This weekend, the theme has been the gospel trumpet. We have had a wonderful time with the young people, and with those who are really concerned about that this morning. We welcome other trumpeters into our ranks.
I did not know that I was going to be speaking to this larger group, so I have something tailor-made for young people. But now we can quickly go through the group with some Clairol and make you all look younger if you want. But if you are young at heart, I think that will do.
The gospel trumpet—you know, it is wonderful. Just think about this for a moment. There are these priests who, because they are always dealing with sin offerings and trespass offerings, are really aware of how limited they are. Yet they are given these silver trumpets to blast.
We are to go out into this world in the last days and blast this trumpet and say, “Our King is coming. Prepare the way; the King is coming.” That is the gospel trumpet.
We have these young people who have come this weekend as trumpeters. They are developing their embouchure, their lips, so that they can blow that trumpet, learning the skill of that thing. So we have to go out into this world and blow that trumpet. That is part of our job as priests.
It was the job of priests, because of their own infirmities and weaknesses, to go out into the outer court to deal with sinners and bring in the offerings. This is part of our royal priesthood: interceding for those who are weak, those who are dying, and those who need a sacrifice to bring them before the great altar of Jesus Christ.
We are dealing with and concentrating on the outer-court ministry, as it were, this weekend. But of course, our life is to be lived in the house of God. The priests felt at home in the house of God.
In the temple itself, when it was built, there were compartments—apartments for the priests who were on that rotation shift to live in the temple, right on the grounds, during their week, or whatever the length of the cycle was. We love to live in the house of God.
As priests, we love to come to the table. We are very much at home with the utensils in the house of God: with the lampstand of revelation, the bread of the showbread representing God’s mercies to us, the altar of incense where we worship, and the Holy of Holies, to which we have daily access.
Who would not want to live in God’s house? We love to sing that, right? “I love to live in Your house, O Lord.”
There we are in the dual role. Now, that out there in the outer court—that is not our home. But the Lord bids us go, blow the trumpet, and then come in, take off all those dusty priestly things, put on just the linen as we did this morning, and worship our God.
We are royal priests. As Peter says, we proclaim the excellencies of Him who brought us out of darkness into His marvelous light. What a priesthood we have.
Let us all blow the trumpet wherever we go. The time is coming close. The announcements must be made. When the gospel of the kingdom is testified throughout the earth, then the Lord will come. So this is a very important phase of our priestly life.
As we come into this last time called The Art of Personal Witnessing, we have talked about the being, the doing, and now the art. There are some very practical things and some conceptual things. We are just going to ask the Lord to help us understand and to gather in those trumpeters who have just come for this morning and have not been here for the whole affair.
Father, we are so thankful that You have given us this calling and commission to go out as ambassadors on behalf of the great King, to declare His message to the nations.
How privileged we are that, when we go, even though we are nothing in ourselves, You clothe us with the power of the Holy Spirit. You give us rivers of living water springing up from within by the life of Christ within us, so that we look altogether different than we really are as we go as Your ambassadors.
You do bless us, anoint us, and lead us. So we go in that confidence—not in ourselves, but in the greatness of our calling.
We pray today, as we sum up some things here, that we will all understand how much You desire us all to be blowing the trumpet when You come back. May it be that we come to perfection as Your bride by obediences and righteousnesses. Even at that very moment that You come, somebody will have just heard the trumpet and gotten saved, just in the nick of time.
How wonderful Your plan is, beyond our understanding. But we pray that You help us and give us some inroads of understanding today. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
We have talked about the essence of a witness, because the Bible says that when the Holy Spirit comes upon us, we are witnesses. We are. It is not a question of whether we want to be; we are. Whether good or bad, we are witnesses, right?
The world is a global courtroom. When we studied this the first time from Isaiah, Isaiah shows God coming into the global courtroom, asking all the peoples to bring their idols and gods, come into the court, stand, and attest: who really is God?
The I AM declares that He is God. But it is not enough for God to say that of Himself. He needs witnesses to say, “Amen. He is who He says He is. I know from my own experience.”
That was the Jews’ calling: to be a light to the nations, to say, “Everything the I AM said is true. There is no other Redeemer. There is no other Savior. There is no other Rock.” This was to be Israel’s testimony.
Because they went blind through idolatry, they did not carry out that witness. So our Lord Jesus Himself became the faithful witness of the I AM. But now He calls us, and by clothing us in the Holy Spirit and sending His Spirit within, He makes us, by essence, witnesses.
We live Christ. We breathe Christ. We gossip the gospel. That is who we are and who the Lord wants us to be.
