An old, old movie. It was so old it starred Pat Boone! I watched The Cross and the Switchblade. And it has more or less haunted me ever since.
I have never wanted to be in a witnessing situation. It's complicated. I don't speak Elizabethan English. I pray before I read the Bible, but it makes little sense to me. I read words, just words. I could randomly read Luke 6 tomorrow morning and then listen to a sermon on Luke 6 2 hours later. And, I would end up wondering how in the world the preacher got that phenomenal idea (with which I totally agree) out of those words I read 2 hours ago. I don't read ideas, I just read words.
Worse I have NO memory for Biblical references. Now, yes, I do remember John 3:16, I have a good idea of what's in the first few verses of Ephesians 6, and I can most likely identify verses from Hebrews 11. But, otherwise, I need a concordance (I do wish they made concordances a lot smaller and more portable). Joe had a phenomenal memory. I used to say things like "there's a verse somewhere in the Bible that talks about "suffer the little children". Where is that?" and he'd immediately give me the reference I needed. I swear, as much as I needed him for this sort of thing, I cannot imagine God needed him as much in heaven.....
Anyway, back to the movie. Dave Wilkerson (Pat Boone) gets up to preach to a bunch of New York City gang members. And he doesn't do "the Romans road". He simply tells these young hoodlums God loves them. He tells them the story of Christ's torture and subsequent death on the cross and how it was all motivated by God's love for them. And in about 7 minutes of preaching, with the help of the Holy Spirit, he sees about 1/3 of them give their hearts to the Lord.
What has been haunting me is the idea that I CAN do that. I can tell people that God loves them. I can recount the passion of Christ. Wow! All these years I could have been telling people how much God loves them and, with the help of the Holy Spirit, led some folks to Jesus. If only I'd known...............