The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his091/bornto.lzh/BORNTO.TXT

Text File | 1991-06-30 | 35KB | 681 lines

INS:Born to reproduce  by Dawson E. Trotman

   Available in print-media from NAVPRESS, a ministry of The Navigators
P.O.Box 6000, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80934

   The Navigators is an international, evangelical Christian
organization. Jesus Christ gave His followers the Great Commission to
go and make disciples (Matthew 28:19). The aim of The Navigators is to
help fulfill that commission by multiplying laborers for Christ in
every nation.

   NavPress is the publishing ministry of The Navigators. NavPress
publications are tools to help Christians grow. Although publications
alone cannot make disciples or change lives, they can help believers
learn biblical discipleship, and apply what they learn to their lives
and ministries.

   ISBN: 0-89109-404-0 24281 *

   Dawson Trotman, converted at age 20, gave 30 years to vigorous
pursuit of the goal "to know Christ and make Him known." Daws was a man
who believed God, who asked Him for great things and saw God answer.
The ministry of The Navigators is one of those answers. It began when
another man asked Daws to teach him what he saw practiced in Daw's life.

   FOREWORD

   In the summer of 1955 it was my privilege to meet Dawson Trotman,
director of The Navigators, for the first time. My heart was thrilled
not only with his vision of soulwinning but also with the manner in
which God had used this man to promote a method of first winning an
individual, then teaching him how to win and teach others, multiplying
the ministry in this manner, supplementing the mass approach. Through
the years I have met Navigators who were trained by either Dawson
Trotman or one of his men and I have usually found them to be people
with a passion for souls, a good knowledge of the Word and something
that made them stand out as individual Christians. From the day when I
met Dawson Trotman, our friendship and fellowship grew by leaps and
bounds. We spent many hours together on various occasions, and almost
overnight a David- Johnathan love grew.

   As I came to know this man better, I soon discovered the secret of
his power. Early in his Christian life, he and another young man
covenanted together to meet for prayer every morning for six weeks in
order to find God's will in a certain matter. This spirit and practice
of devotion was a rule of his life. He rose early to pray and read
God's Word. Without this devotion to God he could not have been so
successful in his service.

   The unselfishness of Mr. Trotman could be seen on every hand. There
was no trying on his part to hoard information or knowledge that he had
gained in 22 years of experience, but rather there was a willingness to
share and to cooperate with us in producing a much more thorough
follow-up system for the Back to the Bible Broadcast.

   The Back to the Bible Broadcast Home Study Course, a follow-up
method for young Christians, was the result. Different ones in the
organization gave many hours of their time in helping to produce this
course, and Mr. Trotman himself supervised every phase of it.

   Possibly one of the last major accomplishments of this man was his
untiring work in making this Bible course a reality. It was a pooling
of both experience and knowledge which we believe will bear much fruit.

   Mr. Trotman went to be with the Lord June 18, 1956. In rescuing
another person from drowning in Schroon Lake, New York, he lost his own
life. How characteristic this was of his lifelong ministry! One man
summed it up in these words: "I think Daws has personally touched more
lives than anybody I have ever known."

   The work of The Navigators continues under able leadership. It was
solidly built on the principle of one person training another instead
of one person being the teacher of all.

   My own life is dedicated to a greater effort than ever before to
follow persistently this great principle of Bible memory work and
person-to-person evangelism.

   -Theodore H. Epp *

   BORN TO REPRODUCE

   A few years ago, while visiting Edinburgh, Scotland, I stood on High
Street just down from the castle. As I stood there, I saw a father and
a mother coming toward me pushing a baby carriage. They looked very
happy, were well dressed and apparently were well-to-do. I tried to
catch a glimpse of the baby as they passed and, seeing my interest,
they stopped to let me look at the little, pink-cheeked member of their
family.

