Eyes Wide Open

As I shared the message, I noticed a man in the congregation looking at me intently. It was clear he was thinking hard about what he was hearing.

I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind.

I was a young evangelist, speaking in a high school auditorium in the Pacific Northwest, and that night I was sharing what the Bible says about the judgment and the 2,300-day/year prophecy. Emmett was sitting forward, listening carefully, taking in and weighing every word. Toward the end of the presentation, his demeanor changed noticeably. His eyes opened wide. It looked as though he had made a discovery. He smiled, sat back in his seat, looked at his wife, and nodded. He later told me he had never before heard anything like what he heard that night —a prophecy about Jesus, anchored in history, connecting the Old Testament with the New, pointing to the baptism, death, and high-priestly ministry of Jesus Christ— all in harmony with a divine timeline. The message changed him. His whole family deepened their understanding of the Bible and their relationship with Christ and were baptized.

Emmett told me it was the truth of the Word of God that made the difference. “How could we do anything else?” he said. “We want to serve and honor God, so we want to follow the Bible.” When the message of the Bible is proclaimed, it is inevitable that lives will be touched. The great English preacher Charles Spurgeon likened the Word of God to a lion. He said that those who wished to defend a lion “should kindly stand back, and open the door, and let the lion out! I believe that would be the best way of defending him, for he would take care of himself; and the best ‘apology’ for the gospel is to let the gospel out.”* Share the gospel, and lives will be changed. Proclaim the Word of God, and people will respond to the drawing of the Holy Spirit.