There we are: the incredible largeness of the I AM. We are poised in crisis, and the world looks at you on your job and sees that you are just different from everybody else. You include God in your plans. How unusual is that?
You embrace a larger view of things than many people who are narrowly confined to what is going on tomorrow. You elevate the lives of those around you. This is part of the grace of God. All you have to do is ooze the life of Christ, and people say, “My, that is something lovely there.”
For us to witness and be filled with the Holy Spirit—this is a wonderful calling we have. The Holy Spirit clothes us; we become witnesses; the Lord sends us out.
Practically, we looked at the fact that between fifteen and thirty years old is the best time for evangelism. It is the window of opportunity. You are meeting so many people in social contacts. This is the time when it is good to be faithful in this matter of witnessing.
We looked at our brother Watchman Nee’s testimony regarding happiness. In every believer’s life, there are two big days—two days of special rejoicing. The first happy day is the day when he believes in the Lord. The second happy day is the day when, for the first time, he leads someone to Christ.
I hope that has been the experience of your life—all of you trumpeters here, whether young or old. You know the joy that wells up when you have brought somebody to the Lord. It is wonderful. It is wonderful.
The Lord wants us to enjoy that secret of His happiness. But we know that because of our flesh, our fears, and things, when we come to wanting to be a witness and entering the witness zone, we hit a brick wall: fear, self, doubt. It is amazing, the bricks in that wall.
But they need to be broken through so we can enter into the witness zone. Now, what is the witness zone? It is like the twilight zone. What is the witness zone exactly?
It is the time when you get out of your comfort zone. An opportunity comes up, and you can hide in your comfort zone or you can get out of your comfort zone in order to help somebody else.
It is also a struggle because you are penetrating into somebody else’s personal space. People today demand that they believe what they believe, do what they want to do, and that you leave them alone. “I have my space.” Yet you are saying, “I am breaking into your space. I have a question for you.”
It takes some spiritual courage to be willing to break into somebody’s space.
I had a professor who said that he used to go witnessing. One time he went onto somebody’s porch on Sunday afternoon and looked in the window. A guy was sitting back with a beer, watching a football game. It caused my professor to ask himself, “Do I really have good news for that guy, watching his favorite football team?”
He rang the doorbell, went in, and the guy accepted Jesus. But, you know, it takes something, right?
There is a third moment where things are tense. There is crackling in the air because your words and the Holy Spirit’s words are bringing conviction and bringing somebody into birth in the kingdom zone. This is a spiritual battle, which the enemy hates.
If he can get you off being a witness, he will find a distraction. He will find an excuse or even give you a hiding place in the house of God so you never have to go outside. But it is a matter of being obedient, right?
The witness zone brings in the Spirit’s presence. There are two moments of impact. When you first break into their space, you can sense that moment. You can say, “Yeah, hey, how is everything going, Joe? What about the Redskins last week? Yeah, it was really wonderful.”
Then you say, “You know, Joe, I have heard that you are having some marriage problems. Have you actually prayed about that to God?” Suddenly, there is a whole other atmosphere. You know what I am saying? Things change.
Then, of course, when you lead them into His space, you can sense the reality of the Spirit’s presence in those moments.
We have already talked about taking three steps of preparation to bring us into the witness zone. First, we must be willing.
The Bible says:
Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation;
And uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways;
And sinners shall be converted unto Thee.
Is that not a wonderful passage in the Psalms? Suddenly we have a willing spirit, we share the gospel, and sinners get converted. If we are not willing, it does not happen.
When we are willing, the Lord knows we are willing. Even if you are willing to be made willing, come to the Lord and say, “Lord, I know that You want me to be a witness. I am a reticent witness.”
Our dear brother Michael Woods had a story. I do not know how many of you know who he is, but when he got to college, he was such a chicken about witnessing that he frankly told the Lord one day, “I just cannot go out on the campus with these Campus Crusade people and knock on doors and hand out tracts. I am just not going to do it, Lord. I cannot go out. It is just not in me.”
“So, if You want me to witness, You are going to have to bring people to me.” That very day, somebody knocked on his door and wanted to talk about Jesus. The Lord will go around a long way to help you become a witness if you are willing, right?
The second thing is that we need to sanctify Christ as Lord of our hearts, always ready to give a reason for the hope that is within us. Is your heart ready? Have you gotten up in the morning and prayed that into sensitivity and availability?
These are all preparations. If our hearts are not prepared, we will go through a day unaware of moments when we could have offered a witness.
