Bus stops are great places for witnessing, because sinners just keep coming and going all day long.
Most of them are usually sitting down and won’t walk away—even if they do not like what you have to say—because they don’t want to miss their bus. Sometimes I think God created public transportation just so believers would have a great place to share the gospel.
A while back I went out witnessing at one of the local bus stops in my hometown of Fresno, California. I walked up to a woman who was sitting on a bench, handed her a Ticket To Heaven gospel tract and asked her which ticket she thinks she’d be holding if she died that very night.
One side of this particular tract says “Ticket to Heaven” and the other side says “Ticket to Hell.” She looked at the heaven-side first and smiled at the genius of it. That side appealed to her quite nicely. “Oh, I’m a Christian,” she added. “I go to Such-and-Such church just around the corner. Heaven is where I’ll end up for sure!” She then turned the tract over, saw the fiery red flames and the word “HELL” in bold letters, and got quite angry with me. She then proceeded to give me an earful about why people like me shouldn’t go around cramming their religion down other people’s throats.
Me? Cram religion down someone’s throat? Perish the thought.
I tried my best to calm her down but she must have been having a really bad day. Smiling, I let her vent a few minutes and then told her that God commands His children to talk to all kinds of people—including unsaved religious churchgoers like herself—about sin and judgment, so that if they refuse to repent of their sin and embrace Christ as the Savior of their soul, they will have no excuse on Judgment Day when they are cast into the lake of fire.
Suffice to say my encouraging comments did not cheer her up. Not in the slightest.
That woman was an angry, churchgoing tare sown among God’s wheat; a false convert living the lifestyle of a pseudo-Christian. She liked the idea of going to heaven (doesn’t everyone?) but the thought of turning from her cherished sin was a repulsive suggestion.
She liked Christianity; she just preferred a fairy-tale form of it that didn’t include a real place called hell. So dear was sin to her heart that she would have rather parted with her kidneys than say goodbye to idolatry.
Why Would Anyone Leave Repentance Out Of The Gospel?
If you are anything like me, you have often wondered what could be so intimidating that it would hinder a genuine Christian from being passionately obedient to the revealed will of God when it comes to sharing the gospel.
Occasionally the scarcity of evangelism has to do with a lack of in-depth Bible knowledge, or maybe just plain ignorance. But if we were honest with ourselves we would probably agree that it usually boils down to fear.
FEAR! Ugly, nasty, wretched thing.
We have a practical fear of man and not a high enough view of God. When it comes to fulfilling God’s revealed will of Great Commission Discipleship, too often we cower before depraved men rather than tremble before a holy God. (Or is it just me?)
Instead of worshipping God passionately and viewing the world as a fertile mission field, we often exchange the divine nudging of evangelism for other spiritual acts of worship (like studying the Bible or praying more about it) and we hope that God won’t mind too much if we exchange the two. But I am pretty sure that He knows what we are doing.
It is a whole lot easier, after all, to pray to God about men then it is to speak to men about the God who made them.
Although acts of worship like singing songs of praise or fellowshipping with likeminded believers are quite necessary and carry tremendous spiritual blessings, Jesus also commanded us to “preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15).
Making disciples involves the necessity of exhorting sinners to repent for the forgiveness of their sins. You will have all of eternity to fellowship with other believers in glory, but you have precious few moments on earth to witness to the lost. We need to use our minutes wisely.
In fact, once you die and enter heaven’s glory, the one thing you will never again do in eternity future is ever meet someone who does not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Never again will you have the privilege of telling a sinner the goodnews of the gospel, pleading with them to turn from sin and embrace Christ as Lord of their life.
The ministries of local evangelism and foreign missions will last only as long as the vapor of your life.
There is no greater message then that people may be immediately and forever liberated from the slavery of sin by the free gift and mercy of a compassionate God. Let us be sure to obey our Lord’s command to preach and teach the gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sin to all the nations of this world.
QUESTION FOR COMMENTING: What do you think about my conversation with the lady at the bus stop? Was I right or wrong to speak to her that way? Should I have acted (reacted) differently? If yes, what should I have done?
* Photo credit: bossbob50 (Creative Commons)
QUESTION FOR COMMENTING: What do you think about my conversation with the lady at the bus stop? Was I right or wrong to speak to her that way? Should I have acted (reacted) differently? If yes, what should I have done?
One thing I learned from evangelizing is to do it the way Jesus did with parables before scriptures. Not saying you don’t do that but I find if you approach people with a disarming love and apply patients you’ll go a lot further. Understandably you can’t save everyone all the time. The real task if having the spirit-filled discernment required to know when the fruit is ready to pick. Pulling prematurely may spoil the fruit.
You deliver a parable before you evangelize? Well that’s different! How many parables do you know?
There is an evangelistic ministry that I really like called, Way Of The Master (http://wayofthemaster.com) and what they do is teach people to share the gospel the way Jesus did.
For example, Jesus used the Law to bring about the knowledge of sin and then gave them grace if they had ears to hear. He didn’t throw his pearls before swine, in other words. WOTM training has really helped me!
(Also, and as an FYI, there was a lot more of the conversation I had with the lady at the bus stop, but I could only include so much of it.)
Thanks for the comment, Corey!