   I watched them for a little while as they walked on and thought how
beautiful it is that God permits a man to chose one woman who seems the
most beautiful and lovely to him, and she chooses him out of all the
men whom she has ever known. Then they separate themselves to one
another, and God in His plan gives them the means of reproduction! It
is a wonderful thing that a little child should be born into their
family, having some of the father's characteristics and some of the
mother's, some of his looks and some of hers. Each sees in that baby a
reflection of the one whom he or she loves.

   Seeing that little one made me feel homesick for my own children
whom I dearly love and whose faces I had not seen for some time. As I
continued to stand there I saw another baby carriage, or perambulator
as they call it over there, coming in my direction. It was a secondhand
affair and very wobbly. Obviously the father and mother were poor. Both
were dressed poorly and plainly, but when I indicated my interest in
seeing their baby, they stopped and with the same pride as the other
parents let me view their little, pink-cheeked, beautiful-eyed child.

   I thought as these went on their way, "God gave this little baby
whose parents are poor everything that He gave the other. It has five
little fingers on each hand, a little mouth and two eyes. Properly
cared for, those little hands may someday be the hands of an artist or
a musician."

   Then this other thought came to me, "Isn't it wonderful that God did
not select the wealthy and the educated and say, 'You can have
children, ' and to the poor and uneducated say, 'You cannot.' Everyone
on earth has that privilege."

   The first order ever given to man was that he "be fruitful and
multiply." In other words, he was to reproduce after his own kind. God
did not tell Adam and Eve, our first parents, to be spiritual. They
were already in His image. Sin had not yet come in. He just said,
"Multiply. I want more just like you, more in My own image."

   Of course, the image was marred. But Adam and Eve had children. They
began to multiply. There came a time, however, when God had to destroy
most of the flesh that had been born. He started over with eight
people. The more than two billion people who are on the earth today
came from the eight who were in the ark, because they were fruitful and
multiplied.

   HINDRANCES

   Only a few things will ever keep human beings from multiplying
themselves in the physical realm. One is that they never marry. If they
are not united, they will not reproduce. This is a truth which
Christians need to grasp with reference to spiritual reproduction. When
a person becomes a child of God, he should realize that he is to live
in union with Jesus Christ if he is going to win others to the Saviour.

   Another factor that can hinder reproduction is disease or impairment
to some part of the body that is needed for reproductive purposes. In
the spiritual realm sin is the disease that can keep one from winning
the lost.

   One other thing that can keep people from having children is
immaturity. God in His wisdom saw to it that little children cannot
have babies. A little boy must first grow to sufficient maturity to be
able to earn a living, and a little girl must be old enough to care for
a baby.

   Everyone should be born again. That is God's desire. God never
intended that man should merely live and die--be a walking corpse to be
laid in the ground. The vast majority of people know that there is
something beyond the grave, and so each one who is born into God's
family should seek others to be born again.

   A person is born again when he receives Jesus Christ. "But as many
as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of
God...Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12,13)-- the new birth. It is
God's plan that these new babes in Christ grow. All provision is made
for their growth into maturity, and then they are to multiply--not only
the rich or the educated, but all alike. Every person who is born into
God's family is to multiply.

   In the physical realm when your children have children, you become a
grandparent. Your parents are then great- grandparents, and theirs are
great-great-grandparents. And so it should be in the spiritual.

   SPIRITUAL BABES

   Wherever you find a Christian who is not leading men and women to
Christ, something is wrong. He may still be a babe. I do not mean that
he does not know a lot of doctrine and is not well informed through
hearing good preaching. I know many people who can argue the pre-, the
post- and the amillenial position and who know much about
dispensations, but who are still immature. Paul said of some such in
Corinth, "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual
(or mature), but as unto carnal, even as unto babes..." (1 Corinthians
3:1).

