A Visit with the Joneses

Carol Jones Saint: Hello, hello there. Come right in to visit with the family at Home Sweet Home. What a joy to have you visiting with us, and it becomes our joy to tell what Jesus Christ has done for us. Through the years, this has been the message of A Visit with the Joneses: one family sharing with other families that Jesus Christ is the answer to the problems of life.

We're going to be thinking about Jesus Christ. There's a very interesting hymn entitled "One Day" that actually tells the story of Christ. As we share with you a special visit, the third in the series "Go Home and Tell," we will be using the great song written by J. Wilbur Chapman, "One Day." He was a Presbyterian evangelist and preacher, and you listen carefully as it tells the story of Christ.

Carol Jones Saint: Carol, just give us a few phrases from each stanza so we will see how this song tells the life story of Jesus Christ.

Guest (Female): One day when heaven was filled with his praises, Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin, dwelt among men, my example is he. Then one day they led him up Calvary's mountain. One day they left him alone in the garden. One day the grave could conceal him no longer. One day the trumpet will sound for his coming.

Living he loved me, dying he saved me, buried he carried my sins far away. Rising he justified, freely forever. One day he's coming, oh glorious day.

Carol Jones Saint: Next, I want our trio to sing a lovely gospel song that also tells the life story of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is based on the words of the Apostle Paul as he wrote to the Corinthian Christians, 2 Corinthians 8:9: "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." Beautiful words and a beautiful song. Listen how it tells the story of our Lord Jesus.

Carol Jones Saint: We are pausing just long enough to remind you that you are visiting at Home Sweet Home, and it's such a joy to have you here with us. This is the third and the last in a special series that was entitled "Go Home and Tell," and certainly there are many challenging thoughts for each one of us. I think we can be examining our own hearts and finding how good a job we are doing in telling the message.

Now remember that it is always a joy when you take time to write, and the address when you're writing is A Visit with the Joneses, or you can write to Home Sweet Home, Post Office Box 575, Erie, Pennsylvania, and the zip code 16512. Remember that we have many expenses: expenses in the office and expenses for postage. Gifts to the ministry are tax-deductible, and if you would like to write a check, the check should be written to A Visit with the Joneses, Incorporated. That's the legal name, and the address once again: Post Office Box 575, Erie, Pennsylvania, zip code 16512. Let's go home and tell what God has done for you and for your family.

Carol Jones Saint: Together, we talked about the scripture found in Luke 8 and Mark 5 where Jesus said to a man who had been marvelously healed, a man whose life had been totally changed through the power of Jesus Christ: "Go home. Go home and show what the Lord has done for you." Remember? And we sang a little chorus written in 1906, and it goes like this.

Guest (Male): Go home and tell, go home and tell what God has done for you. Go home and tell, go home and tell that they may want him too.

Carol Jones Saint: Go home and tell, go home and tell what God has done for you. Go home and tell, go home and tell that they may want him too. That he may save them too.

In this special series of radio visits, we talked a great deal about the work that was done. We talked about the services that were offered by the man whose life was changed. "Here I am, Lord. I want to go with you." But then Jesus accepted his offer of services, but Jesus gave a commission for specific service first. And he said, "Go home and tell."

You remember, we considered some of the problems of going home and telling. First of all, we realize that according to the Lord Jesus and his words to this man, home service often comes before foreign service. And then we noticed that sometimes, since this man had noticed the needs at home but volunteered to go overseas with Jesus, there is often the failure to see the immediate needs at home.

Guest (Male): That's right.

Carol Jones Saint: And then we considered the fact that it is hard to be a home witness. Probably it's one of the toughest places in all the world to go home and tell. Do you agree?

Guest (Male): Oh, very difficult.

Carol Jones Saint: If you've tried it this week, maybe you know what I'm talking about. And then the fourth implication of this commission: the witness of a man at home could do what Jesus himself could not do with certain people. Think of that. The witness of a man who went home to tell was more effective with those relatives than even the witness of Jesus Christ, for they had said to Jesus, "Get out of here. We don't want you."

And that is where we left you in our last time of Bible devotions at Home Sweet Home. The commission had been given, and we considered the implications of the commission. But the question: did the fellow hear the commission? Did he accept the words of Jesus? Were any results forthcoming? Sometimes Jesus spoke to people and they did not accept what he said.

Guest (Male): That's true.