You were showing truth AND grace. You cannot have one without the other.
http://mrrkachina.blogspot.com/
Hi Charles! We had a short conversation of sorts of on “Stuff Christians Like”. I thought I’d head over to see your website. Hope that’s okay! 🙂
In answer to your question about your bus-stop conversation:
I have to know, first – did you actually say, to her face that she was, “an unsaved religious churchgoers”? Because if you did, that would have been a swift and sure way to turn her off to anything else you had to say. Because even if it was the truth, how could or would you have known that by talking to her for just a few minutes of her life?
I am not against public sharing of the Gospel. I am in favor of sharing the truth of Jesus wherever we are. The issue, though, is sharing in it a way that is reflective of the love and wisdom of Jesus. He didn’t slam folks up against a tree and try to force them to change their ways. His life was an example that drew others to Him. He lived a life of truth – and that was evident.
I guess maybe a better way of sharing the gospel at the bus stations, imo, would be to listen to others first. You know, strike up conversations with them and hear what is going on with them… then ask for the wisdom of God in how to best share your faith with each person and find a way to serve them in the name of Jesus.
That’s just my two cents worth. Thanks for being open to hearing what your readers have to say! 🙂
Hello Donna, and thanks for stopping by! That’s great, and I appreciate your comments, questions, and suggestions.
Actually, the conversation with the woman at the bus stop was fairly lengthy, so I couldn’t get into too much of it in a brief blog post. However, I’m certain I did NOT call her an unsaved religious churchgoer to her face. I wouldn’t have done that. I simply did my best to explain God’s Law (which is the tutor that leads us to Christ), our sin which is manifest by seeing we’ve broken His Law, and that Christ came to live a perfect life under the Law and that His death is the payment for our sin.
The woman’s problem was anyone even suggesting that she had sin. She was quite prideful and often reverted to declaring her own goodness; a goodness that she felt would earn her grace in God’s eyes because she went to church, was baptized, etc.
God bless Donna, and please feel free to stop by my blog any time!
Ahhh… but in your original post you did refer to her in this context… “including unsaved religious churchgoers like herself”. Right?
So, in what context would/could that attitude of judging her heart not be considered prideful and arrogant? Aren’t we warned about that in scripture?
We might see the “outer” but only Jesus knows the inner man. Just like in the case of the conversation over on Things Christians Like. Know what I mean, jellybean?
Folks see/hear the way you respond to things online and assume, because of what seems like a self righteouse tone (on your part) at times, that you are not saved. They then might assume, rather, that you are saying the things you think make you sound justified.
In reading and rereading some of your posts, though, I tend to think maybe you are trying to share your faith and your journey… and sometimes it’s just not coming out the way you intend. I could be wrong, but I think you are just like the restof us and are trying (and sometimes struggling) to find the place the Lord has for you in this temporary home. None of us get it right all the time. Period.
Maybe that woman was saved, but felt attacked. Maybe she wasn’t saved, and felt attacked. Maybe she was saved, but having a bad day and didn’t know how to respond. Maybe she was having a bad day and responded exactly as she would have any other day.
I don’t know.
The point is this: I don’t claim to know your heart or hers. But YOU know your relationship with Jesus. And I am not walking in love to judge you NOT saved b/c of a few “misunderstood” posts (as you put it). And you are not walking in love to assume she (the lady at the bus stop) isn’t saved b/c she didn’t have the right words to respond to you. If she was offended, maybe there was more to the situation than you knew. The Lord knows. He knows her deepest of secrets, hurts and regrets. Just as he knows mine. Just as he knows yours.
You very well may have already judged me “unsaved”. If so, that is not something I can argue with you about nor do I feel the need to. The Lord is my judge, just as He is yours…and the woman at the bus stop.
Jesus said they will know us by our love. How that love is lived out is the question. When in doubt, we can always look at these verses:
I Corinthians 13:
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body [a]to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 [b]bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of [c]prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I [d]became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror [e]dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the [f]greatest of these is love.
Again, thanks for “listening” and being willing to dialogue. Your post asked what we thought ou should have done “differently” if we disagreed with how you responded to her. So kudos to you for being open enough to actually read/mull over those who tell you why/how they disagree.
Hello Donna. You are correct in that I like and enjoy the dialogue. Keep it coming!
If you notice from the above post, I didn’t have ‘unsaved religious churchgoers like herself’ in “quotes”…as in actual and literal word-for-word comment. My phrase was simply a generalization of the overall conversation. As mentioned earlier, the conversation was actually a fairly lengthy one and what I provided in the post was a very small amount.
You are right in that we can not judge one another’s heart…at least not adequately or always accurately. But we are supposed to be judges of conduct, character, theology, behavior, etc. We are supposed to beware of false prophets, for example, and the only way you can beware of them is to judge other people’s conduct, behavior, theology, etc. and determine who they are. The same goes with false brethren who sneak in aware.
What we are not supposed to do is make a hypocritical judgment, or a false judgment, or a judgment with wrong motives. That is the sort of judgment Scripture tells us is unacceptable. But we must, indeed, use sound judgment in many, many things…including with each other in the church and those outside of it. We are to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.
Anyway, I do appreciate you taking the time to comment. You’re probably right in that I come across a bit snarky in posts, articles, comments, etc. I’m working on it. You should have seen how ugly it was a few years back. I’m actually improving. And if you only knew some of the things I think about writing and then decide to delete them. 🙂 LOL.
God bless you and your ministry, Donna!