Ice Breakers and Tracts

Week 7: Basic Evangelism Training

By Miles Crouse

04 August, 2007
Saturday morning, 10AM

 

Introduction: Have you ever cringed at the thought of giving someone a gospel tract?  Maybe you didn’t want to appear as a religious fruitcake.   But the sobering thought that every unsaved person will be spending eternity in hell compels us to do something.  If we don’t have the opportunity to speak with someone about the Lord, a well-written tract can do the speaking for us.  A tract may not be as good as a personal conversation, but a sincere gospel tract is better than no gospel at all.

 

I.          Never underestimate the power of a gospel tract.

 

After George Whitefield read one called “The Life of God in the Soul of a Man,” he said, “God showed me I must be born again or be damned.” He went on to pray, “Lord, if I am not a Christian, or if I am not a real one, for Jesus Christ’s sake show me what true Christianity is, that I may not be damned at last!” Then his journal tells us “from that moment... did I know that I must become a new creature.”
 

A Christian book relates the true story of a diver who saw a piece of paper clutched in the shell of an oyster.  The man grabbed it, found that it was a gospel tract and said, “I can’t hold out any longer. His mercy is so great that He has caused His Word to follow me even to the bottom of the ocean.”

 

God used a tract to save the man.  He also used a tract to save the great missionary Hudson Taylor, as well as innumerable others.

 

II.       Why should Christians use tracts? Simply because God uses them.

 

A.   That fact alone should be enough incentive for a Christian to always use tracts to reach the lost, but there are even more reasons why we should use them.
Here are a few:

 

B.   Tracts can provide an opening for us to share our faith. We can watch people’s reaction as we give them a tract, and see if they are open to listening to spiritual things.

 

C.   They can do the witnessing for us. If we are too timid to speak to others about the things of God, we can at least give them a tract, or leave one lying around so that someone will pick it up.

 

D.   They speak to the individuals when they are ready; people don’t read it until they want to.

 

E.   They can find their way into people’s homes when we can’t.

 

F.   They don’t get into arguments; they just state their case.

 

Oswald J. Smith said, “The only way to carry out the Great Commission will be by the means of the printed page.”

 

Charles Spurgeon stated, “When preaching and private talk are not available, you need to have a tract ready ...Get good striking tracts, or none at all. But a touching gospel tract may be the seed of eternal life. Therefore, do not go out without your tracts.”

If you want people to accept your literature, try to greet them before offering them a tract.

 

If you can get them to respond to a warm “Good morning,” or “How are you doing?” that will almost always break the ice and they will take it.

 

After the greeting, don’t ask, “Would you like this?”

 

They will probably respond, “What is it?”

 

Instead, say, “Did you get one of these?”

 

That question has a twofold effect. You stir their curiosity and make them ask, “One of what?”   That’s when you hand them a tract. It also makes them feel as though they are missing out on something.   So they are.

 

III.     Perhaps you almost pass out at the thought of passing out a tract.

 

A.   Don’t worry; you are not alone.   We all battle fear.  The answer to fear is found in the prayer closet.  Ask God to give you a compassion that will swallow your fears.  Meditate on the fate of the ungodly. Give hell some deep thought. Confront what it is that makes you fearful.

Do you like roller coasters?  Some Christians want to try skydiving or bungee-jumping.  Isn’t it strange? We are prepared to risk our lives for the love of fear—and yet we are willing to let a sinner go to hell for fear of giving out a tract.

 

B.   Remember the martyrs.

Ask yourself how many piles of bloodied stones you can find where Christians have been stoned to death for preaching the gospel.  How much singed soil can you find where they have been burned at the stake?

 

C.   Fear of rejection.

Part of our fear is a fear of rejection. We are fearful of looking foolish. That’s a subtle form of pride.  

 

D.   Fear from the enemy of our souls.

The other part of our battle with fear comes directly from the enemy. He knows that fear paralyzes. We must resist the devil and his lies. If God is with us, nothing can be against us.

 

IV.     Easy ways to pass out tracts.

If you have never given out tracts, why not begin today?  If you are fearful when it comes to witnessing, here’s something you can do that doesn’t take much courage.

 

A.   Phone Booth. Go into a phone booth.  Open the phone book to the Yellow Pages; find “Abortion” and slip a tract between the pages.  Then look for the category “Escorts” and slip a tract in there.  Many phone booths have a door, so you can close the door behind you and do this without fear of being seen.  

