One wrong notion among Christians is that it is expected that whenever you share the gospel to someone, you should be able to lead that person to a decision to get right with God. And because of the difficulty in achieving this end, two things tend to happen. First, Christians are moved to preach a modern gospel message that is so appealing to everyone but very much lacking of emphasis when it comes to the need to repent of sins just so they can get the “result” that they want even if the conversion of the person that was forced to say the “sinner’s prayer” is very much questionable. Second, Christians totally abandon their duty to share the gospel message to the lost.
Many of us have failed to realize that it is not our job to convict people to get right with God. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job. Our duty is to just declare the gospel. The instruction in Mark 16:15 is this: “…,Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Nothing was said about us doing the “saving” or the “convicting”. So, if our job is to only declare the gospel, you can do it several ways. My May 2008 article gives some suggestions on how you can engage yourself in your God-commissioned duty in our modern time with the kind of technology that we have. For this article, I will share some stories of how the Holy Spirit moved in people after faithful Christians did what they’re supposed to do.
A good friend of my family, Bro.Buddy Valdez, told me how his very effortless act of giving his German subordinate a gospel tract opened the door for the Holy Spirit to start talking to this guy. Buddy is a captain of a big ship transporting things from one country to another. One time, he and an immediate subordinate of his were silently doing their job of navigating their ship in the middle of I don’t know where. Buddy so casually pulled out from his shirt pocket a copy of the “Are you a good person?” comic tract which he purchased from us before he went to this assignment and gave it to his German subordinate. There were no words spoken between them after he handed the tract to him. After a few minutes the German guy softly said, “That really hit me,” while wiping his tears. You know God had dealt with him through that tract. As to whether that guy got right with God is something Heaven will reveal to us someday. But as one song said, “Tears are a language God understands”.
Before that, Buddy was stuck for about a week in some country in Africa, waiting for the ship he is to captain. Left with nothing to do after tasting all of the food in the buffet table in the hotel he stayed at, my friend decided to go out to distribute some tracts. Being in a country with a totally different culture and belief system as the Philippines, he was quite nervous at the start. But he knew that he needed to do what he’s supposed to do and so, he swallowed up all his fears and gave tracts to people around. After several tracts given away, a group of Africans that received gospel tracts from him told him that they are Christians too and that they were so blessed with what he was doing. If I remember it right, these Africans even invited my friend to their church. While there, he gave them a stack of gospel tracts for them to distribute. Buddy’s obedience to the Great Commission not only made the Holy Spirit move in the lives of non-Christians, it also paved the way for God to move in believers’ lives.
When we celebrated the 2nd year anniversary of the Star Youth Ministries last April 19, 2008, we decided to celebrate it not with a program in a restaurant with friends and supporters just like the previous year, but instead, by doing what we enjoy doing the most --- going out in the streets to share the gospel. We went to a nearby town in our province and gave-out gospel tracts and did one-to-one witnessing whenever the opportunity presented itself. After about an hour, we left the place and ate lunch together. A month later, a cousin of mine who happens to be a pastor in that town told me that a couple whom he had not met before attended his church the previous Sunday. He asked them why they chose to go to his church. The couple explained that a few weeks back, there were a group of young people that were giving out gospel tracts in the town plaza. They were given a copy and at home, they read it. They understood what it was talking about, and did what was suggested that they do (repent of their sins and put their faith in Jesus). They also read an advice at the end of the tract that says that they should go to a church that preaches the same thing as the tract so that they can further learn more about God, and so, there they were. When they showed my cousin the gospel tract, it was the tract that we gave out during our 2nd year anniversary.
A few years back, when I was just starting to use the Way of the Master in my witnessing encounters, I was able to share the gospel with a couple of prostitutes one evening. At first, I did not know that they were prostitutes. I only realized that they were such when I saw that they were with this pimp that was going around asking people if they wanted to have some casual sex. I asked these two women and their pimp if I can talk to them for 5 to 10 minutes. They said “yes”. So I went through the steps and by the time the pimp realized that I was talking about God, he left. I showed the two women their sinfulness, their sure punishment in Hell and what Jesus did to pay for their sins. I then explained what they needed to do so that Jesus’ sacrifice at the cross can be credited as payment for their own sins. To close our conversation, I told them that if they love themselves very much, they must not go to sleep that night without them getting right with God because they really don’t know if they will still get to wake-up the next day. As I was about to leave them, they stopped me and told me that they already so badly want to get right with God that moment. And so, I asked them to talk to God personally. I never asked them to repeat a prayer that I will be saying. All the words came from them. After they prayed, they said that they felt something different from inside of them. It’s as if a big load was removed from them.
