How to Capture the World’s Attention

“Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day. No, no, man was made for immortality.”

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Kirk Cameron’s Comment

This lesson will teach you a great way to appeal to someone who doesn’t seem to be interested in Christianity or God. All people share certain thoughts and reactions—and even have a common fear.

Questions & Objections

Lesson

Millions of people spend dozens of hours each week watching dead people on TV. From Elvis to Lucy to Jimmy Stewart, the faces of folks who no longer exist entertain us. Time not only snatched their looks, it snatched their lives. Today, good-looking Hollywood stars are making movies so that tomorrow’s generation can also pass the time by watching dead people on TV.

Time makes today tomorrow’s memory. Weeks seem to pass us by like blurred telephone poles flashing past the window of this speeding train called life.

Before my conversion, I had thoughts that I was compelled to keep to myself. I would think, “It makes no sense that the whole of humanity is heading for death, and instead of seeking a cure to the aging process, we are searching for intelligent life in space or for a cure to the common cold. No one seems concerned about our big problem. No one even talks about death.” But now that I have found that God has provided a cure, salvation through Jesus Christ, for man’s greatest disease, death, I cannot and will not stop talking about it.

If I purchased a new car and saw in the owner’s manual that it had a certain type of engine, I shouldn’t be surprised to lift the hood and find the engine to be exactly as the manual said it would be. The maker’s handbook gives me insight into the unseen workings of the vehicle. This is also true with human beings. The Maker’s Manual explains how we think and why we react the way we do. It lifts the hood and reveals the inner workings of homo sapiens.

In doing so, the Bible discloses an often-overlooked tool that we can use to reach the lost. That tool is the “fear of death.” For the Christian who may find such an approach to be negative, it may be viewed in a positive light by calling it “the will to live.” Every human being in his right mind has a fear of death (Hebrews 2:15). He doesn’t want to die. He sits wide-eyed, staring out the window of the speeding train, watching life pass him by.

Here is how to use the fear of death as a tool when speaking to an unsaved person: “Let’s assume that the average person dies at 70 years old. Then if you are 20 years old, you have just 2,500 weekends left to live. If you have turned 30, you have 2,000 weekends left until the day you die. If you are 40 years old, you have only 1,500 weekends left. If you are 50 years old, then you have just 1,000 weekends, and if you are 60 years old, you have a mere 500 weekends left until the day death comes to you.”

We can better relate to “weekends,” while “years” put death into the distance. It should shake us enough to ask, What I am doing with my life? What are we doing to reach the lost? It should concern us if we have dry eyes when we pray. The Christian’s “train” will take him into the presence of God. For those trusting in Jesus Christ, death has been defeated. But the train of the unregenerate will take them to horrific disaster. Their end will be eternal torment in hell. In light of such terrible thoughts, all of our activities are trivial compared to warning the lost of their destination.

It has been wisely stated that every one of us is unique ... just like everyone else. In truth, each unique individual is uniquely predictable. Every sinner has a fear of death. He can’t deny that he naturally has a will to live. Therefore, it makes sense to confront him with reality by reminding him that he has an “appointment” to keep. Bluntly tell him how many weekends he has remaining. Then appeal to his reason by saying, “If there was one chance in a million that Jesus Christ ‘has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,’ then you owe it to your good sense to look into it.” As Charles Spurgeon said, “Men have been helped to live by remembering that they must die.”

Preacher’s Progress

A sample witnessing conversation, written in the style of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Feathers for Arrows

A teenage boy once took his younger brother to a movie called The Scarlet Pimpernel. The seven-year-old watched in horror as, during the height of the French Revolution, aristocrats were executed by guillotine. The guillotine was surrounded by old hags, who shrieked for joy as each head rolled into the basket and was then held high for the crowds to see.

The young boy began thinking how horrific it must have been to be waiting on death row, and then taken to the town square and put to death in such a manner. However, as life progressed, he realized that this was the plight of every human being. All of humanity has a large holding cell, with bright lighting, good ventilation, and a big blue roof. We can travel around this great world and enjoy its pleasures, but we are still in a holding cell, waiting for the moment when the great chopper of death falls upon us. We are all part of the ultimate statistic: ten out of ten die.

Questions

1. What is an often-overlooked tool for reaching the lost?
2. What Bible verse tells us that every human being fears death?
3. Why should we not speak of the remaining life in terms of years?
4. How should the awareness of our own mortality affect us as Christians?
5. Why should we be concerned for the ungodly?
6. What did Charles Spurgeon say about this subject?

Answers to these review questions are provided in the back of the printed book / source PDF.

Memory Verse

“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

Hebrews 2:14-15

Last Words

George Washington (1732–1799) was the first President of the United States. Over the door of his tomb at Mount Vernon are the words of his Savior: “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” At the end he said to his physician: “Doctor, I have been dying a long time; my breath cannot last long—but I am not afraid to die.”

George Washington