   Because they were babes, they were immature, incapable of spiritual
reproduction. In other words, they could not help other people to be
born again. Paul continued, "I have fed you with milk, and not with
meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it ... ye are yet carnal
(or babes): for ... there is among you envying, and strife, and
divisions..." (1 Corinthians 3:2, 3). I know a lot of church members,
Sunday school teachers and members of the women's missionary society
who will say to each other, "Have you heard about so and so?" and pass
along some gossip. Such have done an abominable thing in the sight of
God. How horrible it is when a Christian hears something and spreads
the story! The Book says, "These six things doth the Lord hate: yea,
seven are an abomination unto Him...a lying tongue..." ( Proverbs 6:16,
17). Oh, the Christians I know, both men and women, who let lying come
in! "...he that soweth discord among brethren" (Proverbs 16:19) is
another. This is walking as a babe, and I believe that it is one of the
basic reasons why some Christians do not have people born again into
God's family through them. They are sick spiritually. There is
something wrong. There is a spiritual disease in their lives. They are
immature. There is not that union with Christ.

   But when all things are right between you and the Lord, regardless
of how much or how little you may know intellectually from the
standpoint of the world, you can be a spiritual parent. And that,
incidentally, may even be when you are very young in the Lord.

   A young lady works at the telephone desk in our office in Colorado
Springs. A year and a half ago she was associated with the young
Communist league in Great Britain. She heard Billy Graham and accepted
the Lord Jesus Christ. Soon she and a couple other girls in her art and
drama school were used of the Lord to win some girls to Christ. We
taught Pat and some of the others, and they in turn taught the girls
whom they led to Christ. Some of these have led still other girls to
Christ, and they too are training their friends. Patricia is a
great-grandmother already, though she is only about a year and four
months old in the Lord.

   We see this all the time. I know a sailor who, when he was only four
months old in the Lord, was a great-grandfather. He had led some
sailors to the Lord who in turn led other sailors to the Lord, and
these last led still other sailors to the Lord-- yet he was only four
months old.

   How was this done? God used the pure channel of these young
Christians' lives in their exuberance and first love for Christ, and
out of their hearts the incorruptible seed of the Word of God was sown
in the hearts of other people. It took hold. Faith came by the hearing
of the Word. They were born again by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
They observed those Christians who led them to Christ and shared in the
joy, the peace and the thrill of it all. And in their joy, they wanted
someone else to know.

   In every Christian audience, I am sure there are men and women who
have been Christians for five, ten or twenty years but who do not know
of one person who is living for Jesus Christ today because of them. I
am not talking now about merely working for Christ, but about producing
for Christ. Someone may say, "I gave out a hundred thousand tracts."
That is good, but how many sheep did you bring in?"

   Some time ago I talked to 29 missionary candidates. They were
graduates of universities or Bible schools or seminaries. As a member
of the board I interviewed each one over a period of five days, giving
each candidate from half an hour to an hour. Among the questions I
asked were two which are very important. The first one had to do with
their devotional life. "How is your devotional life?" I asked them.
"How is the time you spend with the Lord? Do you feel that your
devotional life is what the Lord would have it to be?"

   Out of this particular group of 29 only one person said, "I believe
my devotional life is what it ought to be." To the others my question
then was, "Why is your devotional life not what it should be?"

   "Well, you see, I am here at this summer institute," was a common
reply. "We have a concentrated course. We do a year's work in only ten
weeks. We are so busy."

   I said, "All right. Let's back up to when you were in college. Did
you have victory in your devotional life then?"

   "Well, not exactly."

   We traced back and found that never since they came to know the
Saviour had they had a period of victory in their devotional lives.
That was one of the reasons for sterility-- lack of communion with
Christ.

   The other question I asked them was, "You are going out to the
foreign field. You hope to be used by the Lord in winning men and women
to Christ. Is that right?"

   "Yes."

   "You want them to go on and live the victorious life, don't you? You
don't want them just to make a decision and then go back into the
world, do you?"

   "No."

   "Then may I ask you something more? How many persons do you know by
name today who were won to Christ by you and are living for Him?"

   "The majority had to admit that they were ready to cross an ocean
and learn a foreign language, but they had not won their first soul who
was going on with Jesus Christ. A number of them said that they got
many people to go to church; others said they had persuaded some to go
forward when the invitation was given.

