Derick Mackenzie's Blog

SPONTANEOUS EVANGELISM

Earlier today, just before 5.30, I answered a knock on my front door. It was a couple of local Stornoway boys aged about 10. They were looking for my boys. It being the Lord's day I asked them if they knew the fourth commandment. 'No', was the reply.

'Have you heard of the ten commandments?', I asked.

'Something to do with church and all that,' said one.

I asked them if they believed in God. The muted answer was in the negative.

'Who do you think made you - do you believe that you grew out of a piece of sludge?'

'My mum.'

'And who made your mum?'

'Her mum.'

'And who made the very first mum and dad?'

A shrug was the response.

'It was God.' I said. 'Do you know which is the best-selling book in the world?'

'No.'

'The Bible. That's God's book, he wrote it, and it's all in there.'

'How are you supposed to read that - it would take ages.'

'You don't have to read it from beginning to end. The Bible is full of little bits of important information scattered all the way through it.'

I told them the fourth commandment tells us to '"remember to keep the Sabbath day holy." That means we aren't to ignore God and just go about doing whatever we want on the Lord's day, enjoying ourselves - God didn't create us to enjoy ourselves, he created us to enjoy him.'

'So what are you supposed to do, just sit in the house all day?'

'No, you go to church, to worship God, and other things. God is real, and you can know him. He lives inside you, in your soul. That's what a Christian is, someone who has God living inside them.

'We all have to die one day, and no one knows when that day will be. Do you know what happens when you die?'

'No.'

Well, our body goes into the ground and rots away, and the soul - the invisible part - goes to God, then we have to answer for our lives - did we ignore God or did we believe in him? And if we ignored him, well I'm afraid it will be very bad for us.'

'We go down', said one of them, indicating with his thumb.

'That's right - down, to the fire which burns forever - hell. But if we believe in him, the opposite is true - it's very good for us. And do you know the secret?'

'No.'

'You ask him. When you're alone, you pray to him and ask him to show you.'

That was the basic sum of our conversation which occurred at my front door in the Cearns today. We have only moments in those situations, you're striking while the iron's hot and you certainly don't have time to prepare your sermon - but oh, how wonderfully scriptural it is - spontaneous evangelism.