Before I left these two women, I told them to start reading their Bible so that they will know more about their Savior. They told me that they don’t have a copy at their homes but they will try to look for one. A couple of days later, I saw one of the women one afternoon in a park. I told her to meet me the next day in that park and I’ll give her a Bible. She then told me not to bother anymore because she has already borrowed a Bible from a friend of hers and she has been reading it since. God has really demonstrated through these women His power to change even the most hardened sinner.
Another time, I was asked to preach in an evangelistic camp. Even before I went to the venue, the organizers of the camp had already told me that my audience was a bunch of very intimidating people as evidenced by their tattoos and piercings in their bodies. In fact, there was even one of them that stole a cellular phone owned by one of the camp counselors the night before. The phone has not re-surfaced up to the time I started preaching despite several requests made by the camp organizers in the sessions for it to be returned.
My message that day was about Lazarus and the Rich man. I explained to everyone that the reason why the Rich man was in Hell was because of his sins and the reason why Lazarus was in Heaven was because he has received a gift from God (Romans 6:23). I then explained that the only way for them to evade Hell and instead, go to Heaven is by showing God a true desire to turn away from their sins once and for all and for them to trust in Jesus for their salvation. There were a number of them that came forward when the invitation was given. After the session, something great happened. The phone was returned by the one that stole it. It happened that he really got convicted with the message and decided to get right with God. In order for him to show his true repentance, he swallowed up all his pride, went to the owner of the phone and gave it back. Now that’s evidence of a true conversion.
In John 14:26, Jesus informs us that after He goes back to Heaven "…the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in His name, He shall teach us all things, and bring all things to our remembrance, whatsoever He had said unto us." In this verse, Jesus was telling us something that should remove all our fears when it comes to speaking about the gospel to others. He was telling us, in simple terms, that when we witness to someone, we are just like microphones that transmit God’s message to people. The microphone is not the one speaking. It’s the person who talks through the microphone that speaks. God just needs us to be His microphone. All He needs is our willingness to be used by Him. He is the one that will do the talking through us.
God does not really require us to be eloquent speakers. In fact, He wants us to be the opposite. He wants someone who will acknowledge his/her weaknesses so that He can fully work through us. This was exactly the reason why the apostle Paul became the most successful evangelist in the New Testament time. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 gives us Paul’s testimony when it comes to sharing the gospel. He said that he was poor when it comes to public speaking, that he knew nothing but the gospel and that he often felt weakness and trembling because of fear. But that was all God needed. Paul had everything God needed to transform him into the kind of person He wants him to be. He went on to become a great man of God, delivering God’s message of salvation even to the ends of the world.
When God added three thousand souls to the church in the early parts of the Book of Acts, it was not because Peter and the disciples were good preachers. Remember that their previous vocations (e.g., fishermen, tax collectors, etc.) did not require them to have the traits of a public speaker. The success of the early church was solely due to the moving of the Holy Spirit. But we must also remember that if we really want the Holy Spirit to fully release His power through us, we must do it His way.
First, we must be living a holy life. If there’s any sin in our hearts, it’s impossible for the Holy Spirit to use us. Therefore, we must regularly confess our sins to God so that we can be cleanse from all our unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Second, we must be ready to give people an answer for the hope that is in us with meekness and fear (1 Peter 3:15). This means that we must be willing instruments with humility and dependence on God. Finally, if we preach, we must do it in a way that pleases the Holy Spirit. John 16:8 tells us that “…when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” This verse is telling us that the kind of gospel message that the Holy Spirit preaches is one that shows a person his sins, the required righteousness by God, not our own righteousness, and the judgment that awaits this world because it received not the lordship of Jesus. The modern gospel message that tells people that “God has a wonderful plan for our lives” clearly is not in-tuned to the kind of message that pleases the Holy Spirit.
Praise the Lord for the Holy Spirit! Without Him, everything that we will do will fail. His power is the reason why everything that we will do for Jesus will have eternal value. He is the reason why once upon a time in our lives, after the gospel was shared to us by someone who cared for our soul, we were deeply convicted of our embarrassing sinfulness. He was the one that brought us to our knees to ask God for forgiveness and to ask Jesus to save us from our sure punishment in Hell. Today, let us open the gate for the Holy Spirit to again work in the life of a person by delivering the gospel to another person who is unknowingly making his way to Hell. Declare the gospel and from there, step aside, and let the Holy Spirit finish the work.