   I asked, "Are they living for Christ now?" Their eyes dropped. I
then continued, "How do you expect that by crossing an ocean and
speaking in a foreign language with people who are suspicious of you,
whose way of life is unfamiliar, you will be able to do there what you
have not yet done here?"

   These questions do not apply to missionaries and prospective
missionaries only. They apply to all of God's people. Every one of His
children ought to be a reproducer.

   Are you producing? If not, why not? Is it because of a lack of
communion with Christ, your Lord, that closeness of fellowship which is
part of the great plan? Or is it some sin in your life, an unconfessed
something, that has stopped the flow? Or is it that you are still a
babe? "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that
one teach you again..." (Hebrews 5:12).

   HOW TO PRODUCE REPRODUCERS

   The reason that we are not getting this Gospel to the ends of the
earth is not because it is not potent enough.

   Twenty-three years ago we took a born-again sailor and spent some
time with him, showing him how to reproduce spiritually after his kind.
It took time, lots of time. It was not a hurried, 30-minute challenge
in a church service and a hasty good-bye with an invitation to come
back next week. We spent time together. We took care of his problems
and taught him not only to hear God's Word and to read it, but also how
to study it. We taught him how to fill the quiver of his heart with the
arrows of God's Word, so that the Spirit of God could lift an arrow
from his heart and place it to the bow of his lips and pierce a heart
for Christ.

   He found a number of boys on his ship, but none of them would go all
out for the Lord. They would go to church, but when it came right down
to doing something, they were "also rans." He came to me after a month
of this and said, "Dawson, I can't get any of these guys on the ship to
get down to business."

   I said to him, "Listen, you ask God to give you one. You can't have
two until you have one. Ask God to give you a man after your own heart."

   He began to pray. One day he came to me and said, "I think I've
found him." Later he brought the young fellow over. Three months from
the time I started to work with him, he had found a man of like heart.
This first sailor was not the kind of man you had to push and give
prizes to before he would do something. He loved the Lord and was
willing to pay a price to produce. He worked with this new babe in
Christ, and those two fellows began to grow and spiritually reproduce.
On that ship 125 men found the Saviour before it was sunk at Pearl
Harbor. Men off that first battleship are in four continents of the
world as missionaries today. It was necessary to make a start, however.
The devil's great trick is to stop anything like this if he can before
it gets started. He will stop you, too, if you let him.

   There are Christians whose lives run in circles who, nevertheless,
have the desire to be spiritual parents. Take a typical example. You
meet him in the morning as he goes to work and say to him, "Why are you
going to work?"

   "Well, I have to earn money."

   "What are you earning money for?" you ask.

   "Well, " he replies, "I have to buy food."

   "What do you want food for?"

   "I have to eat so as to have strength to go to work and earn some
more money."

   "What do you want more money for?"

   "I have to buy clothes so that I can be dressed to go to work and
earn some more money."

   "What do you want more money for?"

   "I have to buy a house or pay the rent so I will have a place to
rest up, so I will be fit to work and earn some more money." And so it
goes. There are many Christians like that who are going in big circles.
But you continue your questioning and ask, "What else do you do?"

   "Oh, I find time to serve the Lord. I am preaching here and there."
But down behind all of this he has the one desire to be a spiritual
father. He is praying that God will give him a man to teach. It may
take six months. It need not take that long, but maybe it takes him six
months to get him started taking in the Word and giving it out and
getting ready to teach a man himself.

   So this first man at the end of six months has another man. Each man
starts teaching another in the following six months. At the end of the
year, there are just four of them. Perhaps each one teaches a Bible
class or helps in a street meeting, but at the same time his main
interest is in his man and how he is doing. So at the end of the year
the four of them get together and have a prayer meeting and determine,
"Now, let's not allow anything to sidetrack us. Let's give the Gospel
out to a lot of people, but let's check up on at least one man and see
him through."

