Power Evangelism Tip
When to Lead People to Christ
You're always aiming to lead sinners to Christ, but when should you actually harvest them? It's no problem in an evangelistic crusade or fellowship setting, because there's the invitation to respond to when the Spirit nudges them; but what about personal evangelism?
I have led individuals to pray to receive Christ, and later discovered it was too soon for them; even though they prayed, they didn't mean it, and were not changed.
More rarely, I've shared Christ with someone, and knew it was their last chance, but not pressed them firmly enough to receive Christ, and they died in their sins soon afterwards. One Chinese woman committed suicide the day after I shared Christ with her. Both situations are heartbreaking, so how do you decide when to swing the sickle?
Effective evangelists have always been emphatic on one thing: get saved now. Today is the day of salvation, now is the hour, so be insistant. If a sinner dies, they are damned to eternal torment in Hell, so treat the matter gravely, and press for an immediate decision.
Reinhard Bonnke led thousands to Christ at a 1990 crusade in Birmingham, UK. At the close of one meeting a teenage girl walked past him, and he called out asking if she'd received Christ at the invitation.
'I wanted to ...', she answered.
'Well why didn't you?' Bonnke implored.
'I was afraid of what my boyfriend would say.' she replied, and scurried away.
News came the following day, that on her way home, she was hit by a bus and killed. Just sixteen. Never forget that: I certainly don't.
You are safe, you're saved, you know where you are going; and you have a responsibility to warn sinners, and confront them with the Gospel Truth. Everyone who is not born again will be cast into the Lake of Fire; the religious, unbelievers, nominal 'Christians'; all are doomed, warn them.
In 1989 I heard John Wimber say he used to 'bug people to Christ' by confronting individuals until they yielded. Corrie Ten Boom was the same. Hitch-hiking in New Zealand before being saved, I got a lift from a man who told me about a 'crazy old Dutch woman' he once picked up.
'She never stopped talking about Jesus', he said, 'Tried to make me into a Christian!' he scoffed.
It was only after I was born again and read 'Tramp for the Lord' that I discovered the eighty year old hitch-hiker who'd sat in my seat urging the driver to be saved ... was Corrie. What a woman: what a Christian: Crazy for Christ.
Conversely, sometimes the Lord wants to make sinners sweat to bring them to genuine repentance. A friend who ministers in prisons deliberately avoided one prisoner for a week because he knew the Lord was 'on his case'. When they finally met, the almost frantic inmate said,
'Man, where have you been? I bin' lookin' for you everywhere, I need to get saved real bad!'
When he prayed to receive Christ, he meant it.
The key is, of course, to be attentive to the Spirit of God, as you share, preach, or minister Christ. If you are not sure of His leading, err on the side of an immediate decision.
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