Spread The Word Began in a Silo
Glenn W. Worthington
Copyright 2012 by Glenn W. Worthington
Smashwords Edition
I
used to live in a five-story, round house that I made from a
fifty-year-old grain silo. I began construction with just the hollow
cylinder. I put a roof on it, built the floors and stairs, did the
plumbing, heating, and electrical work then moved in.
The "back door" led to a balcony off the fifth floor that gave me access to a built-in ladder I could climb down to the ground. Shortly after moving in I wanted to write a Christian, salvation tract, but I didn't know where to start. One night I stepped out onto our fifth-floor balcony, looked up at the stars, and prayed, "God, I want others to know how they can be saved. But I need You to lead me to write the words that You want, or it will have no effect. Please show me what to write."
I stood there in silence for a few minutes. Then a cartoon came to mind that I had not seen for several years. I felt God wanted me to use it on the cover of the tract. I began searching through all of my old boxes of papers and miraculously found the cartoon in just a few minutes. I then sat down at my writing desk that was on the top floor of our silo-house and wrote the tract that would become the first of many to be distributed through Spread The Word over the coming decades. This is the cartoon that came to mind followed by the words that I wrote:
That IS the good news. Jesus suffered so that we can be forgiven. But, although He died for everyone, each person must individually believe in Jesus and receive Him as their Savior. Will you ask Jesus to forgive your sins? The Bible says, "Salvation is found in no one else: for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." It also says, "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord" and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."
So, pray right now. Tell Jesus that you believe He died on the cross for you and arose again from the dead. Admit that you have sinned, and ask Him to forgive you. Then invite His Spirit to come into your heart. Jesus will become your special friend who will help you through every situation you face. And when your life on earth ends, you will begin a glorious life in heaven with Him.
I later had it translated into Russian. This is what it looks like:
Shortly after writing the Jesus Is Risen tract, I came across this cartoon and made another, Christian, salvation tract. I put this cartoon on the front cover and wrote the following:
Would you like to know what is going to happen in the future? Some day Damascus, the capitol city of Syria, will become a heap of rubble. It is the oldest, continually occupied city on the earth. But an ancient prophecy yet to be fulfilled has foretold that it will one day lie in ruins. How could this happen? Syria is backed by Iran in their campaign to unleash terror upon the nation of Israel. When Syria’s attacks become so intense that Israel fears it will be annihilated, they will level Damascus with a nuclear bomb.
Let me tell you a few more things that are going to happen in the future. There will be seven years of terrible sufferings all around the world. People living on the earth will experience more intense famines, earthquakes, wars and diseases than ever before. Right before these awful troubles begin Jesus will come and take all of his followers off the earth and save them from the years of torment. This event will occur in the blink of an eye in an unexpected moment as the cartoon depicts. The Bible has a written guarantee that this is going to take place and offers a way that you can be among those who escape the terrible troubles that are ahead for those living on the earth.
If you will simply believe that Jesus’ suffering on the cross paid the penalty for your sins then pray and receive His free gift of forgiveness, you will be rescued. The Bible says, “To all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.” Another verse says, “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.” You may be the reason Jesus has not returned for his followers yet. He has been waiting to give you this opportunity to put your trust in Him. The Bible also says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
So, pray right now. Tell God that you believe in Him and you are convinced that His Son, Jesus, suffered to pay for your sins. Then ask Him to come into your heart and forgive you. Then you will be among those who are watching and waiting for Jesus to take his believers out of this world before the years of terrible trials begin.
******
I had these two tracts ready to be printed so that I could start distributing them. I felt God was tugging at my heart to start a Christian tract distributing business/ministry. That scared me. I went into our church one night while no one else was there, knelt down at the front, and poured out my heart to God. I explained to Him that I had never run a business/ministry before and did not know how. I did not even know where to start or what to do. As I laid all of my excuses out before Him, I ended with, “And I wouldn’t even know what to call this ministry.” Then I waited for God’s reply. In my heart I felt I heard him say just three, little words, “Spread the Word.”
