I Want to Plant Seeds of Truth With People But I’m Shy and I’m Not a Gifted Speaker So What Do I Do?
Steve, you mention that our main work in this flesh earth age is to accept Jesus and then help as many others as we can to know the Truth and come to Christ in order to get as many souls back into our Father’s Kingdom as possible.
But I’ve never been one to just go up to a family member, a friend, or someone I didn’t know and just ask them if they have accepted Jesus Christ or not. I don’t have the gift of teaching and I’m not good at verbally explaining things to people, so I really never made the attempt to plant seeds in that way.
So I want to somehow find out what I need to do for God, besides work and play every day. I want to earn my keep for God. I want to plant seeds too but I don’t want to do it out of my own will without God’s blessing otherwise I won’t succeed and I’ll be ultimately hurting Him and myself more than helping.
So what should I do? I’ve prayed. I’ve asked God to send people into my life that I can talk to plant seeds. I’ve given money to the chapel…not a lot but some. What else should I do? God knows my heart. I just pray He will lead me to where He can use me. I believe we don’t have much time left. The signs are all playing out to where antichrist will be coming on the scene soon.
Steve if you were me, what would you do right now, besides study and get to know Gods Word more? How would you plant seeds?
Thanks again!!! 🙂
God Bless!
Aaron
Steve’s Answer:
Hi Aaron,
When one is too shy to plant seeds of truth when the opportunity arises, then the next best thing is to support a good seed-planting ministry, like the Shepherd’s Chapel or any other ministry that teach God’s Word in-depth, line-by-line and verse-by-verse.
When you support a good seed-planting ministry like that, Father counts your support as contributing to the spread of His Word. When that ministry helps bring more people into Father’s family household through Christ, the credit goes not just to the preacher and his or her ministry, but to all of those who support that preacher and his or her ministry.
But in the meantime, studying and getting to know God’s Word better on a daily basis is exactly what’s called for when one is shy (or fearful) about talking about it. As it’s written:
2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth
That shyness is often-times borne of uncertainty. The fear of triggering a confrontation you mention is also based on an underlying sense of uncertainty.
But when you know God’s Word pretty well, through ongoing study, then the uncertainty begins to diminish, a little bit at a time. The more you study, the more confident you get in what you have learned. And concurrently, you feel more confident discussing His Word with others because you’ve taken the effort to learn it so well.
In other words, studying God’s Word with sincerity and with serious intent brings about the certainty in His Word that helps alleviate the shyness and fear of talking about it with others.
Can you imagine telling Father you didn’t try because you were afraid, or uncomfortable, or don’t like risking confrontation? Isn’t that what Christ’s parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) is all about, metaphorically speaking?
If you remember, God gave talents of silver (i.e., silver was money, in those days; a “talent” was a certain weight of silver) to three different people and told them to trade (i.e., invest) with the talents while He was gone and see if they could increase the value of the holdings He’d left in their trust. (In other words, metaphorically speaking, He gave them knowledge of His Word and told them to spread it around so that when He returned there would be more people ready to enter His kingdom.)
When the Lord of those three servants later returned, He called in each one of them for a reckoning of what they’d done with the talents He’d left in their trust. Several of them had doubled their talents (i.e., doubled the money He left in their trust, which for us is a metaphor for spreading to others the wisdom He grants us so they too can be rich in faith through knowledge of His Word). And He told those servants who had doubled their talents, “Well done, thou good and faithful servants.”
But the person He gave the least amount of talents to (in other words, the least amount of responsibility for planting seeds of truth) failed Him altogether. He simply handed the Lord back His original talent. When God asked him why he hadn’t even tried to increase the return on His investment, the guy replied, “I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth; and look, there thou hast what is thine” (Matthew 25:25).
In other words, to complete the metaphor, the guy basically said, “All of that wealth of knowledge You gave me I just kept buried in my brain, and I didn’t share it with anyone, because I was too afraid I wouldn’t be able to handle it or do it right.”
