New Testament evangelism relies on personal relationships and everyday interactions to lead people to Christ, mirroring the methods of Jesus and the early church. The sermon highlights how individuals like Andrew brought Peter to Jesus, and how Jesus himself engaged with people from various walks of life, such as Matthew the tax collector. It emphasizes that Christians should actively build relationships with non-believers through shared activities like fishing, playing golf, or hosting meals, rather than isolating themselves. The core lesson is that genuine connection and understanding are essential for effectively sharing the gospel, and that God can use ordinary contacts and circumstances to bring people to salvation.
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mentioned the Believers Bible Conference up at Lookout Mountain. And we have some folders. They're out on the desk in the foyer with a picture description of some of the servants of the Lord who will be with us, Brother Tatum, McKay, Thomas Deale, Jr. I forgot to mention to those of you that know of and love Ray and Marge Felsen of Grand Rapids. Former Sheboygan in Chicago, they'll be with us once again. to sing for us. So pick up one and even if you can't come to the conference, you can be praying for the conference between there and then. We live in a wonderful time.
There's a lot of tragedy, I know. We live in a time of crisis. We live in a time when knowledge is increasing so rapidly that a textbook that will be written this week will be out of date in eighteen months. In spite of the evil and the crime and the lawlessness and many other things that have taken place today, there is much to encourage those who have their eyes on the man in the glory.
I do not believe that the hearts of individuals have ever been as receptive to communication from Christians about the reality of knowing Jesus Christ as there is today. Now your neighbors and your acquaintances are not interested in religion. They are not interested in the church. But they are interested in the reality of knowing God. And you and I who know Christ know that the only way you can know God is in and through and by His Son, Jesus Christ.
Now I mentioned this morning that I wanted to speak tonight on New Testament evangelism. It was a real advantage in knowing that you're going to speak somewhere for perhaps quite a number of months. One of the main advantages is that you can pray and pray and pray about what the Lord would have you to give. Now I've known for about six or seven months that I'd be going to Long Island the first weekend in November to bring a message at what they call up there the Inter-Assembly Rally. Four assemblies out on Long Island, Seacliff, Glenhead, Freeport, And I think it's Hophodge, and if I mispronounce that, you Long Islanders, forgive me.
I can't pronounce all those Indian names out there. Anyway, you know the way I'm talking about it. It's way on out. You drive about an hour and then you keep going another hour and you get there. If you don't know where you're going, you get lost. But anyway, that's why the rally was. I see a man laughing out there, so I know I didn't pronounce it right, but he knows the place I'm talking about. And so I had been praying for four or five or six months as to what the Lord might have me to give. And I didn't want to just pick something up out of the barrel. I wanted to be something fresh. And so, in the back of my mind, I knew what the Lord had been laying upon my heart, but I didn't have anything on paper, didn't have any notes, not the first.
Now jets are wonderful. but they have their disadvantages. And one of the disadvantages is unless you're going around the world, if you're going to wait until you get on the jet to get your notes together, you don't have long to get them together. And especially if it's a breakfast flight and there's a non-stop flight, we have wonderful service out of Columbia. We have eight flights a day for New York and nine flights a day for Chicago. And we're very, very fortunate. And so I got an early morning flight out of Columbia and they served those delicious little bitty sausages like you have here and scrambled eggs.
And I finished my breakfast and I had a little talk with the Lord. I said, now, Lord, we've been thinking and praying about this message for a long time and I want you to tell me what it is. And I had a burden upon my heart to talk to these Christians about scriptural methods of winning people to Christ. And the Holy Spirit said, All right, Hugh, if you want to find scriptural methods for winning souls, we're not the one place to go. Right? Right. And that will be to study the life of the Lord Jesus. and to study the early years of the church.