Third, our nets are prepared and ready with time and money to witness. We have a help net when somebody needs help immediately. We throw the net over and go and help them.
When somebody really needs help, you can truly break into their zone because they really need help. They will not make it without you, and you are there for them. It is a tremendous witness.
Or an event comes up in town—a crusade, something, or a concert—and you are there. Or you have a common interest which you use to bring somebody a witness. Or there is the media net: you use books.
I love people who give books away, who give Bibles away. When you give Bibles away, it does not come back in vain. The Lord uses that many times.
How many of you know the story about the guy in Sydney, Australia? He handed out tracts all his life, and he never saw anybody come to the Lord. What was his name? Anybody know? I cannot remember his name.
Anyway, for his whole life he stood on one of the streets near the docks of Sydney, where all the tourists went, and handed somebody a tract: “Now, if you died, do you know your destiny is certain?” People would go, “Blah, blah, blah, blah,” but he did this all his life.
Only at the end of his life did he find out that many people had come to the Lord. He just went out faithfully witnessing every day.
That was his media net: he handed out a tract and asked the person that question, “Are you sure of your destiny if you were to die tonight?” That is breaking into somebody’s happy zone, right? And the Lord used it.
If your prayer is ready, your will is willing, and your money is dedicated, spend money for the Lord. It is unrighteous mammon, right? So use it for kingdom purposes. Then you are ready to walk in wisdom toward those who are without, redeeming the time.
Let us stop for a moment, because we have been talking about a lot of things. To tell you the truth, Jeffrey has really been sharing a lot of things in his messages about evangelism. He has the nuts and bolts down. I never do nuts and bolts. I always do—I do not know what I do, but not nuts and bolts.
Here are some reality checks about witnessing that we just need to say.
In the end, faithfully witnessing is a self-denying, faithful part of a normal Christian life. It is not like you are going around like a madman all the time: “I have got to go down to the mall today to witness.” But when you go to the mall, you are available. It is part of a normal life, right?
In the Book of Acts, we see them witnessing and many miracles occurring. But we have to realistically say that the book telescopes a number of years of events in which tremendous miracles happened.
Day by day, they witnessed. Sometimes they met closed doors, sometimes opposition, sometimes a thankless day. If you have been a faithful witness, you have known many times when you have given out tracts, talked to people, and not seen any results.
It is a reality. It is not like every time you go out you are going to be dancing in the providence of God and find somebody. Many times, you will go and do planting-seed work. Just faithfully do it. Thanklessly do it—except that you are doing it giving thanks to the Lord.
It is a sacrificial thing. Sometimes you are out there alone, it is cold, it starts to rain, and you are handing out tracts.
One time I was with a dear teenage girl and a couple of other folks. We were under a strip mall kind of thing, where they had a little covering into the stores. It was pouring down rain. I was playing my guitar and singing, and these folks were handing out tracts.
This girl handed out a tract, and a guy said, “I do not want that tract.” She was taken aback because he was an adult, a forty-year-old adult, going into the liquor store.
He said again, “I do not want that tract.” She did not know what to say, but somehow she said, “Well, maybe your family wants you to have this tract.” He said, “How did you know about my family?”
He broke down and cried a couple of minutes later because he was leaving his wife right at that moment, going to get some booze, and taking off. He got down on his knees, and that seventeen-year-old girl helped lead that guy to the Lord.
I mean, I prayed with the guy, but she had the word that broke into his zone. That was a very discouraging day, with the rain and nobody wanting to hear us. But there was a breakthrough. This happens once in a while, but the reality is that you witness whether somebody receives it or not.
You never succeed or fail at witnessing. You need to understand that. Sometimes you are just planting a seed. Sometimes you are watering a seed that somebody else has planted, cultivating a little bit. Harvesting is our privilege once in a while.
Or sometimes you are enriching fruit because you find that somebody is a very weak Christian, but they are a Christian. If you can bring Christ to them, this is a witness just as valid as witnessing to the unbeliever, right?
Third, you may go out to reach the lost, but the Lord may want to make a disciple. You may be headed out to witness to lost people, but there are a lot of Christians who need witnessing to as well.
If they are true Christians, you know the Lord really loves them. He wants them to mature into the bride, as well as yourself, and you may have a gospel word for them. Paul never limited the gospel to unbelievers. The gospel was for everybody.
You may go off with a desire to lead a lost one to the Lord, but the Lord may have an intention for you to disciple a Christian who has a very unstable foundation.
Fourth, you sow along your journey, and God uses all your sowing for His kingdom. You cannot always determine the soil’s preparedness, but the sower goes out to sow. That is the mystery of the kingdom.
