“I could have saved myself the trouble. Completely in vain!” The Christian watched sadly as a woman handled the tract he had just handed her. She said in horror: “Completely worthless to me,” and threw it away in disgust. There it lay, in the dirt of the street. Dejected, the distributor went home.
But had it really been in vain?
The following night, a grim and sullen-looking man stood in the street, someone who had already spent some time in prison. He was waiting for Karlo, his accomplice, to commit a burglary with him.
His eyes fell on a piece of paper on the ground. When he picked it up and realized that it was a Christian scripture, he threw it away again. This time, it landed on the other side – and the man picked it up after all. He read about the prodigal son, about his path to misery. That was his story! And he read about the way back!
The criminal felt a sinking feeling in his stomach! “Karlo can break in alone tonight,” he said and made his way home. On the way, he wanted to turn back a few more times, but an inner feeling drove him forward.
Deep in the night, he suddenly came across a troop of soldiers carrying a man on a stretcher. It was Karlo! While fleeing from the police, he jumped out of a window and broke both his legs.
There was even more at work in the man now! He was completely convicted of his guilt and converted. A man who found Christ because he had found a carelessly discarded tract on the ground.
And what about the Christian’s ministry at the beginning of the story? It had not been in vain!
Here are a few more testimonies of how the Lord used the gospel for eternal blessing:
- Stephen – armed with dangerous Molotov cocktails – mingled with the audience at a gospel meeting in order to carry out an assassination there. But he never got up again. The sermon gripped him, and he left the tent as a Christian.
- A man carelessly picked up the Bible that his counterpart on the train was reading and threw it out of the window. Outside, a worker was working on the tracks – when suddenly a book landed in front of him. He read it and found peace with God!
- A prison inmate uses torn-out Bible pages to roll cigarettes. At some point, he reads one of them. He is convicted and turns to the Lord.
- A young Thai man receives a tract and only reads the word “Jesus” (which he knows nothing about) before his Buddhist parents tear it out of his hand. Many years later, as a sailor in remote Alaska, he receives another tract, recognizes the word “Jesus”, reads it with curiosity – and is given new life.
- A preacher shouted four words from the pulpit to test the acoustics of the hall for the gospel meeting planned for that evening: “Behold, the Lamb of God!” Up on the roof, a roofer was at work, for whom this one sentence led to eternal salvation.
- A man spent the night in a hotel, from which he wanted to leave in the morning to murder an old acquaintance. In the morning, the cleaner found a loaded pistol in the room, and next to it, a note with the message: “I found a Bible on the bedside table. This book has saved two lives: My worst enemy’s and mine.”
- An atheist trader tore pages out of a Bible to wrap goods he was selling. At home, a customer who had a troubled conscience because of a murder read: “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness” (Heb 9:22). The man was terrified. How would he ever find relief? The next time he went shopping, the merchant had already reached 1 John 1:9. This is what the murderer read: “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” He found peace with God.
God’s Word will never return to Him void. A great encouragement for us to diligently proclaim the gospel – even if it is only four words or a short tract!
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