And if you see there how people won to Christ, there's your message. And so I had a little pad in my briefcase and I pulled it out. And in the twenty-five minutes before we landed in LaGuardia, the Lord gave me the thoughts that I'd like to share with you tonight. There's nothing confounds about them or profound. They're very, very simple. because they're all right here in either Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, or an Acts or one or two of the epistles of Paul. And so I'd like to share them with you and call to your attention something that perhaps most of you already know. How were people brought to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ in the early days of the church?
And I want to say this now because I'm going to say it again. The methods And the principle that works in the first Christian century with a few modifications will still work in the twentieth century. There's a man in Fort Lauderdale, and I'm stealing some of my thunder now, but I want to re-emphasize it because it's important. There's a man in Fort Lauderdale that God has greatly used to keep the Christians in fellowship and his particular church, how to win souls.
And any given week he'll fly two thousand miles perhaps and give a message on how they did it at the Carl Ridge Presbyterian Church. And the Lord is using this man to motivate Christians to go out and win others. You know what it is? It's New Testament evangelism. That's all it is. By the way, you should get that film, Brother Bob. There's a film called Like a Mighty Army, and it's about forty-five minutes long, and it's the film of the Carl Ridge approach of winning people to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, I know a bookstore in Columbia that will book it for you if you want to get it.
All right. How was it done in the first Christian century? Turn to John. I told you I wasn't going to finish tonight, so I don't have any intention to. I'm just going to go until times up, and then we're going to stop. We'll probably finish tomorrow night. Turn to John, chapter one, two and a half verses. One of the two which, verse forty, I think I meant to tell you at least, chapter one verse forty. One of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon, Peter's brother.
And I like these six words. He first, he first. Now he found the Messiah. He first findeth his own brother. Simon. And saith unto him, We have found the Messiah, which is being interpreted, the Christ. Oh, and I love those next six words. And he brought him to Jesus. When you find the Lord, the greatest thing you can ever do for your brother or your sister or your mother or your father or your son or your daughter is to bring them to Jesus.
Now you can do a lot of things to help the ones that you love, but you'll never do anything as important as bringing them to Jesus. And you know the wonderful thing about bringing your father or your mother or your son or your daughter or your brother or your sister to Jesus? You know the wonderful thing about it is it might work just like it worked here. They might go out and bring more people to the Lord in their lifetime than you'll ever bring. And that's what happened here. We don't read a great deal about Andrew, but this man Peter was mildly and greatly used of the Lord. And this is one of the...
absolutely fascinating things about Christendom and about this thing of soul winning, is that one insignificant man might be used in the Holy Spirit of God to point a little boy to Jesus Christ. And that little boy might go out to shape the world for Jesus. Like a man in Boston, I believe it was, had a Sunday school class. And there was a young man in that Sunday school class, and he became burdened for him. And he pointed that young man to Christ. And they challenged him to live for Jesus, and Dwight L.
Lurie was used to the Lord to shape the world for Jesus. There's a man in Columbia, South Carolina tonight. In fact, I can take you to the little church where he's seated right now. And he used to be a dairyman. Milk cows. This was before they had electric milkers. Milk cows for a living. And the man that he worked for had a young son, sixteen years of age. And the dairyman was a Christian. And the man that milked cows for the dairyman was a Christian.
And they put up a tent in this city, and a man that was mightily in the word, preached the word, came and preached in the tent. And this man that worked for the dairyman who was a milker, invited the dairyman's son to come along with him one night and hear the gospel preached. And Billy Graham went with Albert MacMahon and found Christ as his Savior. And the rest of it you know. Albert MacMacon was asked to get up here and give his word a testimony and say a few words tonight. He'd get his words all mixed up and backwards and forwards, and he'd stutter and stammering. That's not his gift. But he had the gift of putting Billy Graham on an old pickup farm truck and taking him to hear a man preach about Jesus, and he found the Lord.
He brought Him to Jesus. Now there are different means and methods and modes and approaches to bringing people to Jesus. And your responsibility is to get on your knees and say, Now Lord, what approach do you want me to use? What method am I most gifted in bringing people to Jesus? That's what I want to know. And James says, If you lack wisdom in these things, ask of God, who give it to all men liberally, not just a few, and upbraith not, and it shall be given him.
