THE K I NG ' S BUS I NES S
September, 1935
Ï27
o f PERSONAL EVANGELISM B y R. W. HAMBROOK Washington, D.Ç.
finance
I nconven iences T ha t R eveal G od ’ s G uidance Sometimes God arranges unusual circumstances to pro vide us with an opportunity to talk of salvation. I had gone over late in the afternoon from Buffalo, N. Y., to Niagara Falls to take photographs. By mistake, I stayed on the train as far as the lower bridge and then walked over to the Canadian side. My purpose was to take pictures of the falls from the Canadian side. It was necessary, there fore, for me to retrace my way up river. It being late in the day, the light would soon be insufficient for picture tak ing, and I therefore took a taxicab to a position overlook ing the falls. The young man who drove the taxicab, I found, was away from home, working every day in the week, and had lost his love for God. It was my privilege to point him back to God. I took some pictures and then went down to take some more from the road below. The wind blowing the spray from the falls made it difficult for me to reach the desired location without getting wet, but I walked on the grassi and back of a building and took pictures just above the Horseshoe Falls. The spray, however, became so heavy that I was unable to pass without becoming completely wet. I told the Lord that I should like to get back to the Falls View Bridge, and for a brief time the wind changed and I reached the front of the Table Rock Scenic Tunnel Build ing, but for nearly two hours it was impossible for me to leave the porch of this building. I discovered, however, that the Lord wished me to use the time in talking about Him to a policeman who was at that time being deceived by Christian Science. It was my joy to explain to him the fundamentals of salvation. At another time, I was driving between Washington and Lakehurst, N. J. Just before I reached Philadelphia, one of my tires, in good shape otherwise, slowly leaked air, and finally blew out because of rim cuts. I came to a stop directly opposite a country service station, my tire com pletely. ruined. It was necessary for me to purchase a new tire in Philadelphia later, but God had stopped me there to speak to the young man who changed my tire at this road side service station and to point him to the Lord. One morning last winter, with the weather around zero, my car would not start, even with a new battery pur chased the preceding day. I cranked the car, and tried every device to make it start, but without success. I knelt in the garage and asked for the Lord’s help, and He brought to my mind the suggestion that I call up a country garage near my home for assistance, so that I might have opportunity to talk to the garage owner about his soul, a thing I had not been able to do before. The Lord took care of the expense of this service through the old battery, which the garage owner said paid him for
ton, D.C., wrote a letter to a condemned Jew in the city jail. The condemned Jew passed the letter along to a con demned colored man, who wrote in reply to the converted Jew and asked for a personal interview. The letter was given to me with the request that I see the colored man. I was acquainted with the superintendent of the jail, and secured from him permission to talk with the prisoner. The colored man sat on a bench behind bars, while I sat on a seat separated from the bars by a close mesh screen placed a foot or so from the bars. Thus I talked to this man about the Lord Jesus and His power to save. I re ferred him to several verses in the first chapter of John,., including John 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.’5H put the question to him, as to whether he would receive the Lord Jesus as his Sav-r iour. He replied, “I will,” and there in that jail, he inside the bars and I outside, he prayed with me, telling God that he accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour. Then in his own words he thanked God for salvation. He wrote many joyful letters to me and to friends of mine after this: definite experience of God’s saving grace. The schedule called for his electrocution in the Dis trict of Columbia Jail on May 11, while I was in Seattle, Wash. A day or two before this date, I had sent him A by air mail a letter with an air mail return addressed envelope enclosed, and I had written also an air mail letter to the President explaining that my purpose in writing was to ask him to
make sure that this man was guilty before his life was taken; and to tell him that [Continued
Seeking to grasp every o p p o r t u n it y to lead o th e rs to C h rist, Mr. Hambrook has seen men accept the Saviour as he has talked with them in taxicabs, airplanes, ga rages, and on city streets.
starting my car. He refused to take any money. I explained to him the simple way of salva tion and expect him to be born anew as a result. A S umm on s from “ D eath Row” A converted Jew in Washing
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