MOORE—“If you wait for a good time to witness, you’re never going to witness,” Kim Schmidt said during the opening session of the State Evangelism Conference at Moore, First Jan. 24.
Schmidt, full-time vocational evangelist from Disney, was one of four Oklahoma evangelists who spoke during the Monday morning session.
“Before you can get someone to salvation, they’ve got to get under conviction,” he said. “You have to plant and cultivate the seed, but only God makes the seed come to life.”
He told of numerous witnessing events during visitation while conducting revivals. One involved an 83-year-old man who said Schmidt was the first to tell him about Jesus.
“How can we say we love God when we won’t get out in the field and share the love of God with those who are lost?” Schmidt asked. “We find our nourishment, strength and excitement when we’re in the will of God telling others about Jesus. The number one goal in our lives should be to do the will of God. We are running out of time. We have to tell our story.”
Muskogee evangelist Bobby Smith gave five conditions for claiming the promise of God in Psalm 1.
“The Word of God has many promises—promises of direction, provision, peace and salvation,” Smith said. “Some are conditional and some are unconditional.”
He noted that verse 3 says “whatsoever he doeth shall prosper,” but said the promise is not yours if you are not the “he” talked about in the verse.
“To be the ‘he,’ five conditions are listed,” he said. “First is to not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. In other words, don’t get bad advice. There may be good people who don’t know the Lord.”
Second, he said, don’t stand in the way of sinners.
“That’s bad actions,” he explained. “Do you go to the same places the world goes, talk like the world, dress like the world? It is true that God sees the heart, but is it not also important what man sees?”
Third, don’t sit in the seat of the scornful, with bad attitudes.
“Don’t criticize,” he warned. “It kills the spirit.”
Fourth, he said, is to delight in the law of the Lord.
“Delight in the Word of God,” he advised. “Read it, believe it, practice it.”
And finally, meditate on the Word day and night.
“Chew on it continually, like a cow chews the cud,” he said. “The Word of God fits every situation.”
If these five conditions are met, Smith said God promises to place you where He wants you to be, make you productive, preserve you and prosper you.
Mike Russell, evangelist from Calvin, said he was in the Philippines when God spoke to him and told him what he should share during the conference.
“There are a lot of people talking about living by faith, but few are doing it,” he said. “We are willing to take a few steps toward it if it doesn’t cost us anything.”
He said he and his wife sold their peanut farm in 1997 and began walking by faith.
“We learned that God will keep and God will provide.
“We need to be living and doing ministry as if today is the day Jesus returns, regardless of what the majority of people think,” he said. “Serve God and do what He says regardless of the consequences.”
He noted that if preachers aren’t hearing from God, the congregation has no hope.
“We have to get in the middle of God’s plan,” he said. “Not doing what God has called us to do is breaking God’s heart.”
Giving a testimony of surviving a near-fatal automobile accident was Charles Keim, Tahlequah evangelist.
Keim said it has been a rough couple of years beginning with the death of his father, evangelist Buddy Keim, in April 2009. That was followed by his wife’s near-fatal horse riding accident, the deaths of his mother and mother-in-law, then the car accident caused by a driver on drugs.
Keim had multiple injuries, including broken vertebrae in his neck and back, a broken collar bone, punctured lung and broken sternum, and was in an induced coma for several weeksm where his body swelled to 403 pounds. During that time, he said he “got to see Jesus face to face.”
“I didn’t go to Heaven, but Jesus came to Earth in my vision,” he explained. “He was light all around me, and I also saw the Apostle Paul and Moses.”
Keim said through the experience, he got to lead three nurses to the Lord, and the EMT who was on the scene of the accident had his life changed. The EMT recognized Keim when he responded to the accident. He had heard him preach just a few weeks before. On the way to the hospital, Keim asked someone to pray, but no one voiced an audible prayer. After Keim’s recovery, the EMT told Keim that he didn’t pray in the ambulance because he was not right with God. He said that experience forced him to do some soul searching and get his life right.
“We have a God who heals and restores,” Keim said.
Music for the session was led by YoYo Collins from Salina. Music evangelists performing included B.J. Hall, Sapulpa; Sandy Stacy, Oklahoma City; Craig and Susan Stuke, Chickasha, and Marsha Ray, Del City.
In a business meeting following the session, the Oklahoma Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelist elected officers: Craig Hobbs, Haskell, president; Keim, vice president; Jeanette Smith, Muskogee, secretary-treasurer; Collins, music director, and Steve Lopp, Jones, First, pastor advisor.