All right. The personal approach, bringing people to Jesus. John one, verses forty, forty-one, first part of forty-two. All right, now turn to Matthew chapter nine. Matthew chapter nine. Now I'm going to step on some toes here. I'm going to lose a few of you right now. But I sleep a lot better when I preach what the Lord's laid on my heart. Matthew nine, verse nine. And as Jesus passed forth from sense, he saw a man named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom, and he said unto him, Follow me.
And he arose and followed him. And it came to pass. As Jesus sat at meet in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came, and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why, Edith, your master, with publicans and sinners? And when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that behold need not a position, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that means. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. For I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. All right.
Here's what I have in my notes, and I believe this. I'm going to read it, so I won't forget it. Miss it. To introduce people to your Savior, it is absolutely essential that you get to know them. I want to say that again. To introduce people to your Savior, it is absolutely essential that you get to know them. Now let me ask you a question. How can you get to know people if you do not spend time with people. And how can you spend time with people unless by God's grace you ask Him to give you plain common false sense and wisdom as to what you can do as a means of conduct to get acquainted with these people?
Now, this is one of the weaknesses of the church. And when I think of the church tonight, Brother Levitt, I'm talking about the evangelical church. I'm talking about a gospel church. I'm talking about a Bible-believing church. I'm talking about a scriptural group of Christians. This is one of the weaknesses. Most evangelical Christians who love Jesus and who worship Him and who serve Him and who try to follow Him, have very little contact with lost people. This is one of the tragedies of having a gospel campaign.
We bring along a man like Stan Ford or someone else who is mightily gifted of the Lord to preach the gospel. And they preach their hearts out to Christian people. time comes to invite our unconverted friends. We haven't been witnessing to them. We haven't been praying for them. We haven't had much real social contact with them. And we really know very, very few people by our first name basis that we can invite to hear this man preach. So what's the solution?
The solution is to tell God the truth. He said, now, God, Father, I've been having a wonderful time of Christian fellowship. I've been fellowshipping with Christians. We've been having coffees and teas and get-togethers and hymns and things and, oh, how wonderful it is! And I needed to go to hell. Now there are a lot of things that are not wrong that you can do with unconverted people. You say, all right, name them.
All right, I will. You can fish with an unconverted person. I know a man in Columbia, South Carolina tonight. In fact, if he hadn't retired, he's the... He was the prosecuting attorney. He kind of sent out a retirement. He came to traffic or a judge or something like that. But I know him on a first-name basis. T.Q. Taylor's in Maine. And that man knows Jesus Christ tonight because a preacher friend of mine went fishing with him fifty-five times. In fact, the man who stands in this pulpit tonight was led to Christ in a fishing boat on the campus of the University of Georgia because my philosophy professor took me fishing, not to catch brim.
He took me fishing because he wanted to catch a man for the Lord, and I'm glad he caught him. He had only one purpose in his mind when he said, Shockley, wouldn't you like to go over on the ag campus and wet some hooks this afternoon and see if the brim abiding? That was the father's thing from his mind. Captain Abram, he saw a young man that was lost and yet that was seeking and was hungry that he might bring to the Lord Jesus. There are a lot of things you can do with unconverted people. Now you may not enjoy some of them because they might start smoking. What do you expect from an unconverted person that doesn't know your Lord?
They might use a little language that I don't believe is right. What do you expect? But by God's grace it'd be you. Oh, but must a few. They don't go to the places we go to. What do you expect? You can play golf with unconverted people. You can have unconverted people in your home. You can feed. You can go to their home and eat with them. You can go fight seeing with unconverted people. There are any numbers of things you can do. You can even have a party and invite unconverted people.