Your seed will find good soil and a fruitful harvest, even though you will see many plots of land that do not seem receptive at all.
Even when somebody rejects your trumpet call, they are not rejecting you; they are rejecting the Lord. The Lord judges people based on what they have heard. That is why it is important to blow the trumpet and say, “The Lord Jesus is coming back, and He is coming back soon. It is time for you to get right with the Lord and be born into the kingdom of God.”
That is our job. The results are the Lord’s. But we need to have that understanding of things as we go along.
Again, another point in the larger picture of things, because I think it is necessary: evangelism is a vital part of our kingdom service.
The normal church has been given evangelists to keep the door open. Thank God for evangelists, because they stir up our hearts regarding this matter. By their own witnessing and faithfulness, they keep the door open for people to come in, gather in, and get saved.
But the whole church is called upon at seasons to do the work of an evangelist. Do you know that in the life of the Lord, the church has seasons? You come upon a season, and it is a season of ingathering. At that time, all of us need to be gathered to do the work of an evangelist, whatever gift or whatever way we can do it.
The church is involved in evangelism. If we follow the seasons of the Lord, there will be times when all of us will be involved in ingathering, because this is part of the larger work.
But secondly, evangelism is only a part of our kingdom service, right? Sometimes the problem with kingdom service and the gospel is that people become exclusively gospel, make the gospel their priority, and as a result those who are saved do not grow.
I was blessed to see in Russia their time after the Iron Curtain fell, a time of great ingathering. I happened to visit Russia a few times near the end of the ingathering. Countries have seasons, and Russia had a great ingathering season. That season is over now.
The problem was that they were so busy gathering that the baby Christians were made babies, and the church was not brought to maturity. They were too busy reaching out, and because they did not attend to that, the churches had a lot of problems.
There were many problems with leaders who had not developed moral character. So a lot of that which was done in the ingathering—the fruit—is being lost because the church is not coming to maturity. The whole thing has to work together.
The Lord knows what He is doing. The Lord of the harvest gathers people into the church, and then the whole body is about discipleship. We want to bring these people right through to the Lord.
I love that English expression. When I went to Halford House, they would be praying, “Oh, we are thankful for that brother who accepted the Lord on Sunday night. We pray that You bring him right through.” That is what they would say.
I always wondered, “Right through to what?” But they meant right through to a real life with the Lord.
When people get saved, praise God. If we have several evangelists here in Richmond, praise God. But when people are brought in, every Christian has some shepherding we can do for these new ones, and everybody needs to help them become a disciple of the Lord Jesus.
It is a balance. The Head of the church also sends master builders to build the church to maturity, as well as evangelists. These two points go together.
The reality of the church’s testimony is the secret to evangelism. When the Lord is alive in the midst of His church, He sovereignly opens doors for seasons of ingathering.
Oh, dear saints, what a poor condition the church is in. The church should be in such a condition that our young people would almost feel propelled out onto the streets by a church so in love with the Lord—a church that is itself serving the Lord.
The old ones—nobody retires from being a witness. But when the church is so dead that young people have to go out almost in spite of the lack of concern, this is something much larger than just a few assemblies. We need a real reviving of God.
When the church is alive, it is amazing how often evangelism is a real outgrowth of that real testimony. If we are the testimony of Jesus, that implies that we are bearing testimony not just among ourselves, but out where we live.
Evangelism has its sovereign place in our service when balanced with spiritual growth.
You can have some faithful people evangelizing, but when the church is cold and dead, there is no incubator, and the Lord does not open up a door.
If the church starts knocking on their knees, the Lord opens the door very sovereignly, like to the church of Philadelphia: “I know that you are weak, that I stand and open a door which no man can shut.” When that happens, we need to go through the door. Take the opportunity.
This is a larger matter. Fourth, both the gospel of the kingdom and the bride’s perfection hasten the end.
We have there from Matthew 24:
This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations;
And then shall the end come.
That gospel of the kingdom needs to be blown out among the nations, and then the end will come. Praise God.
Do you know, while we were together worshiping from ten to eleven o’clock, approximately almost seven thousand new Christians were brought into the kingdom while we were here worshiping? Across the world, there is a great ingathering, even though we are in a supposed Christian nation.
There are places in the world where people are coming to the Lord. Muslims are getting saved so fast that nobody is able to keep up with it right now. In Europe, there is a whole new revival because those Muslims have come into those countries, are hearing the gospel, and are getting saved.
