Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “The Gospel in Samaria,” pp. 103–111, in The Acts of the Apostles.
All around us people are seeking for the things of eternity. As Jesus so aptly put it, “ ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few’ ” (Matt. 9:37, NKJV). The problem, therefore, was not with the harvest. With eyes divinely anointed, Jesus saw a plentiful harvest where the disciples saw only opposition. What was Christ’s solution to the problem? “ ‘Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest’ ” (Matt. 9:38, NKJV). The solution is to pray that God will send you out into His harvest.
Why not pray this prayer? “Lord, I am willing to be used for the advancement of Your kingdom. Open my eyes so that I can see the providential opportunities You are opening before me each day. Teach me to be sensitive to the people around me. Help me to speak words of hope and encouragement and share Your love and truth with those I come in contact with each day.” If you will pray this prayer, God will do some extraordinary things with your life.
Discussion Questions:
If you have worked to bring souls to Jesus, there is one thing you know: it is not always easy, is it? Yes, of course, only God can convert hearts, but in His wisdom He has chosen to use us to be part of that process. To work for even one soul takes time, effort, patience, and a love born from above. What choices can you make that will help you have the death to self that you need in order to be an effective witness for Christ?
Who are some of the people you come in contact with who don’t know the Lord? What have you done, or are doing, or should do, to witness to them?
Think about Saul of Tarsus. Here is someone who appeared to be about as unlikely a convert as one could imagine! And yet, we know what happened to him. What should this tell us about the danger of too quickly judging others by outward appearances?
Keeping in mind the story of Saul, how should we interpret a text like Matthew 7:6: “ ‘Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces’ ” (NKJV)?
Inside Story
Filipino Family Transformed
By Steven Dragoo
A lonely literature evangelist walked the dusty hot streets of Butuan City, Philippines. All day he toiled, yet he sold nothing. This was his only source of income, so he was a little discouraged. But he determined to knock on one more door. As he approached, he prayed. Then he knocked.
A slight woman with keen eyes greeted the tired man with a smile. He made his heavenly pitch, and she could see the sincerity in his eyes and hear it in his voice. It was as if the Holy Spirit Himself was pleading with the woman.
She was a Christian, but she had squandered years with no deep interest in pursuing Christ. When the family’s financial situation became grave, the woman began to hunger to learn more about Jesus. But her pockets were always empty. She had 10 children, and three more would be on the way.
How could she afford the literature evangelist’s book, which she knew she just had to read and share? The book was called The Great Controversy and was written by Ellen White.
Without hesitation, she bought that book with resources that she did not have.
More than 50 years have passed since that day, but the fruit of that singular book is still being felt. The woman, Epefania Ty, led every single one of her children to Christ. She surely believed, as Ellen White wrote in Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, page 429, that “our work for Christ is to begin with the family, in the home. . . . There is no missionary field more important than this.”
One of her sons, Florente Ty, became a pastor and now is the president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Philippine Publishing House in Manila. Others became deacons, elders, deaconesses, and teachers in Adventist churches and academies. Nearly all graduated from Mountain View College, and each one who did helped the next one go to that college.
I know this woman as “Mom.” I married one of her daughters, Dorcas, who has taught at Adventist academies all her life.
Mom had a stroke before I met her. She was mute, blind, and bedridden. She tried with all her heart to talk to me at our first meeting but could not. That does not really matter. She already has spoken to my heart many times because she responded to the Holy Spirit many years earlier. Mom died in August 2013 at the age of 89.
Dozens of people have come to Christ because of a lonely literature evangelist, a powerful book, and a woman receptive to the Holy Spirit.
I’ll see Mom on that appointed day.
Steven Dragoo, pictured with Dorcas, is a Bible worker and evangelist in Christiansburg, Virginia.
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