Every now and then, we run across some interesting opinions about witnessing. So here are a few encounters excerpted from The Watchmen, but be sure to read what follows to see why we’ve included them here:
Finally, I got someone to invite me to Hawaii to speak! It sure took long enough, but recently I got the great opportunity to speak there for a week. They wouldn’t let me fly in coach. They said I had to fly first class, since it was my first time going to the state, and it was such a long flight. I love people like that! So as I sat down on the plane, there was an older gentleman sitting next to me. I said, Hello, my name is Mark. What is yours? He said, Dr. Will. I said, Dr. Will, I have a question for you: How did you get lucky enough to sit next to me for the next 11 hours? It was so much fun to see that 85-year-old man laugh! As we talked and enjoyed each other’s company, he told me he was an atheist. But he was very quick to add that his daughter was a very strong Christian lady and mother. I was excited about that, but remember that none of us will get to heaven because our kids love the Lord. And, young people, also remember that you will not get to heaven one day because your parents are born again believers. Each one of us has to make our own decision.
I kind of figured something happened to Dr. Will along his journey of life, so I asked him about his past. It turns out, he was a soldier during World War II. He was off on a mission when a mortar round hit the chow line on his base, killing a bunch of his buddies. When he came back to the States, his job was to meet the trains that had the dead soldiers on them. He would meet the train, get the brass casket with the orders, and deliver the body to the parents. He also stated that he was supposed to do whatever the parents wanted. Most of them wanted him to stay for the funeral. So he would do that, then go back and get another body and deliver it, over and over. He was 23 at the time. So I asked him, Do you think all of your past life experience could have an effect on your beliefs today? And he said, The more you think about it, it probably does.
A couple of days later, I was having breakfast on the beach in Hawaii, and would you believe it, there came Dr. Will and his wife who wasn’t on our flight walking down the beach! We had a real blessed time chatting that morning. He has already written me from his home in Kentucky since then, too. I am very glad that I didn’t leave that trumpet at home when I took that flight.
The Watchmen, pages 18,19
Traveling one day, I was sitting next to a Jewish gentleman named John. I love talking with Jewish people. As we were talking, he told me that his 83-year-old mother became a born-again Christian! I said, Stop playing with me! He said, No, she really did. She goes to a Bible study in Boca Raton, Fla.! I was floored. He looked at me and said, I have so many questions. I said, Fire away. What a plane flight!! As we were winding up the conversation, he told me that I sounded just like a coworker of his! He said just the night before, he and the gentleman were talking about Jesus and got up and had breakfast and talked some more. Now that is my kind of coworker! He was being a watchman in John.
The Watchmen, pages 19,20
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Someone who follows the ministry gave a copy of the book The Watchmen to his senior pastor. He was hoping his pastor would find the book as helpful as he did. So when he followed up with him, the pastor let him know that he had read the book. When he asked him what he thought of it, the pastor’s comment was he didn’t believe that the stories in the book were true!! He thought there were too many encounters and that they were embellished fiction. He thought it was impossible for the stories in the book to have actually happened to any one person.
Wow. When I heard that, I was just fascinated. Basically, that pastor was saying I was a liar. That I just fabricated those stories. That I had not actually witnessed to all of those people.
He would also have to think that I am very creative to have come up with stories like that on my own! Truth be told, I am not creative. Not really a part of who I am. I tend to be more of a doer than the creative type.
By the way, why didn’t the pastor pick up the phone and set this liar straight? Why didn’t he challenge me or even ask me if the encounters were true?
Not only that, but this man who gave his senior pastor the book has an unsaved wife who had a stroke. That pastor visited her in rehab but never shared the gospel with her. And when asked repeatedly to follow up with her, this pastor never did that either.
Here is the bottom line, though. What he was really saying was that he had no intentions of being a soul winner for the Lord. He had no plans to go out on the highways and byways to reach lost souls for Jesus. If he had been a soul winner, he would know that the stories in the book are true because he would have his own stories to tell. Peter and Paul would have never recognized a pastor like this.
I always tell Christians not only to warn lost people but to warn saved people as well. You warn the lost about the Judgment to come. And you also warn saved people that they are supposed to be watchmen for the King. If they decide not to do that, that is their issue. A watchman knows it is his or her job to blow the trumpet.
Keep blowing the trumpet loud and clear in the amazing days we are living in!
Ezekiel 33:1-11
Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:
If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.
He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.
But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.
So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.
When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.
Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?
Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
Until the nets are full,
P.S. From now until the end of February, we are offering a special on bundles of The Watchmen book. The suggested donation for 20 books is only $80. It is time to flood your pastor, deacons, elder board, and all of your Christian friends with eternal truth. It is time to challenge them to pick up their trumpet and sound it boldly in the days to come!
You can click here to get all of them that you want. Stay bold for the King!!