It is amazing what is going on around the world. But that is just to say that this is the Lord, and He is finding people to blow that gospel trumpet so that the end and His kingdom can come.
At the same time, the church has to mature and become a prepared, holy bride for the King to come. Do you not see? We need both, right?
The Holy Spirit is pressing us in spiritual exercise unto perfection as a bride, and the Holy Spirit is pressing us out to preach the gospel so that the end can come. They are interrelated.
Now, here we go: some concepts of witnessing. What I am calling parables is more than just parables, but the idea is that which Jesus showed us.
How do you be a witness? Do you go up and grab somebody by the shirt and say, “Listen, buddy, you need to get saved”? Well, how did Jesus do it? He did not do that. But what did He do? He caught people with parables.
The parables brought in an unexpected angle of elevation. “Hmm, I had not thought of that before.” That is what I mean.
Jesus, of course, was the Master of masters at doing this kind of thing. The parables catch listeners off guard. The wisdom of Jesus used a simple story to relate a mystery.
It was an outward, familiar picture, but it had an unexpected angle, so that an outsider or a seeker would have ears to hear the twist in the story. “Wait a minute, there is a twist there.” It piques their interest, and they want some more.
When I speak to young people about this, I call it: the Lord went about handing out kingdom hors d’oeuvres. “You know what the kingdom is like? Here it is. It is like treasure hidden in a field, and when you find it, you sell everything to get more.”
Hmm. I like that Chinese food, you know? He just piques your interest. He hits you with a little something from another angle.
To people who were used to God’s kingdom being Israel, with all of the politics, corruption, and the whole thing, He came in there and said, “God’s kingdom is an organic plant that grows by a life from within. It is not an outside organization.”
All those Jews said, “What?” But some people said, “Yeah.”
The kingdom of God was entered into through spiritual birth, not because you belonged to a certain tribe or had signed on a dotted line. “Yeah, I have to be born into this spiritual kingdom. Oh, I had not seen that angle before.”
Jesus came with this unexpected thing: the kingdom of God was actually a living spiritual relationship to the King. Of course, the people were blind to it because they did not know they were talking to the King.
“What do I have to do about the kingdom?” Basically, He was saying, “Excuse Me, you are looking at Him. What do you want—a kingdom, or do you want the King? If you have the King, you have the kingdom. If you do not have the King, you do not have the kingdom.”
“What is all this outward stuff? You are worried about the kingdom. The kingdom’s secret is, I am the King. I am the mystery that unlocks the kingdom. I am the King; you are the dumbs. That is the kingdom.”
He shared parables and made people say, “Hmm, I like that.”
In a world where thoughts are shallow and people are on a two-dimensional plane, it is a shock when somebody hears something regarding transcendence. It makes them stop.
Do you know today that secular psychologists say that millennials and Generation Z have an absolute obsession with transcendence? Now, you older ones who were not here during the week, look around you, because that is who they are: Generation Z—people born from 1995 on—and millennials, the old folks before 1995.
That is why there are all these video games about apocalyptic afterworlds, different realms, and things that we older folks know nothing about. I start the Mario game, and in two seconds Mario dies. That is it.
Generation Z is called the iGen. They get the whole deal, but they long for transcendence. That is why they are into such unreality stuff.
If we could provide angles of elevation and speak of transcendence, it piques the interest of this generation.
How about creating contemporary parables? Some of you young people are literary. Why do you not think about that? How can I speak to my friends and bring in an unexpected angle of transcendence into this daily, workaday world?
If you could just leave your friend with a parable—and I do not mean you need to say, “Once there was a man who went out to sow.” No, no. A parable can be inventive in any kind of way. But the effect is that somebody says, “You mean there is something deeper to life?”
Then you have spoken the parable. Even in these parables, which we would not even call parables, some of them—the Nicodemus story, for instance—He gave the born-again parable.
Suddenly Nicodemus says, “Wait a minute. I thought I knew the kingdom. You are saying I cannot even see the kingdom unless I am born again?” A whole unexpected angle of elevation.
There are modern-day witnesses on a larger scale that all of us would identify and say brought life into parables that gave a higher understanding of life: Francis Schaeffer, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and N. T. Wright himself.
Even though he is a bishop of the church in Durham—an Anglican—he is a very alive parable-teller. When you hear him speaking to a group of young people, he absolutely captures them with parables of transcendence to a secular world.
One thing I really want to say, especially for young people: young people in your church—you have whatever, six, eight, ten, whatever fervent young people—should form gospel teams.