Do you think they'd come? Try it and see. Some people think that Christians are just knocked on the log and they never had any fun. Well, if you could get some unconverted people to come into your home and you could have a real good time, they'd send them almost faith. because they didn't realize you could have a good time without cursing and without alcohol. But you can't. One of the best ways I know of to obey a witness to unconverted people is to invite them to a free meal. Take them to a nice concert.
There's some good concerts. There's still good music played. Did you know that, by the way? You couldn't tell it by turning on some of the radio stations. But there are some concerts where they play good music. I go to two or three every five or six years. When I have time, I go to war if I had time. And a lot of unconverted people like good music. Invite them out. Take them out. By mistake. Bend some of the Lord's money. Take them to a concert and let them see that you can enjoy good things because you have a good Savior. Did you ever stop to wonder and to think why it is that young Christians, when I'm talking of young Christians, I mean new Christians, as a rule, are the most effective soul-runners?
There are two reasons I'm going to tell you what. Number one, they hadn't been saved long and they still know a lot of unconverted people, friends of theirs, acquaintances, and they're lost and they still have contacts. And you see, unless you have contacts, you can't win people. Number two, not only do they still have a lot of contacts, but they still have their first love. Praise the Lord. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could always keep your first love? They still have a burning zeal. They still remember how it was when they were without.
They've got that first love. And it's all over their face. Oh, by the way, Brother and Sister Hala, I wish you'd write that experience up you'd tell me about. I think I'd like to write a little booklet about how different people get saved. And if you know of unusual ways, Christians, about how certain people were saved in answer to prayer and how the Lord led in this and this, I wish you'd give it to me on a piece of paper. I'm going to compile it and put it in a booklet. I think this could be a real spiritual blessing to a lot of people and a lot of encouragement as to how the Lord answers prayer. I've got several illustrations that I'll be using during the week. They'll show you why this has been such a blessing. to me. All right. They still have their first love.
They still zealous. They still have their contacts. And they are constantly bringing others to know the Lord Jesus Christ. All right. Number three. In the New Testament church, in the early days of the church, and in the life of our Lord, now get this. Jesus Christ, our Savior, and our example. I'm not going to let the modernist feel that word. It's a good word. He is our example, our Savior, and our example. Used, common, ordinary, everyday, conducts and experiences as a means of pouring people to their needs and eventually to Him.
as their Savior. Point in case, John four, don't need to turn to it. By the way, do you have Paul Little's book in your store, How to Give Away Your Faith? That's one of them you've got to have, brother. Doesn't cost but a dollar seventy-five, by the way. Paperback. These retirees, a love bank. That's the kind I have myself. I have one with me, by the way, I believe. All right. Jesus was tired. And he was thirsty. And also, where he was going, the shortest way was through Samaria.
All right. Now, that's three things right there. The way to go, the way he was going was through Samaria. And it's by Jacob's will. And he happened to get tired while he was going. It was the heat of the day, it was hot. He got thirsty. And because he was going where he was going, and because he was tired, and because he was thirsty, a woman found the Lord. Now you travel, you go places, you do things, you make contacts, Would the God that the Lord will use our contacts ever mean by bringing people to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ?
And I would admonish each one of you to read this book and to say it that our brother Paul Little has written on how to give away your faith. One of the good things about this book, How to Give Away Your Faith, is he tells you how not to do it. In other words, he tells you not to sit on top of your victim and cram the gospel down his throat. And unfortunately, I want to tell you there are a lot of people that are ignorant about a little word called T-A-C-T, tax.
When God was given out tax, they missed it some way. And this is most unfortunate because a lot of people have been driven away from the Lord. My son, our oldest son Gil, we have four sons, he's twenty-five years old, and he is dressing the way most young men are dressing today. His hair is a little longer than mine. It's touching his neck a little bit. Looks quite all right because most of the fellows I know, twenty-five years of age, are wearing their hair about like that. Saves a lot of money. I went to the University Convention in Urbana, Illinois, just after Christmas, and I thought that I was bald-headed when I got there.