And what did the Lord respond to that man?
Mat 25:26 His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed:
Mat 25:27 Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.
In other words, bringing the parable up to date, the Lord said, “Heck, you could have started a blog and posted the knowledge I gave you to the internet where others could have read it and benefited from it and became better and more knowledgeable Christians.” Or, “Heck, you could have at least shared that knowledge with your family members, or friends, so that upon My return I’d have additional people waiting to enter into My kingdom.”
In other words, God turns over precious and valuable knowledge of His Word to us, and He expects us to spread it to others so that while He’s gone, the people grow more knowledgeable in His Word and the kingdom continues to grow in numbers.
The Lord then continued chastising the unfruitful servant by saying:
Mat 25:28 Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents.
Mat 25:29 For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath .
Mat 25:30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth
Wow. That’s pretty harsh judgment. But the guy knew what he was supposed to do when the Lord originally gave him that “talent” (i.e., metaphorically speaking, when the Lord gave him the knowledge and understanding of His Word). And he failed to do what he knew he was supposed to do.
In Matthew 25:26 above, God even calls that servant a “slothful servant,” because the guy didn’t even try to multiply his talents (i.e., he didn’t try to spread God’s Word in order to uplift others in the truth and bring them into the kingdom).
The bottom line is that Father knows what we’re capable of. In fact, in Matthew 25:15, the Scripture says that when the Lord gave the men their talents, He did so “according to their several ability.” That means He knew in advance they had the ability to handle what He’d given them. He won’t give you anything you don’t have the ability to handle, either. That should comfort you.
So I can assure you, the excuse “I was afraid” simply won’t wash with God. Our Father already knew the guy could have handled it if he’d have wanted to. Yes, it might have taken a little practice. Yes, some mistakes might have been made in the process, because making mistakes is the way we learn how to do things right. Yes, spreading God’s Word might result in some people turning against the guy, or confronting and challenging the guy (because people don’t like to hear the truth of God’s Word). But at least he’d have tried. And God counts that as faith on our part when we do.
“Yeah, but what if I try and fail?” Well, Noah was a “preacher of righteousness” (II Peter 2:5). But he didn’t make a single convert outside of his own family. All others he preached to got wiped out in the flood. So his years and years of bold preaching to them had only a limited effect. Some might even look at that and say Noah wasted his time all of those years of preaching, or that he must have been a lousy preacher.
But you see, God allowed Noah to preach the truth fruitlessly for years and years to those wicked people,because He won’t execute judgment on anyone unless they’ve heard the truth first (which is also the point of the millennium; it’s His wayward children’s one last chance to hear and embrace the very truth they’ve likely been rejecting since the first earth age).
Noah clearly wasn’t afraid of rejection. He preached to the multitudes for years without a single convert. They all rejected him. And neither should we be afraid of rejection. In fact, we should expect it. After all, most of the people living on this earth in this final generation are of that one-third who fell to Satan’s deception during the first age. And the rest are basically of the other two-thirds, i.e., those who were either too busy with the cares of the world, or who couldn’t handle the pressure of sticking with God when tribulation arose (i.e., withdrawing from God because of peer pressure and political correctness instituted by Satan).
You see, God knows that anyone He passes judgment on is inevitably going plead with Him, saying, “I didn’t know that’s how you wanted things orI’d have done it Your way” or ” No one ever told me that’s what You wanted.” They’re lying, of course. They’re wicked, and even if Noah himself were here right now, preaching the truth to them, they would have continued to be wicked because they enjoy living wicked lifestyles more than they enjoy pleasing Father and serving Him faithfully.
But to short-circuit that “I didn’t know” argument, God let Noah preach to the wicked for years before He sent the flood and wiped out all of those wicked folk in judgment. That way, they couldn’t say “Your judgment isn’t fair, Lord, because we never heard your Word on this matter.” They heard it. They heard it straight from Noah’s mouth. For years on end. And they rejected it. And as a result they received the judgment they deserved from God.
