◆ نیاز به بذر
آیا ما در قبال نجات‌نیافتگان مسئولیتی داریم؟ آیا می‌توانیم به اطرافیان خود که ناخودآگاه به سوی نابودی می‌روند، نگاه کنیم بدون اینکه متأثر شویم؟ آیا می‌توانیم به سرنوشتی که در انتظار دنیای بی‌خداست فکر کنیم و گریه نکنیم؟ اگر عیسی برای یک شهر گریه کرد، آیا ما نباید برای تمام دنیایی که در شرارت غرق شده و به سوی داوری می‌شتابد، شفقت داشته باشیم؟ آیا نباید از هر فرصتی برای هشدار دادن به بی‌باوران استفاده کنیم و با جدیت آنها را، همانطور که پولس انجام داد، متقاعد کنیم که با خدا آشتی کنند؟
خداوند به ما می‌گوید که او «نمی‌خواهد هیچ کس هلاک شود بلکه همه به توبه برسند» (۲ پطرس ۳:۹). همان فیض خدا که ما را نجات داد، به آنها نیز گسترش می‌یابد (افسسیان ۲:۸-۹). بدون انجیل، آنها محکوم به لعنت ابدی توسط خدا هستند (یوحنا ۳:۱۸).
آیا ممکن است خودخواهانه از امنیت خود لذت ببریم و محبت و فیض پدر را اعلام نکنیم، و گناهکاران را از داوری قریب‌الوقوع هشدار ندهیم؟ «هر که گناهکاری را از گمراهی راهش بازگرداند، روحی را از مرگ نجات خواهد داد» (یعقوب ۵:۲۰). خدا از ما انتظار دارد که بذر را به دیگران برسانیم، و حتی ما را مسئول می‌داند (به حزقیال ۳:۱۸،۲۰ مراجعه کنید). باشد که برای مسیح و برای روح‌ها به دعا، مراقبت و کار برانگیخته شویم!
◆ کاشت بذر
هر کسی می‌تواند خبر خوب مسیح را با توزیع جزوات منتشر کند. یک مسیحی که به طور معمول از جزوات صحیح و کتاب مقدسی استفاده نمی‌کند، دائماً فرصت‌های فوق‌العاده‌ای را برای افزایش مفید بودن خود نسبت به انسان و پربار بودن خود نسبت به خدا از دست می‌دهد.
جزوات را می‌توان با ظرافت به همکاران یا مسافران داد، در نامه‌ها و صورتحساب‌ها قرار داد، و روی پیشخوان‌ها، صندلی‌ها و شیشه‌های جلو اتومبیل گذاشت. آنها را می‌توان روی تابلوهای اعلانات نمایش داد، در روزنامه‌ها، مجلات و کتاب‌ها قرار داد. جزوات را می‌توان در رژه‌ها، نمایشگاه‌ها و سایر رویدادهای عمومی در صورت اجازه توزیع کرد.
Do you know a less expensive method of spreading the gospel of Christ? Many tracts are free while others can be purchased for a few cents apiece. Do you know of a surer way of “sowing bountifully” and “reaping bountifully”?
◆ The Desire To Sow
The Lord graciously saved a man named Tom Olson shortly after he entered his teens. He prayed for the privilege of handing out a million tracts in his lifetime. By distributing 1,000 tracts each week, he could reach one million in 20 years!
After giving himself to the Lord for “full-time service,” he began working many towns from door to door, placing up to 500 tracts per day. His yearning to distribute a million tracts was soon realized. Praise the Lord!
◆ Results Of Sowing
There are those who object to tract work because they have seen discarded tracts on the sidewalks. True, some tracts may be wasted, but the work is abundantly worthwhile, even if some are thrown away (Luke 8:5-8).
A tract on the ground is not necessarily wasted. A man from New Jersey, while walking to work one morning, picked up a wet, dirty tract from the sidewalk. “As I read it,” he wrote, “I thought of ten persons to whom I would like to give a copy. Would you please send me some extra copies?” That discarded tract led to an increased circulation of itself.
Another person may say, “I saw tracts torn to pieces and scattered by the wind.” Maybe so — but if you think the tract distributor’s effort was wasted, think again! A man wrote to say he had found part of a tract, but the title was missing. “There was enough left to show me my condition, my Savior, and where I could get more literature. So I am asking you for samples of your literature, as I would love to read the missing part of this tract.”
◆ The Life Is In The Seed
Do we realize the extraordinary dynamic of the printed page? Dr. Goodell, of the American Board of Missions, passing through Nicodemia in 1832, gave a stranger a tract in the Armenian-Turkish language. Seventeen years later he returned to Nicodemia and found a church of more than forty members and a Protestant community of more than two hundred, all from the seed sown by tracts.
Dr. Griffith John tells of eight churches in China resulting from tracts alone. Sir Bartle Frere, traveling in India, was amazed to find a small town in which the idol temples were empty, but the townsfolk professed Christianity. Some years earlier, one of the townsfolk had been given an old garment, the pocket of which contained several tracts in their language. The life is not in the sower, but in the seed!
◆ The Tract At Work
The gospel tract never flinches and never becomes cowardly; it is never tempted to compromise; it neither tires nor gets discouraged; it travels cheaply, and requires no rented auditorium; it works while we sleep; it never loses its temper; and it works long after we are dead.
The tract is a visitor which gets inside the home and stays there; it always catches a man in the right mood, because it speaks to him only when he is reading it; it always sticks to what it has said and never answers back; it is bait left permanently in the pool.
A powerful reason for using tracts is that they will reach those utterly unreached with the hope of eternal life.
Someone gave copies of H. L. Hasting’s lecture on the inspiration of the Bible to four unbelievers. Not only were all four saved, but they all became ministers of the gospel!
No limit can be put on the possible influence of a tract. Martin Luther wrote a pamphlet on Galatians which fell into John Bunyan’s hands and led to his conversion. As a result, today over 135 translations of Bunyan’s famous Pilgrim’s Progress have been published.
A young Frenchman wounded at the siege of Saint Quentin was lying in the hospital when he noticed a tract on his bedside table. He read it and was converted. Today, a monument of him stands as a testament to the power of tract distribution.
Leigh Richmond once gave a tract to every person he met while traveling. One fellow traveler scorned the tract, tearing it in two and throwing it down. A gust of wind carried it over a hedge into a hay field where a number of workers were seated. Soon they were listening to the tract read by one of the workers who had found it and carefully pieced it together. The reader was moved to reflection and prayer, and soon became an earnest Christian and tract distributor himself. Within a year, three of the other workers had also become active Christians.
◆ God’s Power Behind Our Efforts
Let us not forget the enormous power of prayer in tract distribution. On every tract or copy of the Holy Scriptures which we give, we should ask God’s blessing, confidently expect it, and labor on prayerfully, even though we may see little or no fruit.
We should labor as if everything depended on our efforts, yet put no confidence in our efforts, but only in God’s ability to bless our work for the sake of the Lord Jesus.
Above all, don’t forget that God is glorified by every tract you give out. It remains a fact, whether the offer is received or rejected, that God in His sovereign grace has extended full and eternal salvation by means of that tract to the receiver. He can never say he was not told of God’s loving offer.