Carol Jones Saint: Remember a rich young ruler that came to Jesus, and Jesus said, "This is how you have eternal life," and he walked away.

Guest (Male): Yes, he didn't accept it.

Carol Jones Saint: There are such times. But I'm glad to report that as we study it here in Mark 5 and Luke 8, this man of the demoniacs, this man of the Gadarenes who lived in the caves and had just been such a terrible person, when he was delivered of demons and when he was set free of the clutches of sin, he heard Jesus give the commission and he accepted the commission.

Carol Jones Saint: Jesus said, "Go home and tell, go home to thine own house and show how great things God hath done for thee." And there was no argument, no discussion. Immediately the next words of scripture: "And he went his way and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him."

He didn't fuss with the Lord. He didn't say, "Oh, but Lord, I want a trip on that boat," or "Lord, I want to see some of your great miracles." No, he received the word of the Lord and went to publish throughout the whole city how great things God had done unto him. Now at times, he must have been discouraged. But note: the Lord did not say to him, "Go and reap results," but he said, "Go and tell what the Lord has done for thee. Go and show what the Lord has done for thee."

We tend to worry, you and me. We tend to worry too much about visible results. I'm convinced that the visible results must be left to people and to God.

Guest (Male): Well, and it's interesting that really the only thing God was holding him responsible for was to do the telling. The rest was up to the person and to the Holy Spirit.

Carol Jones Saint: And to the people whether they responded or not. And so I think it's important for you and me to know that we must go and tell and we must go and show, but we leave the results to the Lord. Sometimes you may never see the results.

Guest (Male): That's very helpful.

Carol Jones Saint: I'm thinking, for instance, of the mother Monica. She was the mother of the man who became a great saint in the church: Augustine. She prayed for him, and then she died, never knowing that years later Augustine would find the Lord Jesus Christ and that wicked young man would have his life changed and he would become a pillar in the history of the church.

I'm thinking of the mother of John Newton. John Newton was a slave boat trader. His mother had prayed for him so much, but then she died, never knowing that one day her son John Newton would find the amazing grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and John Newton would write and say, "Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me."

Well, were there any results when the fellow who heard Jesus say, "Go home and show and go home and tell," when he went home to tell, were there any results? In Mark 5:20, we read that all men marveled. And in Luke, we read these words as the young man published through the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him. "And it came to pass (verse 40) that when Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him, for they were all waiting for him."

Wonderful. These were the people who just a few weeks or months before had pleaded with Jesus to leave their country. They said, "We don't want you here. We don't want to hear your sermons." But now through the faithful witness at home, they were prepared to receive the savior and they gladly received him and were waiting for him.

Guest (Male): My, he must have had a testimony that was very winning that made others want what he had.

Carol Jones Saint: I should say, and he told the testimony. I'm thinking of other people in the Bible who went home to tell. Andrew went home and he told his brother Peter, and Peter almost won the world. Don't hear much about Andrew's preaching, but Andrew told his brother Peter and Peter became the great apostle. I remember the woman at the well. She went and told the whole city: "Come and see a man who changed my life."

Guest (Male): She came back bringing others for the water that was not in the well.

Carol Jones Saint: Right. I'm remembering a woman in a Western Pennsylvania town where I held revival meetings. She had gone home for 35 years to tell and to show what Jesus had done for her. She prayed and prayed that her husband would find the Lord. And then when I was in a revival meeting, after 35 years of faithful witness, her husband came and said yes to Jesus Christ.

I'm thinking of a father in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, who on a Sunday morning service went out through the congregation speaking to person after person. And those persons came forward to receive Jesus Christ. And then I discovered that those six or seven persons who came to receive Jesus were none other than his own children. But they had noticed the change in father's life. They had been watching. They had been listening, and now when he invited them, they came.

If the Lord has done something special for you, then will you hear him commission you: go home and tell. I cannot guarantee the results in your lifetime, but I guarantee you that if you are faithful to witness, if you're faithful to go home and tell, then there will be somebody who will find Jesus someday because you've been faithful. A good witness.

Carol Jones Saint: Maybe you cannot go home and tell. Maybe you cannot go home and show your loved ones what Jesus has done for you because you've never allowed him to do it for you. Then this hour let Jesus be your savior. Let him change your life that you too can go home and tell and you too can go home and show what great things the Lord has done for you. Until next time, goodbye.