Likewise, the same for us. As servants of God, our Father gives us His Word (only what we can handle) and tells us to take His Word forth and present it to others through seed-planting. He puts that “investment” in us. And He expects us to get out there with it and do something.
As you know, “seed planting” means planting one seed of truth at a time, when God opens up the opportunity. It doesn’t mean standing on a street corner with a big sign saying “The End is Near” and screaming Bible verses at passers-by. It doesn’t mean preaching at someone who doesn’t want to hear it, or preaching at someone until they become so uncomfortable that it drives them away from God’s Word.
It simply means that if a person says something like “I’ll never understand why God wiped out everybody but Noah’s family in that great flood,” you should look upon that statement as your God-given opportunity to respond with God’s Word. To plant a seed of truth in such a situation, you might say something like, “Let me show you why He wiped them all out except for Noah and his family.” And then open your Bible and read Genesis 6:1-8 to them. Then very succinctly explain that the people of that time had embraced evil fallen angels and the women were even sleeping with those angels and producing hybrid giants. And that the only people left who had not hybridized with the fallen angels and become thoroughly wicked in the process were Noah’s tiny family of eight people. And that’s why God wiped out everybody but Noah’s family.
That’s it. Don’t say anything else, unless they ask another question. You did your part. You planted the seed of truth that answered their question. And your answer will either intrigue them into digging deeper into God’s Word and asking more questions (best-case scenario). Or it will cause them to think you believe some really whacky stuff (worst case scenario). Right? But so what if that’s how they choose to react? After all, that’s how they reacted to Noah when he preached. For the most part, it’s even how they reacted to Christ when He preached.
Are we to expect any better results? Nope. We just keep putting God’s Word in front of people when God causes the opportunity to open up. And God counts that as faith in His Word on our part, and blesses us.
And then, during the millennium when everything is made clear to those who rejected the seeds of truth we planted with them, they’ll say to themselves, “You know, I should have listened to Frank when he tried to tell me this stuff.” And that might just cause them to work a little bit harder during the millennium to implement God’s Word in their lives, especially when they can see that you – the guy whose seed-planting they rejected – are standing there with Christ and all of His other faithful servants enjoying your eternal rewards.
That’s basically how it works. God knows none of us are going to do it perfectly. He knows we’re going to make mistakes. We’re not Christ. And we’re not perfect. But He knows how to make up the difference when we mess up.
Isa 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
Isa 41:11 Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish.
Isa 41:12 Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought.
Isa 41:13 For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.
If we’ll do what we’re supposed to be doing, and plant those seeds of truth, He’ll back us up and ultimately make our efforts fruitful. It might take until the millennium that many (or even most) of the people we planted seeds to finally “get it.” But that’s not our problem or concern. That’s God’s. And He can handle it.
And after all of this – through the first age, the second, and the millennium – those who still won’t accept the truth even though it’s been made abundantly clear to them will be done away with.
Our concern is simply to do the seed planting we’re called on to do, sincerely and with compassion for their otherwise wayward souls. Pray for them. And then move along if they refuse to listen. God has it under control. Trust Him.
But in all of this, always protect your credibility. Again, you don’t stand on street corners preaching. You don’t just walk up to people and ask “Have you heard the Word of the Lord.” You wait for God to open up opportunities for you to plant a seed of truth, such as when a person asks a question. Then you simply answer that question, and move on.
If the person comes back to you with more questions, great. It means there’s interest in that person’s “inner man” — i.e., their soul and spirit — for the truth. So you answer their questions again. And if they don’t come back, you let it go.
Always remember that we do the seed planting, but our heavenly Father does the watering, through the Holy Spirit. And whether or not He waters a seed we’ve planted in the fertile ground of someone’s mind is strictly up to Him. Again, He knows what He’s doing. So we have to trust Him, and simply continue to do our part.
Regards in Christ,
Steve Barwick
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