How to Witness
Selected Scriptures
Well, you know, in our little times together, we've talked about some very important things in terms of the Christian life. We've talked about prayer and the importance of prayer, the study of the Word of God, and we've talked about how important it is that we experience real fellowship. And that kind of thing works within the family of God. But there's one other thing we need to talk about, and that's witnessing to those who are outside the family of God. Now indirectly, if those other things are right, we're going to have an impact on other people. But we need to talk a little bit about the direct approach of communicating the saving gospel of Christ to other people.
Just a couple of verses to get us thinking along that line. In John 15 Jesus says this, verse 26, "When the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of Me." Now the first thing you learn from that verse is that the Holy Spirit is in the business of witnessing. The Holy Spirit has come to testify of the truth concerning Christ. And then it says in the next verse, verse 27, "And ye also shall bear witness,"and He says to the disciples, "because you've been with Me from the beginning." The Holy Spirit then was sent into the world and into our hearts to bear witness to Christ and He therefore bears witness through us, doesn't He? And we who have been with Christ are witnesses first hand to who He is and what He can do in a life and the ministry of witnessing is committed to us. Acts 1:8 says, "You shall be witnesses when the Spirit of God has come upon you," right? So we're all called then to communicate the saving gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now we want to talk about what that means and how to do that effectively as we share together in our session today. So who wants to start with a question?
QUESTION: John, do you have to be specially trained to witness, or can just anyone do it?
JOHN: I would say in answer to that question that it's good if you have some training. But anyone who knows Jesus Christ can do it. That's the condition. Let me give you an illustration.
When I was assistant pastor some years ago in a church where my father was a pastor, one day the secretary came running in the church door and she says, "There is a fight on the parking lot. There's a fight on the parking lot." It was kind of a boring day so I figured I go out and watch it, right? So I went out the door and here was a guy laying in the dirt...he was about 50 feet from where I came out the door of the church...and this fellow was kicking him, just pummeling his body, in fact there were two of them doing it. And I realized this was very serious. So I came out the door and I thought, "Boy, I've got to do something about this."
So I said, "Hey you guys, break this up." Nothing. I mean, they didn't even respond to me. And I thought, "Well, maybe they didn't hear me." So I yelled a little louder. "Break it up!" And nothing. So I started toward them and as I got there I heard him say, "Kill him...kill him." And I realized, this was not a fight, this is a murder and there I am saying, "Break it up, break it up," you know, and they're paying no attention to me.
Well I finally walked out there and they saw me and by that time the guy was a bloodied mess, you couldn't even distinguish his face and he had been kicked literally senseless. And so this big guy turned toward me, I mean, he was really big. It turned out that he was about six foot five, 250 pounds, he was a professional dock worker and played rugby, great big guy. And, you know, I'm not real small and I've always said, "I'd pick a fight with anybody smaller than me whose had a recent illness," you know. But I mean, I'm not going to...
So I was kind of paralyzed for a minute, see, because he turned toward me. He says, "What do you want?"
And I said, "You better break it up and leave this guy alone." And he pulled back his fist and I...my instinctive reaction was to back up, right? And I backed up and he kept coming after me. And I figured I'd just keep moving cause it was drawing both of them away from this guy. And they kept moving and I kept moving. Finally got right back to the church door and I stepped in the door, I figured they're not going to come in the church and I'll get somebody to call the police. Came right in the door.
And my dad came out, he had been studying and he says, "What's going on here?" And this guy took a shot at my dad. So that kind of irritated me. So I called and said, "Call the police." Well they panicked and the other guy had picked up this guy that was just senseless and smashed his head on the wall and then dropped him behind a bush and they ran for a getaway car. And so I ran out to get the license and I'm running down the street, you know, with a pencil writing down a license. And the police got there. And I gave them all the information I could give them. The guy was alive but he said, "I don't want to press charges, I don't want to see them again, I don't want to testify, I don't want to do anything." He was literally scared to death.
And so they went ahead and got those guys. They found them because they went to their apartment and found bloodied shoes and all that kind of stuff. And they called me to court. And I'll never forget as long as I live what happened when I went to court. I walked in there, you know, and I put my hand up and they said, "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?" And I said I do. And the attorney walked up to me and he said this, "Reverend MacArthur, you tell us what you saw, what you heard and what you felt." That was exactly what he asked me. And on those terms, I became instantly a witness. What I saw and what I heard and what I felt made me a viable witness, right? I mean, I was there. And ever since that event, I've always thought of 1 John 1:1 where John says, "The things that we have seen with our eyes, and heard with our ears and handled with our hands declare we unto you concerning the Word of life."