 

You are not breaking the law, and simply leaving a gospel tract in those two places may not only keep someone from making a terrible life-changing decision, but it may bring them to faith in the Savior.

Then each night as you shut your eyes to go to sleep, you will have something very special to pray about—that God will use the tracts you put somewhere.

 

You will also have a deep sense of satisfaction that you played a small part in carrying out the Great Commission to reach this dying world with the gospel of everlasting life.

 

Don’t waste your life. Do something for the kingdom of God while you are able to.   Always remember: treat every day as though it were your last—one day you will be right.

 

B.   Create your own tract.

A woman I know wants to give her unsaved friends a tract, but can’t find one she feels fits her personality.  So she’s going to collect her thoughts and write her own. You might want to do the same.

 

V.        Why do people go to hell?
 
“Will people who have never heard the gospel go to hell because they haven’t heard about Jesus Christ?” No one will go to hell because they haven’t heard of Jesus Christ.  

 

The heathen will go to hell for murder, rape, adultery, lust, theft, lying, etc.  Sin is not failing to hear the gospel. Rather, “sin is the transgression of the Law” (1 John 3:4). In John 16:8-9, Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit comes, “He will convince the world of guilt in regard to . . . sin, because men do not believe in me.” The verse can be understood this way: If a man jumps out of a plane without a parachute, he will perish because he transgressed the law of gravity.

 

Had he put on a parachute, he would have been saved.

In one sense, he perished because he didn’t put on the parachute.

But the primary reason he died was because he broke the law of gravity.

If a sinner refuses to trust in Jesus Christ when he passes through the door of death, he will perish.

 

This isn’t because he refused to trust the Savior, but because he transgressed the Law of God.

Had he “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14), he would have been saved; but because he refused to repent, he will suffer the full consequences of his sin.

 

If we really care about the lost, we will become missionaries and take the good news of God’s forgiveness in Christ to them.

I find it hard to understand why every Christian doesn’t carry gospel tracts.

 

Joey Hancock of the American Tract Society said, “Fifty-three percent of all who come to Christ worldwide come through the use of printed gospel literature.”

 

 If we really care about the eternal salvation of those around us, how could we not carry tracts everywhere we go?

Look at these words from Charles Spurgeon on the use of tracts:

“I well remember distributing them in a town in England where tracts had never been distributed before, and going from house to house, and telling in humble language the things of the kingdom of God. I might have done nothing, if I had not been encouraged by finding myself able to do something ...[Tracts are] adapted to those persons who have but little power and little ability, but nevertheless, wish to do something for Christ.

 

They may not have the tongue of the eloquent, but they may have the hand of the diligent. They cannot stand and preach, but they can stand and distribute here and there these silent preachers...They may buy their thousand tracts, and these they can distribute broadcast.

I look upon the giving away of a religious tract as only the first step for action not to be compared with many another deed done for Christ; but were it not for the first step we might never reach to the second, but that first attained, we are encouraged to take another, and so at the last...There is a real service of Christ in the distribution of the gospel in its printed form, a service the result of which heaven alone shall disclose, and the judgment day alone discover. How many thousands have been carried to heaven instrumentally upon the wings of these tracts, none can tell.”

If you are wondering where you could leave tracts, here are several suggestions:

 

Many Christians also give gospel tracts and candy to children who knock on their door during Halloween. What other day do scores of young people come to your door for gospel tracts?
 
Another tract that is easy to give away is our “Giant Money tract.” When you go to pay in a store or restaurant, ask if the cashier can “break a large bill” as you hand the person this tract. People who have tried this have been practically swarmed by others wanting to have one. One individual said, “These tracts almost give themselves away and they put a smile on the face of the person receiving them!”

If, in Spurgeon’s words, you feel you “have but little power and little ability, but nevertheless, wish to do something for Christ,” then begin today to give out tracts.  

Conclusion:  Remember PROVERBS 11:30, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that wins souls is wise.”
 
Although the prophet Jeremiah was assured that God formed him, knew him, sanctified and ordained him, he still was paralyzed by the fear of man (Jeremiah 1:5,6). When fear of man seeks to paralyze us, we must stop saying, “I cannot speak,” and instead say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). This verse obliterates our every excuse for not preaching the gospel to every creature. It counters the fear of man, the fear of rejection, the fear of public speaking, and the fear of offering a stranger a gospel tract. Remember the words of Hudson Taylor: “All God’s giants have been weak men, who did great things for God because they believed that God would be with them.”