I took that as a “Get started and quit giving excuses” kind of an answer along with the name I needed for the ministry. So, I had these two tracts ready to be printed, but I didn’t have any money to pay the printer. My high school class ring was made of gold so I sold it for scrap gold to be melted down. I got three times as much for the ring than I had originally paid for it. I felt it was a good deal and I would rather lay up treasures in heaven than enjoy them here temporarily. That is how Spread The Word began. And over the next thirteen years hundreds of thousands of tracts went into all fifty states and several foreign countries including The Philippines, Ireland, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Canada, Germany, Australia, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, The Netherlands, and Iceland.
So, why should we spread God’s Word? It is because of this is written promise from God:
"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seeds for the sower and bread for the eater, so is My word that goes out from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace." (From Isaiah 55)
After those first two tracts were printed and we began distributing them, I then found this cartoon and put it on the cover of a new tract with the following words that I wrote:
We gallop along through life at such a fast pace that we seldom stop to think, “What will happen to me when this life is over?” And even when we do stop to think, it is hard for us to imagine that there IS another world after this one because we have been trained for so long to believe that only the things we see are real. And, yet, we know in our hearts that there is more to us than just our physical bodies. We know that we have a personality and a spirit that surely must continue to live after our bodies stop functioning. The Bible says that “The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
We are required to decide now whether we want to live in heaven or hell after our bodies die. Heaven is a place with everything that is good, joyous, and beautiful because God is there. Hell is completely barren of anything good, joyous, or beautiful because God is not there. God wants each of us to live forever in heaven with Him, but our sins have separated us from Him.
To solve this problem, God sent His Son, Jesus, to die and make forgiveness for our sins available to us. The Bible says, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” But you must individually receive what God has provided for you through Christ by asking for His forgiveness and inviting Him into your heart. The Bible also says, “To all who receive Him, to those who believe in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.” It says, too, “God has given us eternal life; and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
You are just one breath or heartbeat from seeing what the world is like that awaits you when your life is finished. One day you body will quit functioning and thus catapult your soul into the place you will live for the rest of eternity. Before that moment occurs you must deal with the problem of your sin which separates you from God. If you fail to receive the forgiveness for your sins that God has provided for you through His Son, Jesus, you will have to spend eternity separate from God. And that would be hell.
You can pray right now and tell God you are sorry for your sins. He will hear you, forgive your sins, and give you eternal life.
******
I then felt led by God to write another tract with a cartoon cover that was mainly composed of scripture. It is a parable that Jesus told. I call it, “The Story of the Wheat and Weeds.”
A man planted good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner’s servants came to him and said, “Sir, didn’t you plant good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?”
“An enemy did this,” he replied.
The servants asked him, “Do you want us to go and pull up the weeds?”
“No,”
he answered, “because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root
up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until harvest. At that
time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them
in bundles to be burned, then gather the wheat and bring it into my
barn.”
Jesus
was the first person to ever tell this story. And, as the bible goes
on to say: His disciples came to Him and said, “Explain to us the
parable of the weeds in the field.”
He answered, “The one who planted the good seed is the Son of God. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who planted them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of God will send out His angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
Jesus told this story in hopes that everyone who ever heard it would want to escape hell’s fire. Because, as the Bible says, “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance.”
God wants to save you from burning in hell. If you want to be rescued from that torment, just pray and tell Jesus you believe He died on the cross to keep you out of hell. Ask Him to forgive your sins, and invite His Spirit to come into your heart.
The Bible states, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already BECAUSE he has not believe in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
******
Then I felt I should write my testimony, the story of how I became a Christian, because the Bible says, “they overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony.”
When God leads a Christian music group to present a large, free concert, it always turns out to be a great success, right? Well, that depends on how you determine success. Looking back, I can imagine that Paul Clark's group must have been fairly disappointed by the turnout at a concert they had planned.
In the early seventies I was one of nearly two thousand students at a suburban, Kansas City high school. One day it was announced that classes would be dismissed early to allow us to attend a free, optional assembly which would feature a rock music group. Word spread around school that it was "a Christian deal," so I did not plan to go.
Since the busses were not going to pick us up until the regular time, I just aimlessly wandered around in the halls. After a while, my roaming led me past the open, auditorium doors. The music that blared out was the same style I enjoyed--electric guitars, keyboard, and drums. I thought to myself, "This isn't a Christian group. Those guys who told me that were wrong." I decided to go in and listen until the busses arrived.