Find a way of expressing the gospel trumpet outside your own church building. Get together and claim your territory for the kingdom of God. Say, “Okay, here in Richmond, we are going to stand and blow the trumpet. The King is coming.”
A corporate witness is so wonderful because it is much more diverse, and there are people with various gifts able to function together. That is why it is good to go out as a team.
Certainly, if you witness, you should go out two by two at least. You find so many times the benefit of that. But now I am talking about witnessing teams.
That is actually us in New York there. There I am with my guitar and some singers, and that girl looking like she is doing nothing on the edge. She is actually the most important one, because she counsels the people who are listening and hands them a tract.
The components would be the silent prayer circle. When we would go out into one of these little things, there were actually about fifteen people there, but you do not see a lot of them because some were over on the side praying like crazy during the time we were having a little service.
Prayer, establishing God’s ground, and everything is important. Then you have musicians. I call them chum. When you go fishing, you chuck a bunch of stuff overboard and a lot of stuff in the water, and people say, “Hey, what is going on?”
Musicians make a distraction. People turn around and say, “What is going on over there?”
You also need a personal-testimony person who can share their testimony within three minutes maximum. Oh, it is hard to do. Saints cannot even make announcements under ten minutes.
Then somebody shares a gospel message. Again, it has to be short and sweet, to the point.
Like that lawyer friend of ours in New York: he got up and shared that gospel minute, and an Indian woman jumped all over him because she was an atheist. Boy, it was a wonderful time.
Then there are the tract counselors, like that girl standing on the edge. When people show an interest—people walking by, people walking by, somebody walks and stops—you watch and see if they stay for more than a minute. If they do, you walk up next to them and say, “Would you like a tract?”
They may say, “Yeah, what are you guys doing?” These are the most important ones.
You have gone out with your gospel team. First, you pray and say, “Lord, keep the enemy away. Let Your precious blood be over us. We claim this ground for You. We want to blow the trumpet.” Before you get going, you should do something like that, because the enemy will often try to intervene somehow.
Then the singers gain attention by singing a few good songs. But do not sing sheepishly. You have to bang it out. Sing with Spirit-filled singing.
There is no place to be kind of, “Oh, we are so happy. I was so happy.” People say, “What is the matter with these people? What are they doing out here?” No, no, no. With all your heart you are singing.
Even if you are a little off tune, people still get the point. It is the heart that counts.
Somebody shares a personal testimony—just a couple of minutes. Then somebody gives a gospel witness—just a couple of minutes.
People have no attention spans anymore. They are on their phone as they are watching you. They are not going to take a long time if you say, “I would like to bring to you what Luther’s ninety-five theses were all about.” Bingo, they are gone. You have lost them.
You have got to snag them. Somebody needs to preach the gospel—just a short one. You capture them.
The most important people, believe it or not, are not really the preacher, the testimony giver, or the singers, but those counselors standing on the outside.
Many times we have done this, and people barely stop to listen to the music. Somebody is speaking, and they go by. But it is those people out on the edge who always end up being able to talk to somebody for fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, or an hour.
Wonderful, wonderful things happen if we are willing to do that. These tract counselors are the most important witnesses because they are talking one-on-one to people around.
I want to encourage you about that. If you have enough young people—I know some groups perhaps do not—you really should try that. I would not suggest it when it is twenty-one degrees outside.
But you should take some kingdom ground and give it a shot. You will learn an awful lot. You will learn an awful lot, really. It is a really important, wonderful time if we can do this kind of thing together.
Recycle every ten or fifteen minutes, because there is a whole new crowd of people. The same testimony and the same message are perfectly okay.
Of course, there is a lot to say about one-on-one witnessing. But the most effective long-term witnessing you will do is where you live, where you work, and where you go to school.
This is where people have time, and you have time to cultivate a witness. This is where it can be very productive and very helpful: this whole miracle of dialogue, where people begin to listen.
There are three caveats. First, be full of grace and truth when you talk to somebody. Second, be able to give a concise answer as to the reason for the hope that is within you—how you got saved. Can you say it in two or three minutes?
Third, be a listener. This is where we get to finding a way into their witnessing zone by listening to them.
For you saints who are in this group, I will send copies of these pages along because we are going to have to do this more quickly.
One door of witness into the witness zone is “Kukling.” You know what Kukling is? There is a guy named Greg Koukl, and he is very good. He talks about one-on-one witnessing, especially among college students. He wrote a book called Tactics.
Greg Koukl calls it the Colombo Tactic. It is the tactic he uses more than any other. It is a very, very effective tactic when combined with other tactics.