Many of us have failed to realize that it is not our job to convict people to get right with God. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job. Our duty is to just declare the gospel. The instruction in Mark 16:15 is this: “…,Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Nothing was said about us doing the “saving” or the “convicting”. So, if our job is to only declare the gospel, you can do it several ways. My May 2008 article gives some suggestions on how you can engage yourself in your God-commissioned duty in our modern time with the kind of technology that we have. For this article, I will share some stories of how the Holy Spirit moved in people after faithful Christians did what they’re supposed to do.
A good friend of my family, Bro.Buddy Valdez, told me how his very effortless act of giving his German subordinate a gospel tract opened the door for the Holy Spirit to start talking to this guy. Buddy is a captain of a big ship transporting things from one country to another. One time, he and an immediate subordinate of his were silently doing their job of navigating their ship in the middle of I don’t know where. Buddy so casually pulled out from his shirt pocket a copy of the “Are you a good person?” comic tract which he purchased from us before he went to this assignment and gave it to his German subordinate. There were no words spoken between them after he handed the tract to him. After a few minutes the German guy softly said, “That really hit me,” while wiping his tears. You know God had dealt with him through that tract. As to whether that guy got right with God is something Heaven will reveal to us someday. But as one song said, “Tears are a language God understands”.
Before that, Buddy was stuck for about a week in some country in Africa, waiting for the ship he is to captain. Left with nothing to do after tasting all of the food in the buffet table in the hotel he stayed at, my friend decided to go out to distribute some tracts. Being in a country with a totally different culture and belief system as the Philippines, he was quite nervous at the start. But he knew that he needed to do what he’s supposed to do and so, he swallowed up all his fears and gave tracts to people around. After several tracts given away, a group of Africans that received gospel tracts from him told him that they are Christians too and that they were so blessed with what he was doing. If I remember it right, these Africans even invited my friend to their church. While there, he gave them a stack of gospel tracts for them to distribute. Buddy’s obedience to the Great Commission not only made the Holy Spirit move in the lives of non-Christians, it also paved the way for God to move in believers’ lives.
When we celebrated the 2nd year anniversary of the Star Youth Ministries last April 19, 2008, we decided to celebrate it not with a program in a restaurant with friends and supporters just like the previous year, but instead, by doing what we enjoy doing the most --- going out in the streets to share the gospel. We went to a nearby town in our province and gave-out gospel tracts and did one-to-one witnessing whenever the opportunity presented itself. After about an hour, we left the place and ate lunch together. A month later, a cousin of mine who happens to be a pastor in that town told me that a couple whom he had not met before attended his church the previous Sunday. He asked them why they chose to go to his church. The couple explained that a few weeks back, there were a group of young people that were giving out gospel tracts in the town plaza. They were given a copy and at home, they read it. They understood what it was talking about, and did what was suggested that they do (repent of their sins and put their faith in Jesus). They also read an advice at the end of the tract that says that they should go to a church that preaches the same thing as the tract so that they can further learn more about God, and so, there they were. When they showed my cousin the gospel tract, it was the tract that we gave out during our 2nd year anniversary.
A few years back, when I was just starting to use the Way of the Master in my witnessing encounters, I was able to share the gospel with a couple of prostitutes one evening. At first, I did not know that they were prostitutes. I only realized that they were such when I saw that they were with this pimp that was going around asking people if they wanted to have some casual sex. I asked these two women and their pimp if I can talk to them for 5 to 10 minutes. They said “yes”. So I went through the steps and by the time the pimp realized that I was talking about God, he left. I showed the two women their sinfulness, their sure punishment in Hell and what Jesus did to pay for their sins. I then explained what they needed to do so that Jesus’ sacrifice at the cross can be credited as payment for their own sins. To close our conversation, I told them that if they love themselves very much, they must not go to sleep that night without them getting right with God because they really don’t know if they will still get to wake-up the next day. As I was about to leave them, they stopped me and told me that they already so badly want to get right with God that moment. And so, I asked them to talk to God personally. I never asked them to repeat a prayer that I will be saying. All the words came from them. After they prayed, they said that they felt something different from inside of them. It’s as if a big load was removed from them.
