Photo credit: bossbob50 (Creative Commons)
Bus stops are great places for witnessing, because sinners just keep coming and going all day long.
Most of them are usually sitting down and won’t walk away—even if they do not like what you have to say—because they don’t want to miss their bus. Sometimes I think God created public transportation just so believers would have a great place to share the gospel.
A while back I went out witnessing at one of the local bus stops in my hometown of Fresno, California. I walked up to a woman who was sitting on a bench, handed her a Ticket To Heaven gospel tract and asked her which ticket she thinks she’d be holding if she died that very night.
One side of this particular tract says “Ticket to Heaven” and the other side says “Ticket to Hell.” She looked at the heaven-side first and smiled at the genius of it. That side appealed to her quite nicely. “Oh, I’m a Christian,” she added. “I go to Such-and-Such church just around the corner. Heaven is where I’ll end up for sure!” She then turned the tract over, saw the fiery red flames and the word “HELL” in bold letters, and got quite angry with me. She then proceeded to give me an earful about why people like me shouldn’t go around cramming their religion down other people’s throats.
Me? Cram religion down someone’s throat? Perish the thought.
I tried my best to calm her down but she must have been having a really bad day. Smiling, I let her vent a few minutes and then told her that God commands His children to talk to all kinds of people—including unsaved religious churchgoers like herself—about sin and judgment, so that if they refuse to repent of their sin and embrace Christ as the Savior of their soul, they will have no excuse on Judgment Day when they are cast into the lake of fire.
Suffice to say my encouraging comments did not cheer her up. Not in the slightest.
That woman was an angry, churchgoing tare sown among God’s wheat; a false convert living the lifestyle of a pseudo-Christian. She liked the idea of going to heaven (doesn’t everyone?) but the thought of turning from her cherished sin was a repulsive suggestion.
She liked Christianity; she just preferred a fairy-tale form of it that didn’t include a real place called hell. So dear was sin to her heart that she would have rather parted with her kidneys than say goodbye to idolatry.
Why Would Anyone Leave Repentance Out Of The Gospel?
If you are anything like me, you have often wondered what could be so intimidating that it would hinder a genuine Christian from being passionately obedient to the revealed will of God when it comes to sharing the gospel.
Occasionally the scarcity of evangelism has to do with a lack of in-depth Bible knowledge, or maybe just plain ignorance. But if we were honest with ourselves we would probably agree that it usually boils down to fear.
FEAR! Ugly, nasty, wretched thing.
We have a practical fear of man and not a high enough view of God. When it comes to fulfilling God’s revealed will of Great Commission Discipleship, too often we cower before depraved men rather than tremble before a holy God. (Or is it just me?)
Instead of worshipping God passionately and viewing the world as a fertile mission field, we often exchange the divine nudging of evangelism for other spiritual acts of worship (like studying the Bible or praying more about it) and we hope that God won’t mind too much if we exchange the two. But I am pretty sure that He knows what we are doing.
It is a whole lot easier, after all, to pray to God about men then it is to speak to men about the God who made them.
Although acts of worship like singing songs of praise or fellowshipping with likeminded believers are quite necessary and carry tremendous spiritual blessings, Jesus also commanded us to “preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15).
Making disciples involves the necessity of exhorting sinners to repent for the forgiveness of their sins. You will have all of eternity to fellowship with other believers in glory, but you have precious few moments on earth to witness to the lost. We need to use our minutes wisely.
In fact, once you die and enter heaven’s glory, the one thing you will never again do in eternity future is ever meet someone who does not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Never again will you have the privilege of telling a sinner the goodnews of the gospel, pleading with them to turn from sin and embrace Christ as Lord of their life.
The ministries of local evangelism and foreign missions will last only as long as the vapor of your life.
There is no greater message then that people may be immediately and forever liberated from the slavery of sin by the free gift and mercy of a compassionate God. Let us be sure to obey our Lord’s command to preach and teach the gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sin to all the nations of this world.
QUESTION FOR COMMENTING: What do you think about my conversation with the lady at the bus stop? Was I right or wrong to speak to her that way? Should I have acted (reacted) differently? If yes, what should I have done?
* Photo credit: bossbob50 (Creative Commons)
The 
About Charles Specht
