Sinclair Ferguson

And you can think, what's he going to say to me?

Taps him in the chest and he says to him, what is the chief end of man?

And relieved, this man says it's to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

And the man says to him,

I knew you were a shorter catechism boy by your looks.

And the fellow says, you know, that's exactly what I was thinking about you.

Now, the power of that story to me lies, first of all, in the fact it was true.

Second, in the fact that we tend to laugh at it today and to think that's a fairy story.

And the reason for that is because we don't have what these men had.

and recognized in each other, that when that truth influences the way you think, therefore influences the way you feel, therefore influences the way you live, therefore influences the development of your character, Christians become people who have, there's a presence about them.

And I've often thought, I think because occasionally it has actually happened in situations where I'm still puzzled how it happened, people will have said, are you by any chance a Christian?

I remember we stopped on the road one day in Scotland because there was an elderly lady and we could see she was standing beside her car off the highway.

And we stopped to see if we could help in any way.

And after a minute or two of conversation, this lady said to me out of the blue, she said, are you a Christian minister?

And it was like, if she'd said, are you an angel?

I wouldn't have been even more surprised.

And I think...

Why does that not happen more often?

In a world where Christians are so much a minority culture, is there not more about us that smells of the glory of God for people to notice?

And so, I mean, even in kind of minor experiences like that, and I confess, I think maybe to my shame, it's happened a few times, but not all that often.