   So the four of them in the next six months each get a man. That
makes eight at the end of a year and a half. They all go out after
another and at the end of two years there are 16 men. At the end of
three years there are 64; the 16 have doubled twice. At the end of five
years there are 1, 024. At the end of fifteen and a half years there
are approximately 2, 147,500,000. That is the present population of the
world of persons over three years of age.

   But wait a minute! Suppose that after the first man, A, helps B and
B is ready to get his man while A starts helping another, B is
sidetracked, washes out and does not produce his first man. Fifteen and
one-half years later you can cut your 2, 147,500,000 down to 1,073,7500
because the devil caused B to be sterile.

   God promised Abraham "... in Isaac shall thy seed be called"
(Genesis 21:12), so Abraham waited a long, long time for that son.
God's promise to make Abraham the father of many nations was all
wrapped up in that one son, Isaac. If Hitler had been present and had
caused Isaac's death when Abraham had his knife poised over him on
Mount Moriah, Hitler could have killed every Jew in that one stroke.

   I believe that is why Satan puts all his efforts into getting the
Christian busy, busy, busy, but not producing.

   Men, where is your man? Women, where is your woman? Where is the one
whom you led to Christ and who is now going on with Him?

   There is a story in 1 Kings, chapter 20 about a man who gave a
prisoner to a servant and instructed the servant to guard the prisoner
well. But as the servant was busy here and there the prisoner made his
escape.

   The curse of today is that we are too busy. I am not talking about
being busy earning money to buy food. I am talking about being busy
doing Christian things. We have spiritual activity with little
productivity. And productivity comes as a result of what we call
"follow-up."

   MAJORING IN REPRODUCING

   Five years ago, Billy Graham came to me and said, "Daws, we would
like you to help with our follow-up. I've been studying the great
evangelists and the great revivals and I fail to see that there was
much of a follow-up program. We need it. We are having an average of 6,
000 people come forward to decide for Christ in a month's campaign. I
feel that with the work you have done you could come in and help us."

   I said, "Billy, I can't follow up 6,000 people. My work has always
been with individuals and small groups."

   "Look, Daws," he answered, "everywhere I go I meet Navigators. I met
them in school in Wheaton. They are in my school right now. (He was
president of Northwestern Schools at that time.) There must be
something to this."

   "I just don't have time." I said.

   He tackled me again. The third time he pled with me and said, "Daws,
I am not able to sleep nights for thinking of what happens to the
converts after a crusade is over."

   At that time I was on my way to Formosa and I said, "While I am
there I will pray about it, Billy." On the sands of a Formosan beach I
paced up and down two or three hours a day praying, "Lord, how can I do
this? I am not even getting the work done You have given me to do. How
can I take six months of the year to give to Billy?" But God laid the
burden upon my heart.

   Why should Billy have asked me to do it? I had said to him that day
before I left for Formosa, "Billy, you will have to get somebody else."

   He took me by the shoulders and said, "Who else? Who is majoring in
this?" I had been majoring in it.

   What will it take to jar us out of our complacency and send us home
to pray, "God, give me a girl or man whom I can win to Christ, or let
me take one who is already won, an infant in Christ, and try to train
that one so that he or she will reproduce!"

   How thrilled we are to see the masses fill up the seats! But where
is your man? I would rather have one "Isaac" alive than a hundred dead,
or sterile, or immature.

   BEGINNING OF FOLLOW-UP

   One day years ago, I was driving along in my little Model T Ford and
saw a young man walking down the street. I stopped and picked him up.
As he got into the car, he swore and said, "It's sure tough to get a
ride." I never hear a man take my Saviour's name in vain but what my
heart aches. I reached into my pocket for a tract and said, "Lad, read
this."

   He looked up at me and said, "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

   I looked at him closely. He looked like someone I should know. We
figured out that we had met the year before on the same road. He was on
his way to a golf course to caddy when I picked him up. He had gotten
into my car and had started out the same way with the name "Jesus
Christ." I had taken exception to his use of that name and had opened
up the New Testament and shown him the way of salvation. He had
accepted Jesus Christ as his Saviour. In parting I had given him
Philippians 1:6, "Being confident of this very thing, that He which
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ." "God bless you, son. Read this," I said, and sped on my merry
way.

