HomeARC ML 2410
THE PERSONAL EVANGELISM REVIVAL! DO 2410 2/88
1. Getting off the streets (See #2385), is going to really drive us to the kind of work we ought to be doing, that we have neglected because the other was so easy, so quick & fast! Now you're going to have to really do personal work! You're going to be driven to really do personal work & follow-up & get good solid fruit instead of this mass evangelism! That was fine while it lasted, we got out the Word, the Message, to millions! But now we're going to have to try to reap some real fruit, go to the hard work of really winning them, working on them, teaching them & educating them. Because the upper class are really the neglected class, the most neglected people. So they really need us, but we're going to need them too!
2. So it all works together for good, & in some ways Japan is going to be a test tube to make it work so they can prove to the rest of the World they can do it too! Well, we picked just about the toughest field to test it in, so if it can work in Japan, it can work anywhere!
3. There was a day when people would scoff at that kind of ministry, taking jobs etc., but you're going to be getting serious about it when you find out that it's either that or go home! (Maria: And the fact that you can actually get jobs there on the field, & jobs that you can use as a chance to witness is really tremendous!)
4. A lot of you people used to do that all over the World, but then you got discouraged by some. I think some of you were doing it excessively with the wrong motivation & neglecting your real calling. "This you ought to have done, but not to have left the other undone."--Mat.23:23. I think now we've learned our lesson. We had to pull a lot of you off of those jobs because you weren't going about it for the right reasons & you were getting so absorbed in the System you were almost forgetting what you joined the army for! But I think now that you've learned your lessons we can persuade you to go at it for the right reasons. The job is just a means to an end.--Not just a financial end--that's one reason we have to do it--but the main goal & motivation should be what we're supposed to be doing--personal soul winning!
5. So I think you're going to find out it works! I think it's already working! It has already worked in the past, but you have just neglected it. Now you're going to have to do it! So the Lord has ways of getting us in a corner where we have to do it His way. I said a long time ago the time would come when we'd probably have to get jobs in order to survive & have an excuse for existing & staying in countries. (See No.750)
6. If we'd been really faithful the way we should be with some of those people, just think where they would have been now! And at the same time, think where we'd be!--In a much better position than we are now! That we have to think of too. So we have to be able to continue, & to be able to continue we need some people like that.
7. Well, it's going to work, I'm sure it's going to work, it's God's way! But you guys there are going to have to show them! The whole World, they're all going to get the message, they're all going to find out. It's worked well in the past, especially for those who had the right motivation & were faithful. You need the money to survive, but if you're just going at it for the money, if that's your only motivation, that's as bad as those gals who ES'ed just for support & forgot to witness! Some of these girls are writing reports that after several years now their fish are discovering who they really are & who we are & they're asking, "Why didn't you tell me sooner? Why didn't you tell me all this sooner?" They were afraid to!
8. It's going to be a whole new revolution! I guess you can call it the Personal Evangelism...maybe instead of Revolution you'd have to call it the Personal Evangelism Revival, because it's reviving it! This is what Fred started with. He quit his church & hit the road just to witness to important businessmen, & that's how the whole thing got started. He dressed up in a Homburg hat & nice suit & nice briefcase so that the businessmen who wouldn't normally stop for a hitchhiker would stop & pick him up & figure maybe his car broke down or something. And he almost always won'm & he'd get their name & address & keep writing to them, following up, & he started the whole Soul Clinic ministry like that, the whole thing! You've gotta give him credit for that, God bless him!
9. Well, I'm still sold on personal evangelism, I still say it's the best! But you've gotta have a real love for people & a real shepherd's heart & be really prayerful. You've really got to want them & want to really win them, to really love them, really go after them, just like some of our girls have, God bless them, & some of the boys too.
10. It's not the ministry of the future, it's the ministry of now! We need it now, we needed it yesterday & we should never have neglected it! But other things have been so easy you just sort of rolled along as long as you could make enough each day to pay the rent or buy the groceries.
11. Well, street mass evangelism had its day & its purpose, I can see that, to really spread the Message full scale, really massively to millions! It was really mass evangelism. And let's face it, there was very little real personal work going on, real disciple winning, & we've gone through a period where most of our new disciples have been babies, I mean little babies! I'm hoping this is going to turn the tables & start winning big ones!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
