Thanks a Million

a review by Adam Pohlman

Do you feel like you should be sharing your faith more than you do? Does fear suddenly strike your mind every time you think of bringing up the subject of God with your friends? Even the best evangelists have fear and try to excuse themselves from Jesus' command to share the gospel with everyone. In the book Thanks a Million: An Adventure in Biblical Evangelism, Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron and others share a few of their favorite street witnessing stories that will encourage even the shyest believers to trust in the Holy Spirit to step out in courage to share their faith.

Comfort and Cameron have witnessed to thousands of people and admit that they still are gripped by fear and lies from Satan every time they are about to open their mouths. In this exciting collection of short, real-life stories, you have the opportunity to see how the Biblical gospel message of law and grace, repentance and faith is shared with atheists, psychics, high school students, family members, convicted killers, and even Jim Carrey and Larry King. No matter the situation, the same gospel applies and cuts right to the heart.

Thanks a Million is an encouragement to every believer who has felt the fear or rejection for sharing his faith. Christ's command wasn't to convert every person we talk to and grow a huge church. He told us to faithfully live righteously and share the gospel with every creature and the Holy Spirit will do the converting. The great thing about these short stories is that most of them don't end in full submission to Christ, which will give us more confidence when we don't see every person we talk to falling to their knees. It shows how much of a process conversion can be and we may or may not be the person who finally gets to witness the moment the Holy Spirit finally breaks the person's will. The authors show how they present the biblical gospel by presenting God's holiness in His Law before revealing His grace in the cross, and finally commanding repentance and faith in Christ. As long as we are faithful in presenting the full gospel, without watering it down, we can be sure that God will be glorified no matter what decision we get.

Comfort and Cameron's intention in this collection of witnessing encounters is to persuade us to get out of the church and go to where the world is to get the message to them. We are never going to reach the world by inviting sinners to church and hoping they hear the gospel there. Each of us are to be witnesses for Christ, not just the pastor preaching on Sunday. It's not as frightening as Satan would like us to think. If David can defeat Goliath, Daniel can escape the lions' den, and Steven can continue to preach while being stoned, we can walk downtown and by the power of the Holy Spirit talk to a doctor, Muslim, lawyer, or college student. Check out this book; study to show yourself approved, get encouraged and get out into the world with the message of imminent death and eternal life.