So what is a witness? Somebody who has seen and heard and felt the power of Jesus Christ. So in answer to your question, who can be a witness...anybody who's been with Christ. And that's what we saw in John 15 didn't we? "You shall witness of Me because you have been with Me from the beginning."
So when you know Jesus Christ and when you have seen Him and heard Him and touched Him in your life, you become one who can speak concerning Jesus Christ, right? I mean, you may not know all the doctrines of the Bible and you may not know every in and out of theology, and you may not have all the little systems and all the little gimmicks and all the little methods and booklets and angles, but if you have walked with Jesus Christ, you've got something to say and you can be a firsthand living testimony to the power of Jesus Christ. Let me tell you something, that is far more important than knowing a formula...far more important than knowing a formula. You know, I knew a preacher who got up in front of his church one time and said, "I just want you to know that I've been the pastor of this church, I think it was ten years, and he said, 'Today I came to know Jesus Christ as my Savior.'" And from then on he became for the first time in his life a witness to the power of Jesus Christ. Before that he knew the facts and the methods, he didn't know Christ and that personal power wasn't there in the energy of the Spirit of God.
So who can be a witness? Everybody who is a Christian, everybody who knows Jesus Christ. And I think we're mandated. I mean, didn't Jesus say to the disciples, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel," right? Make disciples of everyone. And all of us are mandated to go out and communicate the Christ we have seen and heard and felt. And I mean, it's...it's obviously a terrible thing to defer from that. I mean, not to do that, to not tell the world what we have known of Jesus Christ is to withhold from them the greatest thing they'll ever hear, right? So everyone of us as Christians are a witness.
Now, let me tell you something else. Even if you don't say anything, if people know you're a Christian, you're a witness. You may not be a very good one, but you are one because they're reading the meaning of Christ in your life and the value of Christ in your life by your life. And if you don't say anything, then Christ isn't that valuable. Christ can't be that meaningful. I mean, if you're a Christian and you can hide it for years, it can't really be that big of a deal or else it's some secret society only for the initiated. So we are witnesses. I mean, He doesn't say we'd like you to be them, He says you are, just be sure you're an effective one. And only a Christian can really be an effective witness.
Having said that, let me say this. The gospel is so powerful that even in the mouth of that preacher I mentioned who wasn't a Christian, the gospel itself could transcend his lack of experience, you know, I mean God used Balaam's ass, right? I mean even a donkey. So there's a sense in which the gospel is so powerful that it transcends the vehicle. But in order to be a true and effective witness, you have to know Jesus Christ. And that's really all there is to it...at least to start.
How about another question.
QUESTION: John, I've heard a variety of different definitions concerning witnessing and what does the Bible actually define witnessing as?
JOHN: Well I think we've already got into that a little bit and witnessing would be defined as this. A person communicating testimony about something they have experienced. I mean, when you have a court case, they don't want second-hand witnesses. Right? They want...what's the term they use? Eyewitnesses, right? I mean, they want somebody who is there. They don't want information passed down through several sources.
Let me give you a perspective that will help, all right? The world is like the jury. Christ is on trial before the world, right? I mean, the world is trying to decide about Jesus Christ. And the Holy Spirit is the lawyer for the defense. The Holy Spirit has taken up Christ's case in the world and His task is to convince the world that Christ is who He says He is. And the Holy Spirit calls into the courtroom witnesses. That's us, see. So we become witnesses for the defense of Jesus Christ before the watching world. That's a great concept, isn't it? And we're called into the courtroom, as it were, and as we live in the world we exist in the courtroom and Jesus Christ is on trial. Now that's the seriousness of our witnessing role. I mean, this is a serious thing, right? If you, for example, were called into the Superior Court, or the State Court or the Supreme Court of the United States of America and somebody said, "Will you defend Jesus Christ?" Would you? Of course you would, if you were on trial actually there. I mean, I've often thought if I was only there when He was before Caiaphas, I would have said some things. If I was there when He was before Annas, I would have said some things. I wouldn't let those guys get away with false judgments on Christ. He deserved better than that. They lied about Him, etc.
Listen, the world is making a judgment and the whole environment that we exist in is a courtroom and the Spirit of God, the lawyer for defense, calls us to give our witness. And there are some people who are going to make their conclusions about Jesus Christ based upon our testimony, right? So as we begin to understand witnessing, we have to begin to understand that the Holy Spirit is calling us to be a witness for Christ.
