The Personal TouchChapman, J. Wilbur (John Wilbur)
Religion
The Personal Touch
Chapman, J. Wilbur (John Wilbur)
Evangelistic work; Salvation -- Christianity
"I left him and went back the following day. I rang the bell and he
answered the door himself. I asked him how he was, and he said, 'Grand,
I have had no whisky.' I went back a month later and he told me he was
never so happy in all his life. He said, 'Do you remember me telling
you I paid a sovereign for my sitting in church? Well, I occupy that
pew myself now.' And that day he gave me a donation for the Christian
Police Association and told me to call again at any time. That is what
the Lord does when he changes a man's heart. There are many men to-day
who may be all right financially; they may have a seat in God's House;
they may be members of a Church and yet not be right at heart. I urge
upon you, get right with God and you will have, not the peace of this
world, but the peace that passeth all understanding.
"Something like seven years ago I went to some services in Manchester
that were being conducted by Dr Torrey and Mr Alexander. At the close
of these services I went to the front and took some Gospel literature
that was there for distribution. When I got home and commenced my
duties I began to give this literature to the policemen. I thought the
policemen stood as much in need of it as anybody else. If he is a
peacemaker, sometimes he is a peacebreaker, and with all due respect to
him he is not always a law-abiding man.
"There were two booklets in which I was specially interested. One which
was called 'God's Sure Promise,' asked several questions at the close,
and then requested the reader to sign his name. The other was, 'Get
Right with God.' I gave the latter to policemen on their beats, and
asked them to read them carefully. I went on with my praying. One man
received the book with great scorn. About a week after I visited this
particular man, and with a smile upon his face he said, 'You remember
those two booklets you gave me?' 'Yes,' I said. 'Well,' he said, 'the
one called "God's Sure Promise" I tore up and put into the fire, the
other I tore up and threw over the wall, but not before I read them
both. Now, I have never got away from that, and about half an hour ago
I came to the climax. I got down on my knees in the street, and now I
can honestly say that God for Christ's sake has pardoned all my sins.'
I felt overjoyed with his testimony, for he was the most scornful and
bitter man in the division. I was so overjoyed that I walked round his
beat with him, talking with him, and giving him words of encouragement.
I can never forget that night. From ten o'clock until six in the
morning it was one continual downpour of rain. We were soaked through.
As we walked round I said, 'We will have a word of prayer.' We took off
our helmets, knelt down on the pavement and there we had a little
prayer meeting just about two o'clock in the morning. The showers of
rain were nothing compared to the showers of blessing we had. I was so
delighted when we went off duty that morning that I could not sleep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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