“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”

—Charles H. Spurgeon

Now it came to pass that a group existed who called themselves fishermen. And lo, there were many fish in the streams and lakes throughout the surrounding area.

Week after week, month after month, and year after year, those who called themselves fishermen met in meetings and talked about …

• The call to fish.
• The abundance of fish.
• How they might go about fishing as an occupation.

They declared that fishing is always to be the primary task of fishermen, but they never fished!

These fishermen built large, beautiful buildings for local fishing headquarters. The plea was that everyone should be a fisherman and every fisherman should fish. One thing they didn’t do, however, was fish.

In addition to meeting regularly, the organized a board to send out fishermen to other places where there were many fish. The board was formed by those who had great vision and courage to speak about fishing, to define fishing, to promote the idea of fishing in far-away streams and lakes where many other fish of different color lived. Also the board hired staffs and appointed committees and held many meetings to …

• Define fishing.
• Defend fishing
• Decide what new streams should be thought about.

But the staff and committee members did not fish.

A speaker bureau was provided to schedule special speakers on the subject of fishing. After one stirring meeting on “The Necessity of Fishing,” one young fellow left the meeting and went fishing. The next day he reported that he had caught two outstanding fish. He was honored for his excellent catch, and he was scheduled to visit all the big meetings to tell how he did it. So he quit his fishing in order to have time to tell about the experience to the other fishermen. He was also placed on the Fisherman’s General Board as a person having considerable experience.

Now it’s true that many of the fishermen sacrificed and put up with all kinds of difficulties. Some lived near the water and bore the smell of dead fish. They received ridicule of some who made fun of their fishermen’s clubs and the fact that they claimed to be fishermen, yet never fished.

They wondered about those who felt it was of little use to attend the talks about fishing. After all, were they not following the Master, who said, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fisher of men”? (Mark 1:17)

Imagine how hurt some were when one day a person suggested that those who didn’t fish were not really fishermen, no matter how much they claimed to be. Yet it did sound correct.

Is a person a fishermen if, year after year, he never catches a fish? Is one following if he isn’t fishing?

This story comes from a Sunday school ministry in the part of New York City that has been rated the “most likely place to get killed.” The pastor Bill Wilson himself has been stabbed twice, shot at, and a member of his team killed. But he stays there, and not without controversy, ministers in Jesus’ name to people the rest of the church has largely forgotten. The largest bus ministry in America is not in the suburbs, but in Hell’s Kitchen. Here’s a story in Bill’s words:

“One Puerto Rican lady, after getting saved in church, came to me with an urgent request. She didn’t speak a word of English, so she told me through an interpreter, “I want to do something for God, please.”

“I don’t know what you can do,” I answered.

“Please, let me do something,” she said in Spanish.

“Okay. I’ll put you on a bus. Ride a different bus every week and just love the kids.”

So every week she rode a different bus — we have 50 of them — and loved the children. She would find the worst-looking kid on the bus, put him on her lap and whisper over and over the only words she had learned in English: “I love you. Jesus loves you.”

After several months, she became attached to one little boy in particular. “I don’t want to change buses anymore. I want to stay on this one bus,” she said.

The boy didn’t speak. He came to Sunday school every week with his sister and sat on the woman’s lap, but he never made a sound. And each week she would tell him all the way to Sunday school and all the way home, “I love you and Jesus loves you.”

One day, to her amazement, the little boy turned around and stammered,
“I-I love you, too.” Then he put his arms around her and gave her a big hug.

That was 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon. At 6:30 that night, the boy was found dead in a garbage bag under a fire escape. His mother had beaten him to death and thrown his body in the trash.

“I love you and Jesus loves you.” Those were some of the last words he heard in his short life — from the lips of a Puerto Rican woman who could barely speak English.

You — one person — can make a difference. In Jesus’ name, let yourself get close enough to people who hurt. Feel the pain. See the death. Feel the urgency. Take your stand between the living and the dead.”