When Will Sinners Be Converted?

From Airo

From pages 134-135, Jeremy Walker writes in his new book The Brokenhearted Evangelist,

We cannot say when [conversion] will occur. It might be many years in the future that fruit might be borne of our present efforts, long after some of us who labor and pray have ourselves gone to be with the Lord (if Christ does not first return). Who knows how many words of truth will come back to the minds of those who have read them? Who knows if some of those who hear preaching outside church buildings might travel thousands of miles before remembering that they once heard someone offer salvation from sins in Christ Jesus and repent and believe for their salvation?

A young boy named Luke Short once heard the eminent Puritan John Flavel preaching in Dartmouth. That boy grew and immigrated to New England, leading a life without much thought of God. Michael Boland describes what happened years later: “One day as [Luke Short] sat in his fields reflecting upon his long life, he recalled a sermon he had heard in Dartmouth as a boy before he sailed to America. The horror of dying under the curse of God was impressed upon him as he meditated on the words he had heard so long ago and he was converted to Christ – eighty-five years after hearing John Flavel preach.”

The words Short heard so many years before from the faithful preacher of God’s Word came back to his mind with converting power, and he was saved through the instrumentality of a decades-old sermon. Perhaps parents whose children now are heading away from God will one day welcome their once-wayward offspring into the land of glory. Perhaps some of those nameless and faceless strangers for whom we pray shall, as a result of our prayers, be brought to faith in Christ many years after our praying tongues have been silenced by death. It might be immediate: Why should we not expect people to come in, hear, and be saved? Is that not within God’s power? It is not impossible that a sinner of any stripe should walk through the doors of a church building during a sermon or overhear two Christians speaking of their beloved Savior or pick up a tract or return to an old invitation or bump into an hold friend recently converted, and be within moments redeemed from sin and death and hell. God’s power is sufficient to prevent us imposing any limitations of time, either of shortness or length. We cannot say when sinners will be converted.

Indeed, we do not know when sinners will be converted through repentant faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but repent they will. As Jeremy Walker previously writes on page 134 regarding Psalm 51:13,

it is God’s sovereign pleasure and solemn promise to crown faithful gospel preaching with genuine gospel success.

May we continue to be faithful in our proclamation of the Gospel, trusting the Lord to bring His sheep into the sheepfold through the means of preaching Christ and His marvelous work on Calvary.

The Brokenhearted Evangelist can be purchased for $11 at Reformation Heritage Books.

Letter from John Newton to a friend concerning godly church members -

July 7, 1777
 
Sir,

I have had a letter from your minister since his arrival at--. I hope he will be restored to you again before long, and that he and many of your place will rejoice long in each other. Those are favoured places which are blessed with a sound and faithful Gospel ministry, if the people know and consider the value of their privileges, and are really desirous of profiting by them: but the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.

I hope those who profess the Gospel with you will wrestle in prayer for grace to walk worthy of it. A minister's hands are strengthened, when he can point to his people as so many living proofs that the doctrines he preaches are doctrines according to godliness; when they walk in mutual love; when each one, in their several places, manifests a humble, spiritual, upright conduct; when they are Christians, not only at church, but in the family, the shop, and the field; when they fill up their relations in life, as husbands or wives, masters or servants, parents or children, according to the rule of the word; when they are evidently a people separated from the world while conversant in it, and are careful to let their light shine before men, not only by talking, but by acting as the disciples of Christ: when they go on steadily, not by fits and starts, prizing the means of grace without resting in them: when it is thus, we can say, Now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord.

Then we come forth with pleasure, and our service is our delight, and we are encouraged to hope for an increasing blessing. But if the people in whom we have rejoiced sink into formality or a worldly spirit; if they have dissensions and jealousies among themselves; if they act improperly, and give the enemies occasion to say, There, there, so would we have it; then our hearts are wounded and our zeal damped, and we know not how to speak with liberty.

It is my heart's desire and prayer for you, that whether I see you, or else be absent from you, I may know that you stand fast in one spirit and one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel.

I am, &c,

Dixon 5K Run Evangelism Outreach

His Feet on the Street once again (Getting to be a good habit) joined up with it's most favored local evangelist, Vernon Costolo from Proclaiming the Truth ministries, for the Collins Dixon 5K run hosted at First Baptist Canton. His Feet also had the pleasure of sharing the good news alongside an evangelist we hope to see very often, Jason Fleming.

The 5K run was hosted at First Baptist Canton and was created in honor of a young man named Collins Dixon. The run was to raise an awareness of brain cancer; the cancer that eventually took the life of young Collins Dixon.

Vernon, Jason and myself got ourselves in position with our crosses for the more than 600 runners to focus on when they took off from the starting line and when they headed back.

While we were holding our crosses, Cam was handing out tracts and giving shout outs to those we knew who were running the race.

I think I promised Vernon it was not going to rain....I still don't think it did...Those were just very heavy mist drops Vernon ;)

After the run was over we put up the crosses and took out the tracts and proceeded to descend upon the masses (estimated 750-1000 people overall) that were hanging out in the First Baptist Canton parking lot.

I'm sure we handed out well over three hundred tracts in the short time we were there. We were encouraged by several folks who told us to keep it up and we were doing a great job.

Of course, this goes without saying if you know me, but all glory and praise goes to God alone; we were humbled to be serving the King at this local event in our hometown.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Independence Day Report -

I had the honor of teaming up with Vernon Costolo of Proclaiming the Truth for the first part of the Independence Day activities very early that morning in Woodstock for the 5k run and the parade that followed.

Vernon and I were able to hold our crosses for the runners to see as they started the race, after they turned around and headed back, and as they were about to cross the finish line.

