Pastoral and, Personal Evangelism 37 honor Him as His followers, but He did not gain this vast multitude of myriad tongues and tribes by organizing a great band, but by the selection and training of twelve men. True, the multitudes sought Him, as they had followed John the Baptist, but He did not seek the multitudes. Great throngs followed many of those early disciples and preachers, even up through the latter centuries, and many were mightily used in preaching to great throngs of men, but Christ’s method still remains—He sought individuals. What if He had never talked with that poor Samaritan woman at the well-side; we would never then have had those wondrous words in the fourth chapter of John: . “Whoso drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whoso drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” What if these words had never occurred in the Gospels?— and they would not if Christ had not passed through Samaria and taken pity on that poor sinful woman and talked with her. What if He had never spent time with Nicodemus when he sought the Master by night? What rich and significant words those He uttered then on regeneration: “Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth; so is every one who is born of the Spirit.” Suppose Christ had never overtaken the two disciples as they walked to Emmaus after His crucifixion, and we had never known those words of His and that experience they had as their hearts burned within them. He turned and saw the two disciples of John who had heard John the Baptist say, “Behold the Lamb of God.” Andrew went from Christ to find his brother Peter, and brought him to Jesus. The next day Jesus Himself found Philip and told him, “Follow Me.” Philip found Nathaniel. All through His work on earth, Christ saw and found individuals. Zacchaeus was called out of a tree, Matthew from a money-changer’s seat, but these men became
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