Once I stepped inside, I saw there were only about as many students in the audience as there were musicians in the group. I chose a seat far in the back of the huge auditorium. I sat and studied the four men in the group. They obviously were not Christians--none of them were wearing a suit and tie. In fact, they were all in faded blue jeans and casual shirts.
The music was loud and lively--the kind I liked. The lead singer had long, blonde hair down to his shoulders. As he sang, not every word was clear to me. But as I listened for the message in their song, the name "Jesus" came through clearly. I thought to myself, "Something isn't right here. I've gone to church all of my life. These guys don't look like Christians, and that doesn't sound like Christian music." The only Christian music I had ever heard was elderly women with operatic voices singing hymns to organ music. Yet, as I continued to listen, it became increasingly clear that these were songs about God.
Between songs each member of the group would take his turn to describe how he had been heavily involved in drugs but was delivered when he asked Jesus to forgive his sins. They told how they now had joy and victory since they had turned their lives over to Jesus.
I had never taken any drugs, but I knew that if God could save and change someone that deep into sin, He could do the same for me. At the end of their performance they invited everyone who wanted to receive Jesus as their personal savior to come to the front of the auditorium.
That was the first invitation I had ever heard in my life. We did not do things that way in my church. But, there were a lot of unusual things about this music group. That day I had seen things in a new light. My view of God had been changed by their music and testimonies. I stood up and walked to the aisle. Then, like everyone else, I headed for the back of the auditorium and went out to get on my bus.
The music group probably felt like all their effort had been a waste that day. They had presented a free concert at a school that could have produced a crowd of two thousand, but only a few students came. The group faithfully sang and testified as if the auditorium were packed. When they gave an altar call, everyone got up and left. But I know at least one person who was saved through their ministry that day.
As I sat by myself on the bus, I secretly told God that I wanted to talk to Him when I got home. There, in the privacy of my own bedroom, I knelt to pray. I admitted my sins to God and asked for His forgiveness. Jesus came into my heart that day and made me a new creature.
Although the music group did not realize it, that day they sowed seed that "fell on good ground and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased, and brought forth some thirty, and some sixty, and some a hundredfold." (Mark 4:8)
In the years that followed that day of my salvation the Lord taught me to grow in His word. I studied the Bible and literature in college, and Jesus later led me to write some unique, Christian tracts to spread His message to others. These tracts have been shipped in bundles across our nation and around the world through "Spread The Word," a tract distributing ministry God has led me to establish.
I was saved during the Jesus People Movement. Some people said it was a passing fad, and that the effect wouldn't last. But Jesus saved me over forty years ago, and I still seek to serve him.
We must continue serving our Savior no matter how discouraging the outward results may appear. Follow the leading of the Holy Spirit speaking within you, and work spreading His good news while there is still time. "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:9) ---- Glenn W. Worthington
******
We designed a label for a quart-sized can of stain to bear the gospel message in a unique way. I have seen people read the large letters "SIN" from clear across a room then walk over to pick up the can saying, "I've got to get me some of this!" Then they read the label and their expression changes as conviction sweeps over them.
******
As the years went by, I wrote more salvations tracts using different approaches.
Are you thinking about planting a garden? If you plant radish seeds, radishes are what you will harvest. If you don't like radishes, don't plant radish seeds. In the Bible God expresses this simple truth to show us the result of our sins, "Whatsoever a man soweth (plants) that shall he also reap (harvest). The one who sows to please his sinful nature will from that nature reap destruction." If you don't like the idea of harvesting destruction (which is death in hell) then don't selfishly live to please your own, sinful nature.
If these words have really sunk down into your heart, you may decide to begin doing good and stop doing bad things. But that alone won't work. No matter how hard you labor "planting good seeds" you will, by nature, still be planting so many "weed seeds" that they will grow up and choke out your good crop.
Only one man has ever "planted all good seeds" by living a perfect, sinless life. And that man was Jesus, God's Son. He willingly suffered the penalty for our sins, which is death. Although he was the only human who did not deserve to die for sin, He chose to die and suffer our penalty so that our sins could be forgiven. The Bible tells us, "God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him."