It is the simplest tactic imaginable to stop a challenger in his tracks, turn the tables, and get him thinking. It is an almost effortless way to put you in the driver’s seat.
Now, you remember Lieutenant Columbo. How many of you know who Columbo is? He is that detective on television. None of the young people, of course.
He has that certain way about himself. He has an old trench coat he wears, looks like he slept in it—maybe he did. He has that stub of a cigar, a little pad of paper, but he has never got a pencil. He is always digging around for it and cannot find it anywhere.
He walks around the crime scene scratching his head, looking kind of stupid. I mean, this guy looks stupid, but he is stupid like a fox. He looks like he cannot think his way out of a wet paper bag, but he has got a plan.
At some point, he stops and says something like this: “I do not know. There is something about this thing that bothers me. Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
You know how he does that, right? He gets his answer back. “Oh, yeah, we got very intelligent. One more thing.” Then he “one more things” them to death, right? Question after question after question.
People get annoyed. He says, “I know I am driving you crazy, but I cannot help myself. It is a habit.” This is a habit that you ought to get into.
The key to the Colombo Tactic is using carefully selected questions to disarm the other person and productively advance the conversation. Listen, if you do not know where to go in any particular circumstance and find yourself stonewalled, just ask a question. Never make an assertion.
Here are the three Columbo questions that he talks about. Young people, you should consider this among your friends. You can confront people, but with people you know on a long-term basis, why do you not find out what they are really thinking?
The first question is, “What do you mean by that?” When they say something about religion, whatever it may be, such as, “Christianity is too narrow,” you just say, “What do you mean by that?”
Rather than challenge them immediately, you will find often that they do not really mean much by it. They heard somebody else say it.
The second question is, “How did you come to that conclusion?”
The third question is, “Have you considered this?” This is where you offer a suggestion.
The process of these three questions, as simple as they are, will often disarm people. You know why? People love to talk.
They will tell you, waxing eloquent about why religion is not important, why Buddhism is as good as Christianity, or whatever. Just let them talk, because in the end they self-destruct. They do not know what they are talking about.
I remember before I was saved, when I was in college, some Christians came to witness to me. I would always get after them and argue with them. But sometimes, in that argument, I would show what a jerk I was.
I said, “Well, does not that Bible say, ‘God helps those who help themselves,’ somewhere, like in the Book of Hezekiah?” Eventually, you expose yourself.
Then you can offer a suggestion: “Well, have you considered this?” You will find that once people have had their say, they are much more willing to listen to you.
Now, these are talking about long-term relationships. But some of the saints in New York even tried it out in the park. They sat down on a bench and started asking questions, and they were there for an hour.
People love to talk about themselves. Meanwhile, you bring somebody to the end of these crazy notions they have.
Here are some statements you might hear: “I do not want anything to do with religion. All religions are basically the same. Belief in God is irrational. I can never believe in a God who allows so much evil in the world. Why would a loving God create hell? More people have been killed in the name of religion than anything. I personally do not believe in abortion, but I think it is wrong to force my view on others.”
If you are interested in these things, Koukl’s book Tactics is a book you should get, because he answers all those questions just by asking questions.
This kind of method is good because it is gracious, yet it has some salt. You are talking to somebody, sharing seeds of the gospel on an ongoing basis, and keeping the door open for the future.
I wish I had known that when I was a young Christian, just newly saved, because I am afraid I alienated some people by being too fast to talk and too slow to listen. Some of you are very good listeners. You have a real key there for evangelism.
One last door I am going to mention is the mercy zone. We touched it already in the help net, but look: you see people, and everybody has a mask on. Everybody is fine. Everybody is doing okay. Everybody could not be better, and they are happy.
Then you discover that something is really wrong. A person is really having trouble. They are coming in on Mondays and are always hung over; they are not productive at work. You see something, and you see that a person really needs help.
That is when you can break into their zone and show them some mercy. It is amazing what happens when you show somebody mercy when they are in a difficult situation.
I think, for us to be good witnesses, we should see those times as an opportunity to really help somebody. They broke up with their girlfriend; their parents are getting divorced; whatever it is, that is a perfect time.
I am sure I have told this story before, but let me tell it one more time. One day I was playing tennis. I used to play indoor tennis at this court, and afterward I was just about to leave with my tennis buddy, Dave.
Dave said, “Dana, you know what? I am going to leave my wife. I just love this other woman. I am going to leave my wife.”
I could tell—I mean, why would he tell me that unless he could see that he could talk to me? I got in my car with David. I said, “Dave, I do not know what to tell you, but I think I know what is right. Can I pray for you?”