   A year later, there was no more evidence of the new birth and the
new creature in this boy than if he had never heard of Jesus Christ.

   I had a great passion to win souls and that was my great passion.
But after I met this boy the second time on the way to the golf course,
I began to go back and find some of my "converts." I want to tell you,
I was sick at heart. It seemed that Philippians 1:6 was not working.

   An Armenian boy came into my office one day and told me about all
the souls he had won. He said that they were all Armenians and had the
list to prove it.

   I said, "Well, what is this one doing?" He said,

   "That one isn't doing so good. He is backslidden."

   "What about this one?" We went all down the list and there was not
one living a victorious life.

   I said, "Give me your Bible." I turned to Philippians and put a
cardboard right under the 6th verse, took a razor blade out of my
pocket and started to come down on the page. He grabbed my hand and
asked, "What are you going to do?"

   "I'm going to cut this verse out, " I said, "It isn't working."

   Do you know what was wrong? I had been taking the 6th verse away
from its context, verses 3 through 7. Paul was not just saying, "All
right, the Lord has started something, He will finish it." But you
know, that is what some people tell me when they win a soul. They say,
"Well, I just committed him to God."

   Suppose I meet someone who has a large family and say to him, "Who
is taking care of your children?"

   "My family? Oh, I left them with the Lord."

   Right away I would say to that one, "I have a verse for you: 'But if
any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house,
he...is worse than an infidel'(1 Timothy 5:8)."

   Paul said to the elders of the church at Ephesus, "Take heed...to
all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you
overseers..." (Acts 20:28). You cannot make God the overseer. He makes
you the overseer.

   We began work on follow-up. This emphasis on finding and helping
some of the converts went on for a couple or three years before the
Navigator work started. By that time our work included fewer converts
but more time spent with the converts. Soon I could say as Paul said to
the Philippians, "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always
in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your
fellowship in the Gospel from the first day until now" (Philippians
1:3-5). He followed up his converts with daily prayer and fellowship.
Then he could say, "Being confident of this very thing, that He which
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ" (Philippians 1:6). In keeping with this the 7th verse reads:
"Even as it is met (or proper) for me to think this of you all, because
I have you in my heart..."

   Before I had forgotten to follow up the people God had reached
through me. But from then on I began to spend time helping them. That
is why sometime later when that first sailor came to me, I saw the
value of spending three months with him. I saw an Isaac in him. Isaac
had Jacob, and Jacob had the twelve, and all the rest of the nation
came through them.

   IT TAKES TIME TO DO GOD'S WORK

   You can lead a soul to Christ in from 20 minutes to a couple of
hours. But it takes from 20 weeks to a couple of years to get him on
the road to maturity, victorious over the sins and the recurring
problems that come along. He must learn how to make right decisions. He
must be warned of the various "isms" that are likely to reach out with
their octopus arms and pull him in and sidetrack him.

   But when you get yourself a man, you have doubled your ministry--in
fact, you have more than doubled your ministry. Do you know why? When
you teach your man, he sees how it is done and he imitates you.

   If I were the minister of a church and had deacons or elders to pass
the plate and choir members to sing, I would say, "Thank God for your
help. We need you. Praise the Lord for these extra things that you do,
" but I would keep pressing home the big job--"Be fruitful and
multiply." All these other things are incidental to the supreme task of
winning a man or woman to Jesus Christ and then helping him or her to
go on.

   Where is your man? Where is your woman? Do you have one? You can ask
God for one. Search your hearts. Ask the Lord, "Am I spiritually
sterile? If I am, why am I?"

   Don't let your lack of knowledge stand in the way. It used to be the
plan of The Navigators in the early days that whenever the sailors were
with us for supper each fellow was asked at the end of the meal to
quote a verse.