Before I left these two women, I told them to start reading their Bible so that they will know more about their Savior. They told me that they don’t have a copy at their homes but they will try to look for one. A couple of days later, I saw one of the women one afternoon in a park. I told her to meet me the next day in that park and I’ll give her a Bible. She then told me not to bother anymore because she has already borrowed a Bible from a friend of hers and she has been reading it since. God has really demonstrated through these women His power to change even the most hardened sinner.
Another time, I was asked to preach in an evangelistic camp. Even before I went to the venue, the organizers of the camp had already told me that my audience was a bunch of very intimidating people as evidenced by their tattoos and piercings in their bodies. In fact, there was even one of them that stole a cellular phone owned by one of the camp counselors the night before. The phone has not re-surfaced up to the time I started preaching despite several requests made by the camp organizers in the sessions for it to be returned.
My message that day was about Lazarus and the Rich man. I explained to everyone that the reason why the Rich man was in Hell was because of his sins and the reason why Lazarus was in Heaven was because he has received a gift from God (Romans 6:23). I then explained that the only way for them to evade Hell and instead, go to Heaven is by showing God a true desire to turn away from their sins once and for all and for them to trust in Jesus for their salvation. There were a number of them that came forward when the invitation was given. After the session, something great happened. The phone was returned by the one that stole it. It happened that he really got convicted with the message and decided to get right with God. In order for him to show his true repentance, he swallowed up all his pride, went to the owner of the phone and gave it back. Now that’s evidence of a true conversion.
In John 14:26, Jesus informs us that after He goes back to Heaven "…the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in His name, He shall teach us all things, and bring all things to our remembrance, whatsoever He had said unto us." In this verse, Jesus was telling us something that should remove all our fears when it comes to speaking about the gospel to others. He was telling us, in simple terms, that when we witness to someone, we are just like microphones that transmit God’s message to people. The microphone is not the one speaking. It’s the person who talks through the microphone that speaks. God just needs us to be His microphone. All He needs is our willingness to be used by Him. He is the one that will do the talking through us.
God does not really require us to be eloquent speakers. In fact, He wants us to be the opposite. He wants someone who will acknowledge his/her weaknesses so that He can fully work through us. This was exactly the reason why the apostle Paul became the most successful evangelist in the New Testament time. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 gives us Paul’s testimony when it comes to sharing the gospel. He said that he was poor when it comes to public speaking, that he knew nothing but the gospel and that he often felt weakness and trembling because of fear. But that was all God needed. Paul had everything God needed to transform him into the kind of person He wants him to be. He went on to become a great man of God, delivering God’s message of salvation even to the ends of the world.
When God added three thousand souls to the church in the early parts of the Book of Acts, it was not because Peter and the disciples were good preachers. Remember that their previous vocations (e.g., fishermen, tax collectors, etc.) did not require them to have the traits of a public speaker. The success of the early church was solely due to the moving of the Holy Spirit. But we must also remember that if we really want the Holy Spirit to fully release His power through us, we must do it His way.
First, we must be living a holy life. If there’s any sin in our hearts, it’s impossible for the Holy Spirit to use us. Therefore, we must regularly confess our sins to God so that we can be cleanse from all our unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Second, we must be ready to give people an answer for the hope that is in us with meekness and fear (1 Peter 3:15). This means that we must be willing instruments with humility and dependence on God. Finally, if we preach, we must do it in a way that pleases the Holy Spirit. John 16:8 tells us that “…when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” This verse is telling us that the kind of gospel message that the Holy Spirit preaches is one that shows a person his sins, the required righteousness by God, not our own righteousness, and the judgment that awaits this world because it received not the lordship of Jesus. The modern gospel message that tells people that “God has a wonderful plan for our lives” clearly is not in-tuned to the kind of message that pleases the Holy Spirit.
Praise the Lord for the Holy Spirit! Without Him, everything that we will do will fail. His power is the reason why everything that we will do for Jesus will have eternal value. He is the reason why once upon a time in our lives, after the gospel was shared to us by someone who cared for our soul, we were deeply convicted of our embarrassing sinfulness. He was the one that brought us to our knees to ask God for forgiveness and to ask Jesus to save us from our sure punishment in Hell. Today, let us open the gate for the Holy Spirit to again work in the life of a person by delivering the gospel to another person who is unknowingly making his way to Hell. Declare the gospel and from there, step aside, and let the Holy Spirit finish the work.
