Timidly, my partner and I knocked on the blue door of a small white house in Dallas, Texas. A man answered the door. “Have you ever heard of the four spiritual laws?’ I asked. This was how a shy teenage boy first learned how to share the Gospel.
Explo ‘72
This incident happened when I attended Explo ‘72. If you don’t know what that is, it was a gathering of 80,000+ Christian teen-agers in Dallas, Texas. This was an event hosted by Billy Graham and Bill Bright. Its goal was to train the attendees in personal evangelism, with a vision toward world evangelism, and to encourage attendees to seek some form of Christian service career.
They taught us how to do evangelism using the Four Spiritual Laws, a little yellow booklet that makes sharing the Gospel easy. All you had to do was read the booklet.
What are the four spiritual laws?
- God loves you and created you to know Him personally.
- Man is sinful and separated from God, so we cannot know Him personally or experience His love.
- Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin. Through Him alone we can know God personally and experience God’s love.
- We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know God personally and experience His love.
During the week of Explo ‘72 we inundated the neighborhoods, parks, and public areas of Dallas sharing the Gospel with these little yellow booklets. For most of us, this was our first experience of evangelism.
Now, decades later, I have learned many ways and many techniques of sharing the Gos
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The Four Spiritual Laws Tract
After all these decades, this is still a best-selling tract to use for evangelism. Why? Because it works.
Try them and see how easy they are to use. You can buy your updated copies here.
What Does It Mean to Be a Witness?
What is a witness?
A witness is someone who sees or has personal knowledge of an event or change.
Every person who is born again has personal knowledge of their conversion and the change Jesus brought to their life. Sharing that knowledge is what evangelism is all about. People can deny many things, but the one thing they can’t deny is your personal experience.
All Christians have a testimony others need to hear. The devil’s major lie concerning evangelism is that you need a radical conversion to be an effective witness. He wants us to believe we once had to be a drug addict, gang-affiliated, or have a radical conversion to be an effective witness.
That isn’t true. Your testimony of change needs to be heard by others. You don’t need to be an ex-drug addict to be able to witness to drug addicts. You didn’t once have to have a gang affiliation to have the ability to witness to gang members.
God promised us He will give us the words to say when we need them. We must be courageous enough to speak and let the Holy Spirit fill our mouths with the right words.
We are empowered to be a Witness
The purpose of being filled with the Holy Spirit is to empower us to be a witness. This was so important look at what Jesus told His disciples.
“While he was with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father’s promise. “Which,” he said, “you have heard me speak about; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:4-5, 8 CSB Emphasis is mine.)
To be a witness is the major reason God filled us with His Holy Spirit. This leaves us with no excuses. If God empowers us to be a witness, then we can’t say it is something we can’t do. That would be a lie.
We can say it is hard, but we can’t say, “I can’t be a witness.” God didn’t promise us easy. He did promise us He will be with us always, He will give us the words, and He will give us His power to be a witness.
We Are Called and Commanded to Be a Witness
The moment we were born again, God commanded us to be witnesses.
2 Corinthians 5:18-20 tells us, “Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 19 That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.” (CSB Emphasis is mine.)
It is our job to plead on Christ’s behalf. The ministry of reconciliation is evangelism. We are telling people God has forgiven all their sins, and He loves them. It is pleading with them to accept their reconciliation with God.
It Is Time for All Believers to Be a Witness
It is time for us to step up and be the ambassadors God called us to be. We need to put down our excuses and get the job done. Evangelism is as simple as sharing what God has done in your life.
You don’t need to know bunches of scripture. No need for a complete understanding of theology. All you need is a personal testimony. When people ask about scripture, bring the conversation back to what God has done for you.
We just need to be a witness of what God has done for us, through us, and for others.
The Challenge
I challenge you to find ways each day to be a witness. It doesn’t have to be some elaborate setup. Just share what God has done for you with someone. Pray daily for God to put someone in your path to do this with.
As Jesus said, “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few.” (Matthew 9:37 CSB)
There is an abundant harvest. The problem is there is not enough workers. My greatest desire is to be found faithful when Jesus returns. I urge you to do whatever is necessary to be a witness to those around you.
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