I'm talking about the men on the platform, the men that were speaking. They all had kind of, you know, thick, bushy hair. And then my son found a bunch of bell-bottomed trousers for a dollar ninety-eight. So he bought a bunch of them, saved money, you know, kind of going out of style maybe. So he bought them. And so one day about five, six weeks ago, he took his boss man who is unsafe. And they went to a large Christian university, the name of which I won't call, a hundred miles from Columbia. I'll tell you that much. And they were going in to see the museum. And they have a wonderful religious museum, probably the greatest in the world. Well, what they didn't know was that you couldn't make a little child in the museum. And so his boss man's wife and my son's wife, my daughter-in-law, Belinda, they went into the museum.
And while they were in the museum, well, my son in his boss just kind of walked around outside taking care of the little three-year-old son. And one of these fellow students came up, and he said, man, gives me an opportunity. I'm going to win me somebody to Christ. And he started preaching. And my son tried for forty-five minutes to tell him, well, now wait, I know the Lord. But he never got a chance to. He preached for forty-five minutes. And finally my son was able to tell him, say, wait, wait, wait. I'm a Christian. I love the Lord. And finally when he got around to tell us, the man was, let me tell you how cackful he was, he said, well, I couldn't dare think that you were a Christian, dressed the way you were.
And my son, well, he says, if it may please you, he says, I think the way I wear my hair doesn't have a thing to do with my spirituality. And he says, I got on bell-bottom trousers, I'll admit, he says, well, I got on about a dollar, ninety-eight cents, and I can't afford to pay more. I'm glad to say that my son's boss was not offended by what the fellow did. He said, well, he's young and he's zealous, and I appreciate his ease. But you need to pray. Now I'm not going to take time to tell the story that the hell has told me today, but it blessed my heart. And if you haven't heard it, I want you to ask them to tell you about the young man, that the Lord enable them to lead to the Lord.
Now this is a definite example of how the Lord can use a natural contact. to bring someone to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yay, let me say this. I don't have it in my notes and I haven't said it like this before. But let me tell you, one of the main secrets of winning people to Christ is being available to the Holy Spirit of God at all hours and in all places. Because you see, the Holy Spirit hardly ever works the same way two times in a row.
And he'll use one thing to bring one person to Christ and another thing to bring another person to Christ. And you must remember that every person you meet is different. And the scripture that will be used in one case to witness to one person would not necessarily be the scripture that would be used with another person. Now, I honestly believe that if someone had told me Ephesians two, eight, and nine, when I was ten or twelve years of age, I would have been saved just like that. But I never heard it until I was eighteen years of age. Contact, common ordinary contact used for God's glory.
All right, now turn to Mark's Gospel. Chapter two. March's Gospel. This is one of my favorite stories. And again he entered into Capernaum after some days and it was noise and he was in the house. And straightway many would gather together insomuch that there was no room to receive him. No, not so much as about the door and he preached the word unto them. And they came unto him and bringing one sick of the palsy which was born of forth. Oh, I love this. And when they could not come down to him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was, and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.
And when Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. And there were certainly the scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts. Why did this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why, reason ye these things in your heart? For whether it is easy to say to the sick of the pause of thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and take up thy bed and walk. but that ye may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. He says to the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, Arise, take up thy bed, and go thy way unto thine house.
And I like that next two words. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all into much that they were all amazed, and glorified, God said, we never saw it on this fashion. He was a man that had four friends. I imagine, as long as he lived, He never put his head upon his pillar at night, as long as he lived.
But when he said, Lord, I want to thank you for those four men that changed us and took me to Jesus. Fortunate is the man or the woman, the boy or girl, and they have a friend that knows Jesus and they take them to Jesus. Brother Bob Willie probably remembers. I don't remember whether he got to stay at the conference the first year we were covering at college or not, because he had to be away a good bit. I think that was the first summer he was here, perhaps. But anyway, that was the summer that Chubb Rastery brought his friend from St. Louis. Chubb was a big, rough, tough glazer of wonder.
