Why does persistent witnessing matter before someone will listen to the gospel?
Persistent witnessing matters because it sows the seed through repeated contact before the harvest. In the account, the young man approached the man time after time while working for him; had he not done so, the man would never have listened to the gospel later. The Lord then opened his heart.
Les explains that a young man had witnessed to this man repeatedly while working for him. When the young man asked if he would go to heaven, the man would say, “I hope so,” and the young man told him, “Then you’re not.” Later, after hearing the program, the Lord opened his eyes to the gospel, and he became a testimony of God’s grace. Les says the young man sowed the seed, and Les was able to reap the harvest, because had the young man not approached him time after time in the process of working for him, he would never have listened. This shows that persistent witnessing prepares a person to hear the gospel, which is not a “hope so” religion but a position in Christ.