Jesus died so that the sins of everyone in the world could be forgiven, but each person must believe it and receive His salvation for themselves. It is available to everyone, but it must be received individually. You must believe in Jesus and receive Him as your own, personal Savior. So pray right now. Tell Jesus that you believe He died for you, ask Him to forgive your sins, then invite Him into your heart and life to teach you how to live the right way.
******
Has anyone told you that if you will go to church and try to be good, you will go to heaven when you die? Well, don't believe them!!! They are spiritually blind to the truth. And Jesus warned that, "If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit." People CANNOT get into heaven by being good. We can only get into heaven by being forgiven because no one is good enough. Only Jesus can forgive our sins because He is the only man who ever lived that did not sin. Yet, He willingly accepted the death penalty that we deserve to receive for our sins.
The Bible says that, "God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." It is not that we, by our goodness, deserve it. But it is because God loves us. At this very moment you must decide how you will respond to this dramatic expression of love. Will you reject His offer to forgive your sins and just keep on walking along blindly saying, "I am a pretty good person. I am nice to others and try to treat everyone fairly."? The Bible warns, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death."
Or would you rather choose to receive, as a gift, the forgiveness Jesus freely offers to all who will believe in Him? The Bible says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." You do not ever have to work to earn a gift from someone who loves you. And the same is true with the gift of salvation that Jesus gives. You just need to pray right now and receive His gift of forgiveness. Tell Jesus you believe in Him and that you are sorry for the sins you have committed. Then invite His Spirit to come into your heart to show you how to live.
******
WHO WAS SAINT PATRICK?
Patrick was born in 389 A.D. in Britain to wealthy, Christian parents. When he was 16 years old, he was captured by pirates during a raid and sold into slavery in Ireland. During the 6 years he was a slave, Patrick came to the point where he turned to God in prayer. He asked Jesus to forgive his sins, come into his heart, and give him eternal life.
When Patrick was finally released from slavery, he studied in France and eventually felt God leading him back to Ireland. There he helped the Irish people find the personal relationship with Jesus Christ that he enjoyed. Before his death in 461 A.D., St. Patrick had founded more than 300 churches and baptized over 120,000 new believers.
This
is the message he shared with the Irishmen: Man was created in God's
image to have perfect fellowship with Him. But man chose to rebel by
sinning against God. This broke the bond of their wonderful
friendship. But God loved all mankind so much that He sent His Son,
Jesus, to pay the penalty for our sins by dying on the cross, so that
this friendship could be renewed.
Here
are a few Bible Verses that St. Patrick shared while presenting this
message:
"If
we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will
forgive us our sins..." "God demonstrates His own love for
us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
"If you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in
your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be
saved."
This
message that St. Patrick spread across Ireland is still relevant
today, even to you here in America. All you need to do to be saved is
pray, "Lord Jesus, I realize that I am a sinner and I ask You to
forgive me. I believe You died in my place and were resurrected by
the Father so that I might live forever. I ask You to come into my
heart. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. In
Jesus' name I pray. Amen."
Now, tell another Christian about what you have prayed. Then, to grow in your relationship with God, pray to Him and read your Bible daily and attend a Bible believing church.
******
God’s good news of salvation has gone out across our nation and around the world through these simple, biblical tracts with cartoon covers. And it all began in a silo.
***END***
Glenn W. Worthington is author of the ebooks, “Eagerly Desire to Prophesy,” “God-Inspired Visions and Dreams,” and “Wrestling With Depression.” You can read the first half of each for free on Smashwords dot com. If you decide you would like to read the entire ebook, you may purchase each for just 99 cents. You may read all of “Wrestling With Depression” for free. This author also makes daily posts on his Facebook page “You Spread The Word.” Please visit that page each day to be strengthened in your Christian walk, encouraged, and comforted.
Glenn W. Worthington is also the author of the book, “Genuine Diamonds Found in Arkansas” and host of the DVD “How To Find Genuine Diamonds in Arkansas.” He posts news of diamond finds on the Facebook page “Diamonds in Arkansas,” and has a website. He also has numerous ebooks about diamond hunting available through Smashwords dot com for just 99 cents each.
