I recently attended a meeting to which I was invited. The theme was prayer but there was a session on witnessing. A brother testified about his failure to win a youngman he had known to the Lord. The youngman recently passed and he was extremely distraught for failing to win him to the Lord."If I had tried a little harder.." He moaned. I was compelled to share on the biblical concept of witnessing. I began by asking this question: Two brothers went out to witness and win souls. Brother A witnessed to 1000 people and no one accepted the Lord, Brother B witnessed to 100 people and 99 accepted the Lord. By biblical standards which of these two did more for the kingdom?And why? Over to you fellows let's hear your opinion.

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Well, even though there are no races in the kingdom of God, the one who saved 99 people was the one that did more for God's kingdom. But, one must ask,?"

What kind of advantage did Brother B have over Brother A?

Was Brother B more biblically trained in evangelizing than Brother A?
The heat is on! I like this! So far everyone is right in their own perspective. But lets assume that this was a soulwinning contest(even though we know such a phenonmenon doesnt exist). I put this out for a specific reason. I would allow more comments and then I will tell the rest of the story. A personal experience that opened my eyes and enriched my insight. Thanks fellows, lets keep brainstorming, above all else, stay blessed.
Rev, you are exactly right!!! That is the point I made and I have a testimony to that effect which helped changed the perspectives of everyone in that congregation that night. I will post that soon. Thanks for your contribution, Rev, God bless you.
Everyone who posted a reply to this discussion was right because they looked at the issue from different angles. James Pierce looked at it from how equipped each brother was ie trainning in evangelism, Bro MarQMarvellous put emphasis on the role of living the gospel, The Rev Anthony and I seem to have a common view on the topic: we are God’s witnesses not His lawyers. Our role in evangelism is to make people hear the word. It is the HOLY SPIRIT’s role to convict them onto repentance. Each time a christian witnesses to an unbeliever, he/she has totally fulfilled their role as commanded by the Great Commission. You can take credit for the number of people you reached with the gospel, but cannot take credit for how many accepted the gospel. That part belongs to the Holy Spirit.
Why? Why is that God has given has so much power: power to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons and yet we do not have the power to convict people and make them accept salvation? I had this wishful thinking: the power to make every inhabitant of all the countries whose name end in “stan”(Afganistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kazahkstan, Turkmenistan, Waziristan, and every other stan), to “sit” for a change and embrace the gospel. But no, I cant. I can only preach to them and pray that the Holy Spirit will lead them into the light of salvation. Only the Holy spirit has the ability to search the innner most recesses of a person’s heart and tell who is ready for service to the Lord. We cant tell.
If a person becomes a christian for any other reason other than heartfelt conversion, Angels wont rejoice in Heaven. If you bribe, cajole, beg, reward in any way, pound into submission,bomb, torture, or use any other form of guile and subterfuge to make a person come to church, he is still unsaved!
On the other hand just because a person did not make an instant decision for the Lord does not mean all is lost. Each time you preach to someone, the word stays with them for life. Oneday somewhere, when you are not even around, he would remember the Word while in crisis or on his death bed and reach out to the Lord for salvation. That’s why it is impossible to know here on earth the number of people who would come to know the Lord through your ministry. You will find out only when you get to Heaven!! If you are counting cut, cut , cut…! Each time I visit the website of a ministry and they put there the number of people they “won” to Christ over the past year, I just break out laughing. Talk about robbing the Holy Spirit of His glory! Pastors edge their congregation to “win atleast one person to the Lord this year”. A pastor in Ghana many years ago was telling the young ladies in his church: “Many of you have two , three or even up to five brothers approaching you for marriage and you are confused as to which one to choose. Now it is easy, I will make it easy for you. Ask brother number one” how many people did you win for the Lord this year. He answers 5. Tell him to stand aside. Ask brother number two . 10 he answers, stand aside. Ask brother number 3 . 100 he answer. Ding, ding, ding you are the one!!”Ha ha ha!! Well, the Holy Ghost is the one!!You have to marry the Holy Ghost!!
This brings me to my testimony. Have you ever been ashamed that a person you ruled out many years ago that he would never be saved came to know the Lord and is actually doing more for the kingdom than you? Well, I have been there. When I was a young christian, just born again, I was over zealous. I wanted to convert all my friends and classmates. But at that time too, I had a bad temper. Many times I was made fun of by my friends. Some said I joined the Scripture Union because of the girls. There was a particular guy whom I will call Kwesi, he called me such offensive names and lied that he had caught me kissing one of the christian girls behind the Science Lab. I lost it. I said to him “ If you keep this buffoonery up, I will put the bible aside and fight you then I will go to church and repent. Idiot!”