Bought up in a rough neighborhood in St. Louis. And you could tell it by talking to him, but he loved Jesus Christ. He was a diamond in the rough if I ever saw one. And there was a man that worked with him side by side up on those skyscrapers, putting in glass. And Chubb had such a good witness with that man that he talked him into coming to a Bible conference with it. And he wasn't any more a Christian than that pew. But he fought a lot of Chubb. And because Chubb said he'd have a good time, he changed. He'd never been to anything like that in his life. And on Wednesday, during the conference, they asked me to come down to the CBMC in Chattanooga and speak.
And I told him I would, of course. And Chubb says, hey, Shockley, can I come and take my friend? And I said, well, certainly that's what it's for. We went down, three or four other men went down. Ted DeMoss was there, of course, with two or three unsaved friends. By the way, Ted will be speaking in Columbia Tuesday night. Let's pray for him. And I brought a word, a testimony about how the Lord brought me to himself while I was a student at the University of Georgia. And there had been a lot of prayer for the meeting, and I could feel and sense the power of God's Holy Spirit. It was easy to talk, like it always is when people are praying. And I finished my little word of testimony and gave an invitation, and the first man to put his hand up for prayer was Chubb's friend.
And I told him how he could open his heart to the Lord right there at that table, right where he was seated. He didn't have to go anywhere and fall down on his knees. He didn't have to go do anything. All he had to do was open his heart and receive Christ right then and there. Well, you know the story I wouldn't be telling. by a search. When the meeting was over, Joe Coggle went over and went over into a little room, and in a few moments this thought came out and his face was beaming. No wonder he'd received the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And tonight, that man's in St. Louis, and he's saved, and he's on his way to heaven, and the man that brought him to the meeting is already in his!
But that man's on his way to heaven. Why? Because he had a friend and his friend brought him to Jesus. I never shall forget today, Dr. Fred Giles of the University of South Carolina came in to our assembly one night. He said, Say, fellas, he said, I wish you'd pray for my friend Ray Slack. Ray Slack, who's he? Well, he's a young man. He lives across... the bottom from where we live over in West Columbia. And we've been getting together in our community. We're going to go together and we're going to build a lake around our property. And I met Frey and I thank a lot out of him. He's handsome. He's good looking. He's got a wonderful personality. He's got a tremendous mind on him.
And oh, I covet that man for the Lord. He's acting in a church. He's the head usher in one of the largest liberal churches in Columbia, but he's not saved. And he needs God and I want us to pray for him. And every time we had a meeting at Bethany Chapel, we had to pray for Ray Slack. We pray in the men's prayer meeting, and we pray in the Sunday school, and we pray at the close of the break into the bread, and we pray in this meeting, and in this meeting, and every time we had a meeting for four years, we prayed for Ray Slack. And one Wednesday night, Dr. John's king chipped toward him. He didn't have to tell us what it was.
I knew what it was. He said, Ray, he didn't save. I said, well, certainly you didn't have to tell us. I can see it all over your face. Tell us about it. We'll stop what we're doing right now. He just stopped and told us. They'd had a little Bible study in the home on Monday night. And they got Ray started to come in. And they just started opening up the Word of God and telling about what Jesus Christ could do in his life. And he says, fellas, that's what I need. Tonight, Ray Slack is up in Charleston, South Carolina, preaching the gospel. Why? Because he had some neighbors who loved Jesus and you prayed for him.
And they wouldn't stop praying until he was saved. Hey, you know what? You know what I'm talking about? I'm talking about something that works. And it can happen today, just like it happens then, if you meet the conditions. They prove our resources. They said, listen, this man can't go. He can't help himself. We've got to get together and help him. I wonder how many of you have somebody down here.
