One of them, "The Lonely Cabin on the 40 Mile,” describes the true story of three men who found Christ in their cabin during a bleak Yukon winter. The trio ran out of reading material, and one of them re membered the small Bible his daughter had tucked away in his luggage. They read daily from the Bible; their whisky consumption declined and then stopped on the day they invited the Lord into their hearts. Another booklet narrates the thrilling story of how a gangster on Chicago’s South Side found Christ. Others are designed to appeal to children, college students, scholars and businessmen. All of them tell the reader how he can have no life in Christ. What makes a booklet or a tract attractive enough for someone to want to read it? “ The cover is the first thing people look at,” Ray Johnson says. "We try to design the cover colorfully and clean-looking— not cluttered with a lot of words or graphics.” A strikingly attractive blue picture of the galaxies adorns the cover on his 96-page common speech translation of the Gospel of John and invites the reader to God’s Word. Within the past several years, Mr. Johnson has taken his writing ministry to the Soviet Union and to the United Arab Republic, pub lishing open letters to Premier Kosygin and Presi dent Nasser. They explain Bible prophecy as it relates to their respective nations in the final aggressions against Israel. But the author doesn’t stop with prophecy in his letters. He realizes that the Lord has a love for all peoples of the world, even those who suppress the Gospel. His letters include an invitation to come to God through Jesus Christ. Life Messengers has published the letters in booklet form and distributed them to interested Christians and to other concerned heads of state. In his most recent letter to President Nasser, Mr. Johnson also sent 100 copies to the Israeli prime minister, thus providing a witness for God’s chosen people also. Although he has yet to receive a reply from the head of the United Arab Republic, a re cent traveler in the tense Holy Land learned from a reliable source that Mr. Nasser has begun to read his Bible, if only “ to find out what the Israelis are up to ." Many tell of finding a "Here’s How” in the street or in a phone book and of its influence on their lives. One lady wrote, “ I have just found your little booklet in an old trunk. I had been seeking God for quite some time. I certainly thank God I found this book let.” A high school student wrote, “ I have read your little booklet and it was such a help to me in show ing me how I could receive everlasting life through Jesus Christ. I would like to pass this booklet on to others. Unfortunately, I received the booklet after it had already passed from hand to hand for quite a ways, and the print is worn in many places.” That is the kind of distribution that pleases Ray Johnson, who gives God the glory for the spiritual accomplishments from little messages of life. KB
says that country is ripe for the harvest of souls and can use 3 million booklets to tell the story of the Saviour," Mr. Johnson declares. He is not alone in believing that praying Christians and a vigorous Gos pel assault were responsible for repelling communism in Indonesia recently. Are people reading more Christian tracts and booklets today? "They must be,” Mr. Johnson re plied. “ Life Messengers' mailings are near an all- time high and there are a number of Christian tract publishers besides us who are experiencing the same thing.” Witnessing for the Lord with tracts and colorful booklets that catch the eye of the unsaved has come a long way since Christmas first presented salvation through Christ with mimeographed sheets. Mr. John son got his start while a student at Moody Bible Institute. He chuckles as he recalls his earliest wit nessing attempts as a student. "Each Moody student was given a missionary project. With a fellow student, I went to visit the sick and needy in a Chicago hospital. We were assigned to a ward, my partner taking one row of beds while I took the other. "I met some of the most hardened souls imagin able. I tried to be friendly and just leave a simple message for the Lord, but one man would curse me and threaten to tell the nurse I was a nuisance; an other said he had heard the same thing hundreds of times before and didn’t want to be bothered. “ It was like that at each bed I visited. When I finished, I turned to the other side and was amazed to find my partner still witnessing at the first bed. I was a flop at witnessing. I needed something I could put in the hands of the people I was talking to that would introduce them to Jesus Christ.” That’s when the idea for “ Here’s How” was born: a down-to-earth conversation in print between a Christian doctor and an acquaintance he meets while traveling. To the acquaintance, the doctor simply says that these are perilous days for the man with out Christ and then shows him from Scriptures how to find the Lord as his Saviour. He had just polished his manuscript when he was introduced to the late Clyde Dennis of Good News Publishers who pioneered the publication of colorful tracts found in Christian bookstores and tract racks today. “ I was a student announcer at WMBI and Mr. Dennis had a radio program originating from the sta tion. I told him of the manuscript I had prepared and he very courteously offered to read it.” As Mr. Dennis considered it, Ray Johnson prayed, promising God that if it was accepted, he would give God all the glory for it and never sign his name to it. It was accepted with an initial printing of 5,000 copies and to this day, you will never find a copy of “ Here’s How” with his signature inside. That initial printing of “ Here’s How” paved the way for starting the Life Messengers’ organization, and other booklets followed. SEPTEMBER, 1970
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