44 years ago, while teaching journalism and serving as director of the News Bureau at Whittier College in California, I was given a gospel tract entitledWhat must I do to be saved? Through reading that I came to know Jesus Christ as my own personal Lord and Saviour.
Since then I have made Christ’s last command – to go into all the world and preach the gospel – my first desire. This has taken me to 214 countries of the world in the past 43 years (I am now 73 years old). But I have lived 15 years in Malta, longer than in any other country. And some may wonder why.
Before first coming to Malta, I read: ‘He shall deliver the island of the innocent; and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands’ (Job 22:30). I am well aware that before a Holy God none are really ‘innocent’, for ‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23). However, I saw Malta as ‘innocent’ in the sense that so few had ever heard of the necessity of being born again.
To the question posed by Nicodemus, ‘How can a man be born again when he is old?’ Jesus responded, ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto you, you must be born again’. Earlier Jesus had said, ‘Except a man is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God’ (John 3:3-7).
And that is the reason in a nutshell why I am on Republic Street, at the entrance of Valletta, each day, seeking to preach Christ to others, so that they too might be born again. I know from personal experience 44 years ago that ‘little is much when God is in it’. So, by God’s grace, I continue giving out tracts at the entry of Valletta.