David was an agnostic atheist, not an interested guy. But he said, “Okay.”
So I kept my eyes open. I did not want to freak him out and say, “Oh, Thou who comest from the heavens, come down.” With my eyes open, the engine running, Dave sitting there, and both of us sweating from tennis, I looked forward and said, “God, would You please help Dave out?”
“He is in a place where he has to make an important decision. Help him to know which way he goes. Amen.” That is all I said. I did not say Jesus’ name or anything.
When I got through, I turned and David was flooding tears. I could not believe it. He was so broken by that simple prayer.
I said, “Dave, I am going to keep praying for you.” It is funny: I moved one month later to another town. I never saw Dave again.
Fifteen years later, I was out on a driving range hitting golf balls, and up came a guy who said, “You remember me?” He had this kind of voice. “Dave!”
He said, “I went back home, decided to stay with my wife. And you know what? She came down with MS, and I stayed faithful to her until she died.”
He said, “How about that?” Such a simple prayer. But people in need are so absolutely desperate.
Just say to somebody, with your eyes glued on them, “My friend, I am praying for you. My wife and I are going to pray for you all this week before that operation,” or whatever it is. You would be amazed at the impact it has on people.
People immediately wall up when they hear about problems: “Oh, you have problems? I am out of here.” But mercy is a zone of opportunity.
Be compassionate toward those who are broken. They are already ignorant, broken, and hurting, and you have been there yourself.
That is where a priest is worth his weight in gold, because he understands the weakness of mankind. We ourselves were weak and saved.
Just a reminder: the largeness of the I AM clothes you with His love.
You are already a witness. So make it your aim to become a faithful witness. Be a witness that the Lord can say, “Well done, good and faithful witness.”
You want to hear the Lord say that to you before His judgment seat. You are a witness now, but why do you not make it your aim to be a faithful witness?
That morning preparation to make you available and willing will yield opportunities as you go through the day. You need to prepare your heart.
Do not just read a Scripture and say, “Praise God, take care of my needs and help me get that bonus.” How about saying, “Lord, make me sensitive to do Thy will”?
I am suggesting this again for young people, although all of you are fine: be part of a gospel team. Join in the gospel seasons of your church life, and especially be active.
When your assembly is about to have a gospel meeting—which some assemblies have on a relatively regular basis—join in on it. Be part of it. Do not stand aside and say, “Oh, I cannot make it.” Be sure that you have done your best to get somebody there.
Do not be a spectator at a gospel meeting. This is one time when we all need to have something in it.
Finally, realize that you are part of something bigger. You are doing a small part, but you are manifesting God’s love for the world.
God so loved the world that He sent you out. So be faithful. You are manifesting love even if they reject it. Rejecting love is a hard thing to do; it haunts people when they reject. They sit and think about what they have done.
So be that faithful witness. You are doing your small part. You are planting a seed, cultivating something, helping somebody along the way.
Our dear sister yesterday gave us a testimony of how she had about a year in which she cultivated somebody into Christ: meeting together, eating with the person, asking questions, studying the Bible, and finally being herself, which was a real breakthrough.
Then this dear friend of hers came to the Lord. That is our life.
The gospel trumpet—will that trumpet be on your lips? I know you are just a priest, frail and with many mistakes and things, but the Lord has given you a silver trumpet.
Would you blow that trumpet and say, “The kingdom is coming. I just want you all to know”? What a wonderful opportunity. Let us take that opportunity and be faithful to the Lord.
I do not know when the Lord is coming back, but I am sure that among everything else the bride is doing in her perfection, she still has a heart for those who are lost, because she has the heart of Jesus in her.
She is still reaching out. She has just brought somebody in, and then the end has come. May we be found so faithful, watching and praying for the Lord to return.
While we are praying to the Lord, with the Spirit and the bride saying, “Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus,” let us obey the Holy Spirit when He sends us out on one more mission, one more gospel team, before He comes back.
May we be found faithful.
Lord, we are so thankful that You paved the way. Oh, we have never seen an evangelist like You: so wise, so loving.
Your hands were hands of good, hands of blessing, hands of mercy. Your words were parables of unexpected angles and insights that had somehow been missed as people went through their lives.
Lord, would You make us like Yourself? It is enough for a disciple that he be like his Lord.
We know that it involves some rejection by people. We know that it involves denying ourselves and taking up our cross.
But we know it also involves hearing the angels in heaven rejoice when somebody comes into the kingdom of Thy dear Son.
Father, have Your way in our midst, we pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.