thought they might be interested in a follow-up visit or they are someone that a church member had a burden for and wanted to see get saved.  

Our first two stops didn’t go very well. The first lady we went to see actually broke my heart. She looked distraught and said she was too busy for God. I asked her if we could pray for her before we left but she wasn’t even interested in that. Very sad.  Our next visit was a little better. At least the lady of the house was cordial. But she was busy and on her way out the door so we didn’t have time to do more than leave a tract. 

Our next visit was Sophie’s house. The two notes on the card we had for this visit just said “lady interested” and “no one home 5/14/05, left coffee mug and info.” No name or anything else. Sometimes life IS an adventure. We came up to the porch of a very nice house and knocked on the door. The place seemed empty. I figured I’d knock a couple more times but didn’t expect anyone to answer. I was already figuring out what I would write on the tract that I would leave in the door.  On the second knock a very elderly lady answered the door and looked at us through the storm door. 

I introduced Mike and myself, telling her we were from Granite Baptist Church – about 5 blocks from her house. She finally opened the door and came out onto the porch.  I told her we had been asked to visit her and then I asked if she had a church that she regularly attended. She related that she went to the nearby Presbyterian Church. I gave her my testimony – I told her how I grew up Catholic and was saved in a Baptist Church when I was about 14. She said she didn’t know you could change churches.  I told her it wasn’t so much the church you attended but how you related to God that mattered. 

I told her we were evangelists and that I wanted to ask her the most important question that anyone would ever ask her. She said, okay. I then asked her “the question” – “Are you 100% sure, if you were to die today, that you would go to heaven?”  She said she wasn’t sure about that. She told me she tried to live a good life but she just wasn’t sure. I asked her if we could show her from the Bible how she could know. She told me she had some food on the stove (funny how Satan will remind you of these things right when God’s people are getting down to business). I told her it would only take a couple of minutes so she said, sure.

I then turned to Mike and said, “Mike will show you.” Boy, his eyes got as big as saucers. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a gospel tract and showed her how she was a sinner and how Jesus paid the price for her sins. He showed her how she only had to put her trust in Him to know for sure she was bound for heaven.  They talked about the movie, “Passion of the Christ” and Sophie related that it made her physically ill to think that Jesus went through all of that for her. Finally, Mike asked her if she wanted to ask Jesus into her heart and trust in Him for her salvation. Again, Satan’s army attacked. As soon as the words were out of his mouth the phone began to ring. I prayed she would ignore it or not even hear it.  She looked at Mike and told him that she would like to pray. 

She bowed her head and, on her front porch, asked Jesus to save her. When she finally looked up she touched her chest and said, “That felt real good in here.”  Sophie is 81 years old, living all alone and now she has Jesus to keep her company until she can see Him face to face. 

It felt good in my heart also when God saved Sophie and allowed me to be there to watch. But, as we got into the car, and Mike let the joy of the Spirit come over him as he shouted – that felt good too.  He was calling everyone he knew to tell them what had just happened. He even called the pastor in DC that led him to Christ. I think there are three great joys (ok, more than three but I want to talk about these three) in a Christian’s life: accepting Christ as your savior, leading someone else to accept Christ as their savior and training someone else to lead others to Christ.  Mike is so on fire for God right now. We had a mini-revival in the car as we left Sophie’s driveway. 

I spent the first 34 years of my Christian life selfishly keeping the Good News to myself. I was not only hurting those around me and disobeying a direct command from God but I was also missing out on the greatest joys of the Christian life. If you’ve never let God use you to lead someone to Christ then I suggest you go find a Christian brother or sister that knows how to witness and (this week) ask them to take you out to spread the Word. You won’t be sorry.