Unlike the previous night while holding our crosses in Woodstock, we did not have any derogatory remarks that I can recall :)

Side track for a moment -

The above photo was taken the night before on July 3rd. Left to right: Me, Jason and Jonathan. Brother Vernon gathered us together for a photo after we all manned a corner in downtown Woodstock for a couple hours.

It was a real pleasure meeting these other Jesus Freaks and I hope to be out with them again very soon!

While on my corner holding the cross I had a couple one finger salutes and was thrown into good company when one motorist cursed Jesus and me in the same breath. Once, while the traffic was stopped and waiting on the light to turn, a fellow told me it was "a beautiful day to be white; isn't it?". To which I responded, "Did you get one of these?" and handed him a Are You Ready tract.

I also had a brief conversation with a lady who told me she was going to Heaven because she was a good person. I gently corrected her and rebuke her self-righteousness to which she responded, "I will have you know that I am Greek Orthodox and we are the first Christians." She went on to tell me that she listens to sermons and prays all day long. I asked her again what was she trusting in to get to Heaven and she told me again, "..my good works..". I started going through the law with her when a young man walked up with his ear-phones blaring.

I gave him a tract while I was talking to the lady. The tract I gave him was an Are You Ready tract that has a picture of a tombstone with the words on it, "Your Name Here". He asked me if I was selling burial plots. I started to laugh but thought about the surrounding scene and it kind of made sense from his perspective in a worldly way.

By now I am trying to engage them both in conversation and the lady started asking why the light was not turning so she could cross the street. I said maybe it was because  she was supposed to stand here and talk to me. She didn't think that was why and when that light did turn she booked it on across the street.

Ok...back to the morning of the 4th -

After Vernon and I held the crosses for the 5k run, we went around and handed out some tracts and hoped for some conversations.

While handing out some tracts we ran into a Mormon...scuse me...a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as the person politely corrected me. He was dressed in a Karate uniform and we talked about that for a few minutes and then steered the conversation into the direction of the things of God.

The young man was very nice and gave nice little answers to questions I was asking him. He said just enough of the truth to sound almost right.

He was very happy to answer the questions until Vernon asked him about his belief that Jesus and Satan are brothers. Yes, he admitted, that was so.

Vernon asked him about his belief that he himself would be a god one day and have little god babies on his very own planet. Yes, he admitted, that was so.

Vernon challenged him to find any of those things in the Bible.

The young man then questioned the authenticity of the Bible due to "it's many translations". Things went quickly south from there and the young man was now in a hurry to get to his group for his Karate demonstrations.

After that, we ran into a group of folks who were handing out books and literature and cold lemonade. The group, Seven Day Adventists, was from the church across the street. We talked to very nice gentlemen who told us several things about his churches doctrine.

They believe in annihilation of a person who dies without "accepting" Jesus while on Earth. They do not believe in the everlasting punishment of Hell that the Bible teaches and that Jesus talks about in the gospel of Matthew or that Paul describes in Thessalonians.

After the conversation with the SDA man, Vernon and I called it a morning and we headed on home.

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Later that evening my wife and I, along with my ministry partner Cam, handed out right at 1,800 tracts to folks who were sitting around and waiting on the fireworks show to start in Canton.

Silly me forgot to bring the camera ;(

We had a couple great gospel sharing conversations along the way and only one weird incident.

I had just handed out tracts to four people standing around a building and started to walk over to another group when the oldest person of the group who I just handed tracts to wanted me to take his tract back.

He said, "I don't have my glasses with me, so you should take this back". I told him that was Ok, he could take it home with him and read it there..have a happy 4th! It was at this point he fold the tract up and started violently ripping it to pieces. I said, "You're tearing up the tract?"

He then pointed at me and yelled, "You are the kind of people who give Christianity a bad name!!!"

I asked him what I said or did that made him so angry. He went on to tell me he was a Christian and didn't like the kinds of me.

I started to try to have a conversation with him but my wife took me by the arm and said let's move on. She said something to me about swines and pearls.

I almost let this incident steal my joy of sharing the life saving gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; it weighed on my mind the rest of the night.

Sure, I have been yelled at before. I have had people so mad at me they were almost spitting in my face. I have had people throw gospel tracts back at me or hand them back to me while cursing me.

But something was different with this particular incident and I could not put my finger on it.

Anyway, the rest of the evening went without incident and I had the pleasure of sharing Christ to a group of four and a young couple a little bit later.

I pray that God receives all the glory that He is so worthy to receive. I pray that God uses the tracts and the conversations to bring many to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Thank you Father for so great a salvation!

Soli Deo Gloria -

Independence Day Celebration Outreach!

Wooo Hoooo!

It is that time of year again when His Feet on the Street has its biggest outreach day of the year; Independence Day!

Each year, thousands of people gather together in Canton and hang out for a few hours while waiting for the big fireworks show. This is a perfect time to put a gospel tract in a hand and maybe have a one-to-one life-changing conversation with someone who does not know Christ.

Christian, wanna help us?

If you will be in the Canton area and, if all you were going to do was just sit around and sweat while waiting for the fireworks to start, come out and join us and sweat while handing out tracts, having one-to-one conversation or praying for us while we intentially go into our part of the world seeking lost people.

If you are a little scared, don't worry, I will be too. We can be scared together for Christ!

If you are a little bit shy, don't worry, I am too. We can be shy together for Christ!

If you are __________ (fill in the blank) don't worry, I am too! We can be _____ together for Christ.

If you have never handed out a tract before, I will teach you how in a quick 10 second lesson.



Meet us in front of Hibbits Sports at 6:30pm (In the Riverstone Shopping Center) on Wednesday the 4th of July!

If you have tracts, bring em. If not, we will bring some for you -

Come join us!