   I would say it this way, "Quote a verse you have learned in the last
48 hours if you have one. Otherwise, just give us a verse." One evening
as we quoted verses around the table, my little three-year-old
daughter's turn came. There was a new sailor next to her who did not
think about her quoting Scripture, so without giving her an
opportunity, he began. She looked up at him as much as to say, "I am a
human being, " then she quoted John 3:16 in her own way. "For God so
loved the world, dat He gave His only forgotten Son, dat WHOSOEVER
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." She put
the emphasis on the "whosoever" because when she was first taught the
verse she could not pronounce that word.

   Days later that sailor came over and said to me, "You know, I was
going to quote that verse of Scripture. It was the only one I knew. But
I didn't really know it, not until little Ruthie quoted it. When she
said 'whosoever, ' I thought, 'that means me.' Back on ship I accepted
the Lord." Today that young man is a missionary in South America.

   Until several years after we were married, my wife's father did not
know the Lord. Here again God used children to reach a hungry heart.
When Ruthie was three and Bruce was five, they went to visit Grandpa
and Grandma. Grandpa tried to get them to repeat nursery rhymes. He
said, "Mary had a little lamb" and "Little Boy Blue, " but the children
just looked at him and asked, "Who is Little Boy Blue?" He thought they
did not know very much.

   Their mother said, "They know some things. Quote Romans 3:23,
Bruce." This Bruce did. Then he asked, "Shall I quote another one,
Grandpa?"

   "Sure, " said Grandpa.

   Bruce began to quote verses of Scripture, some 15 in all, and Ruth
quoted some in between. This delighted Grandpa. He took them over to
the neighbors and to the aunts and uncles, showing them how well these
children knew the Scriptures. In the meantime the Word of God was doing
its work. It was not long before the Holy Spirit, through the voices of
babes, planted the seed in his heart. "Out of the mouth of babes and
sucklings hast Thou ordained strength..." (Psalm 8:2).

   Soulwinners are not soulwinners because of what they know, but
because of the Person they know, how well they know Him and how much
they long for others to know Him.

   "Oh, but I am afraid," someone says. Remember, "The fear of man
bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be
safe" (Proverbs 29:25). Nothing under heaven except sin, immaturity and
lack of communion will put you in a position where you cannot
reproduce. Furthermore, there is not anything under heaven that can
keep a newly born again one from going on with the Lord if he has a
spiritual parent to take care of him and give him the spiritual food
God has provided for his normal growth.

   Effects obey their causes by irresistible laws. When you sow the
seed of God's Word you will get results. Not every heart will receive
the Word, but some will, and the new birth will take place. When a soul
is born, give it the care that Paul gave new believers. Paul believed
in follow-up work. He was a busy evangelist, but he took time for
follow-up. The New Testament is largely made up of the letters of Paul
which were follow-up letters to the converts.

   James believed in it. "But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers
only, " he said in James 1:22. Peter believed in it. "As newborn babes,
desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter
2:2). John believed in it, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my
children walk in truth" (3 John 4). All the writings of Peter, Paul,
James and most of John's are food for the new Christian.

   The Gospel spread to the known world during the first century
without radio, television or the printing press, because these produced
men who were reproducing. But today we have a lot of
pew-sitters--people think that if they are faithful in church
attendance, put good-sized gifts into the offering plate and get people
to come, they have done their part.

   Where is your man? Where is your woman? Where is your boy? Where is
your girl? Every one of us, no matter what age we are, should get busy
memorizing Scripture. In one Sunday school class a woman 72 years of
age and another who was 78 finished The Navigators Topical Memory
System. They then had something to give.

   Load your heart with this precious Seed. You will find that God will
direct you to those whom you can lead to Christ. There are many hearts
ready for the Gospel now.

   * DAWS:The Story of DAWSON TROTMAN, Founder of The Navigators, by
Betty Lee Skinner is published by Zondervan Publishing House.