Many years passed by. We had all left school and gone our separate ways. We had even graduated from the University of Ghana. One day I ran into Kwesi. The first thing he said was: “praise the Lord, brother”. Praise the who??? Get out of town! He proceeded to tell me : “ all what you’ve been telling us in those days had stayed with me. I kept dilly dallying until we graduated from the university. I couldn’t run any more. I gave my life to Christ”. This guy I wanted to fight, went to Norway to persue his education. He is now a professor but above all he is well known as one of the Big wigs in christian circle in my country. He is a leading member of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship. While he was preaching in many countires, I was running from fulltime ministry. Hello Mr fighter! See so it is never too late and as Rev Anthony said, witness and get out of the way. God bless you all.
When the Lord sent the 72 out to witness, what did He tell them?. He said if they went into a town or village and their message was rejected, they should shake the dust off their sandals at them and move on!! He didnt say, "well, it's time to call in the big guns!" To be successful in witnessing requires patients. Billy Graham, the world's most accomplished evangelist, had to live with a son who ran from the Lord for many years. Who is overseeing his ministry today.? If Evangelist Billy Graham was of the... "unmentionable faith", the first thing he would have done was to get his son killed for deviating from the family faith. Another incident ocurred when I was a student in Moscow in 1986. I was the only professing christian among a group of Ghanaian students sent to study Russian in Moscow from the University of Ghana. There, at the Pushkin Institute of Russian Language Studies, we met students from all over the world. I approach some brethren from Nigeria, Sri Lanka, England and asked if we could start a calendestine fellowship of believers. It was a hit. Before long students from other universities in the Moscow metropolis had heard about us and were yearning for a place to fellowship.We designed our meetings as though they were parties. The KGB was everywhere!! They sent operatives to investigate any unusual movement of people into a particular place. They would come disguised as plumbers or electricians. I would be playing the guitar and we are singing merrily. The agent would ask in Rusisan, " u vas praznich?' We will answer "da", meaning are you having a party? And we said Yes. Before long we started witnessing to communist youth from the Eastern Block of countries: Romania, Checkoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, etc. There was this particular lady named Angela from Sofia, Bulgaria. The first time she came to our meeting, she acted so unruly. She was agitated, confused, disrespectful, illmanered. She interupted everthing and everyone. She said things like" Where is God? I cant see him. You say you are praying to God. But I cant see him. I want to go away. I dont like this." Angela finally abandoned us and completed her studies and returned to Sofia in the Summer of 1987. During that time I asked the Soviet authorities for a visa to travel to Istanbul via Bulgaria by train. The visa was granted after a long battle. Apparently they had heard about me and our activities and were keeping a close watch. I was monitored from Moscow right to my hotel room in Istanbul. I remember the name of that hotel, its called Mamara, Hotel Mamara.Each time I reached a border crossing, immigration would ransack my compartment, pull me off the train and inset gagdets into even my private parts looking for espionage material. I remember telling one of the officers after he vehemently shook a device in my crotch area: "Astorozhna, tam ochen vazni veshi" "Be careful, you are playing with very important stuff down there."They broke out laughing. On my return from Istanbul, I decided to stop in Sofia to visit a cousin of mine who was then studying to become a Medical doctor. (I just found out he is now in ploitics. He's been elected member of parliament for the constitutuency where we hail from.)He wanted to show me around in the city, so we hailed a taxi. As we were passing a tram station in central Sofia, I spotted a familiar figure milling in the crowd. Angela! Stop Taxi! I told my cousin I absolutely needed to talk with that lady. We alighted and I gave her a surprise. Her welcoming was hyper-enthusiastic and shoched me! She jumped at me arms flailing and letting out a wild cry of excitement. She insisted we had to go to see her home where she lived with a mother and a younger sibling. Her dad , a miltary man, had been killed in an operation not long ago.We hailed another taxi and rode for a quarter of an hour. We were welcomed by Angela's mom and extremely shy little sister. We spent a lot of time in conversation and discussing various topics. Finally, Angela broke the news. She said "Do you know am now a born again christian?" I said "The LORD BE PRAISED" She said," When I returned from Moscow, my grandmother who attends a secret church started telling me the same things you guys were saying to us in Moscow. She invited me oneday to the meeting and I just felt this unsual thing, and I just knew there was something in this thing and I just became one of them. I go everytime. I love it." See, the seed (God's Word), when sown has to produce results. He says "My Word will never return void" Be patient and please keep witnessing.

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