Now let's ask this question, too. What is the...what is the element that makes a person willing to be that witness? And I've got to be honest with you right at the beginning, it's sacrifice. There is a price to pay because when you name the name of Jesus Christ and step out, there's going to be some flack, right? I mean, you can't...you can't confront a Godless Christless world and not expect to get some reaction.
You know, I had occasion to be on a college campus, a college of about 25- or 26- thousand students. And they asked me to come and to speak on Christianity and culture on the open forum. And several thousand students were gathered around and I was to speak on Christianity and culture. Well I don't know anything about Christianity and culture. You know, I mean I can hardly understand Edith Schaeffer let alone Francis, right? So what am I going to say, right? So I could exhaust everything I know about Christianity and culture in about ten minutes. And then I decided since the predominant number of students didn't know Jesus Christ that I would speak on the deity of Jesus Christ and how to know God through Him. And so I went ten minutes on Christianity and culture, 40 minutes on the deity of Jesus Christ, and I just proclaimed salvation through Jesus Christ. You could have heard a pin drop. I know the Spirit of God controlled things because it was really just straight-on gospel. And there are those times, you know, when you preach and you feel like you're just pushing and it's hard and there's resistance. And then there are those times when you're just flying. And I felt like I was just soaring. I mean, I was free wheeling and stuff was coming and the power of God was there.
And I got all done and it was incredible what happened. One guy walked up to me, he said, "I need to know Jesus Christ." And I had the privilege of leading him to Christ. Another guy I had th privilege of seeing in my office a few days later, came to Christ and went to seminary. I mean, God really touched some lives. But the impact of it was, they banned all Christians from the campus. They closed down the free speech platform. They took the Christian book table off the campus. And the next time I spoke at a near campus, the whole group of students from the other campus that protested came over and ringed the podium where I was speaking and shouted the whole time. They threatened to bomb the church...we didn't tell you that, we didn't want you to worry. But they threatened to blow up the church. They called the church. They called our home in the middle of the night with obscene phone calls, threatened the family, threatened my wife. And my first reaction was..I've got to quit doing this, you know, this is creating problems. My second reaction was, I think I made a wave. I mean, I think I made a dent in the kingdom of darkness. And I began to realize what Peter said that when you're persecuted for righteousness sake, the Spirit of grace and glory rests on you. And there was a tremendous sense of identification. I felt sort of quasi-apostolic, you know, I was knowing what some of those guys went through. So I really believe that when you approach this responsibility of standing before the world to testify for the sake of Jesus Christ, you've got to realize that it's a hostile world. And if the gospel is truly preached, they're going to react.
Now I can also say this. If you just talk about love and nice things and talk about God is a good guy and don't bring in sin and don't confront people with the fact that they live in violation of God, they may not react negatively. But that isn't the true gospel, either, is it? You've got to confront the truth of sin and righteousness and the truth about Jesus Christ. And when you do that, there's a sacrifice to be made. So you need to decide in your life whether you're going to close up your mouth and be as some people say like the Arctic River, frozen over at the mouth, you're just going to clam up and you're going to say, "My own personal reservation, reputation, whatever is worth more to me than testifying of Christ." You have to make that decision. Or whether you're going to say, "Hey, I don't care really what happens to me, I'm expendable," right? I mean, if I die, Paul says, getting the gospel to you, he says if I am offered on the sacrifice of your faith, I rejoice. I mean, if I die getting you saved, sweet death. And so that's the kind of sacrifice we're talking about.
I always think of John Patton who went to the New Hebrides Islands to be a missionary. They were inhabited by man-eating cannibals. I mean, you know, that's a tough assignment. I mean, you go to...you know what I would have said. I would have said, "Lord, look, don't send me there, they'll eat me, you know, and you'll waste a good one. I mean, I graduated from seminary, right? I mean, send a guy that dropped out, they'll eat him, who will know? Or maybe he never would have made it anyway. Why send a good one?" But Patton went and he took his wife and they dropped him off and he rode to the shore and they built a little lean-to on the shore and how do you reach natives like that? They're cannibals, they don't speak your language. I mean, what do you do? You don't put up a sign in the sand that says, "BBS starts Saturday, bring your children," you know. What do you do?
Well you pray a lot, right? And night after night they stayed in that little lean-to and prayed and it was kind of interesting later, one of the chiefs came to know Jesus Christ ye