“And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19”)
Dear Friends,
Here is one that I wrote about twelve years ago when we were hanging out in a west Texas gun shop.
“How about a little fishing story: click… click… click… the clicker on the big Penn reel made a few noises and then stopped. I was instantly on my feet as the reel started to sound again, signaling that the big shark that we had been after since before nightfall was playing with the bait. Click… click…click…click. I picked the 130-pound class rod up carefully out of its holder and made my way to the side of the boat.
It was pitch black and just after mid-night when the reel began screaming as the shark swallowed the bait and made for deeper water. My hand moved the drag lever into the strike position, and I lifted the rod tip hard to set the hook. As soon as the hook was set, the crew turned on the deck lights, and we settled in for a backbreaking fight that would last for almost two hours but would end with a four-hundred-pound Lemon shark being gaffed at the back rail.
I don’t fish much anymore, not that I don’t want to, but there are not many places to fish here in the desert, unless you are a fisher of men. Today in the gun shop was a good day to set out some bait. I was behind the counter waiting on some customers when a large man walked in and started inquiring about some accessories for his gun. After my customers left, my new friend Clay, a cowboy shooter and a brother in the Lord, was still at the counter with Ray, the man looking for accessories. Ray mentioned that one time many years ago, he was in a gunfight and narrowly escaped death. Click… click… click.
“If you had not ducked when you did, Ray, where would you have woken up?” I asked.
Ray thought a minute and said, “I wouldn’t have woken up. I’d have been dead!” “You would have woken up somewhere.” I replied and then turned back to my desk and my paperwork while they continued talking.
When I heard the conversation drift back to Ray’s close call, I looked up and asked, “Ray, if you had died, where you think that you would end up?”
“I’m not sure, but I hope it would be in the good place.” he responded.
Click…click…click…click…click.
I got up from my desk and walked around the counter to my brief case and took out a tract which I handed to Ray and told him, “God loves you, Ray.”
Within minutes, Ray received the plan of salvation, and he asked Jesus to come into his life and be his Lord and Savior. Clay and I prayed for him before he left, and then we rejoiced together that God had used us in this little west Texas gun shop to reel in another “keeper” for the kingdom.
“So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.” (1Corinthians 3:7)
My hope in sharing this is that it will inspire you all to take every opportunity to reach the lost despite the mounting pressure from our society to curtail our evangelical actions. If you need a little help, you can use the outline that I teach “Evangelism Outline”, or any other method that works to win the lost.”
In His Grip,
Will Dallas