I'm talking to the people now that live here. I'm not talking about the visitors. This will work back in Chicago and Long Island and New York and Massachusetts or wherever you're from. But I wonder how many of you people that live here in the colony. I wonder how many of you know the pharmacist downtown, or the fellow at the ESSO station, or the young lady at the dry cleaning place. I wonder how many of you call them by name in your prayers. Wouldn't it be a wonderful, thrilled, and a blessing if the ladies here could get acquainted with some of these ladies in these little stores downtown that you meet and start praying for them by name, and don't stop praying?
until they find the Lord. You talk about new life, you're talking about a blessing. You talk about something that'll put spirit into you and they'll stir you up and challenge you and thrill you. Well, then you're cooking on the front burner. When you get together and you're covering it together, you're going to pray for somebody and you're not going to stop praying until the Lord hears an answer. I wonder how many of the people here, and I'm stopping right now because I don't have time to go into the next point. I wonder how many of you people here tonight have a prayer list. He said, well, brother, few, I tell you what I do.
I depend upon the Holy Spirit to bring to my remembrance the things that he wants me to pray for. Well, I'm not going to condemn you for that. But, you know, I have found that I do not have a fully static mind. Maybe you do. I'm fifty years old and I find it a lot harder to remember now than I did ten years ago. And so I just admit that I can't remember all the things I ought to remember. I'm just honest. And I've got a little notebook. The Lord brings some young man across my path. And the Holy Spirit burdens my heart to pray for him.
I depend upon the Holy Spirit. That's right. But I also put his name in that notebook. And I pray for him. And I want to close the message by asking you to pray for a particular young man. The next time I come back to talk with a pundit, I'd like to bring him with me. He doesn't know the Lord now, but he's going to. His name is Paul. It's got a scriptural name. Felbury. Now what do you think your daddy was? That's right, an Orthodox Jew. His father was killed in Normandy in World War II.
He never remembers it. His mother was a Pentecostal and still is. And he was forced to go to church in Sunday school as long as he was a little boy. He doesn't know the Lord. He's the manager of one of the largest ladies ready to wear stores in the city of Columbia. And one day the Lord sent him into our bookstore. That's the only explanation I have, the Lord sent him in there. And no one was in there but the two of us, the time. And I said, Lord, don't let the phone ring and the phone didn't ring. Lord, don't let anybody come in and nobody came in.
And I got acquainted with this wonderful, fine, handsome, young Jewish boy. His name is Paul Feldberg. I've been praying for him now for about two months. He's made every excuse under the sun not to go to CBMC with me. Always something happens, you know. But you know what? I found out, Christians, the Lord always has his time. When the time comes, everything will fall into place. And as a result of prayer and intelligent exercise of heart, Paul Feldberg will come to us, say the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I wish you'd pray for him. If you have a prayer list, just put him on your list. Paul Feldberg. Because someday he's going to stand here in this pulpit and give his testimony and tell you how the Lord brought him to himself. New Testament evangelism can be twenty-century evangelism when done in the power and the anointing of the Spirit of God. Tomorrow night I'll finish the message. Our Father and our God, we thank you for bringing to our attention tonight some of the very common ordinary ways that men and women and boys and girls found Jesus Christ.
We thank thee that the one with whom we deal and the one that we proclaim is able, willing, and ready to save men and women that are lost. We thank thee that the power of Jesus Christ and the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God under salvation. Father, we pray for anyone here tonight who is maybe a Christian but who is not living in fellowship with you. Father, we know from experience this can be a most miserable, exasperating experience. We know that perhaps the most unhappy person in the world is not necessarily an unsaved person, but someone who's known the joy of sins forgiven, but who is not walking close by your side.
They're cold and indifferent and backslidden. We pray for any tonight that may not know you in all your fullness and fellowship. That they might understand that if they confess their sins, that Jesus Christ is faithful and just to forgive them their sins and to cleanse them from all unrighteousness. Now watch over us tonight and tomorrow during the day. Be with any who will be traveling and doing some sightseeing. Bring us back safely tomorrow night and continue to speak to our hearts about the greatest work in all the world, the work of pointing many women and boys and girls to the Lord Jesus Christ.