Value of Funeral Talks

● The value of funeral talks is highlighted by the experience of a Witness in Saskatchewan, Canada: “I was a vacation pioneer last summer and worked in unassigned territory. I called at a house where the lady said they had never talked with Jehovah’s witnesses at all. Then she said, ‘Will you come in for a drink of water? It is so hot outside.’ As I went into the kitchen her husband called from the other room, ‘Who is it?’ She said, ‘One of those Jehovah’s witness’ girls.’ So he said, ‘Tell her to come in.’ I went into the living room and they told me there had been a funeral of a Witness, who had lived in this isolated territory, a couple of weeks before. A brother from Saskatoon had given the funeral talk. The man said the talk presented real hope. Some of the scriptures he had never heard before. He said, ‘You folks call yourselves preachers, don’t you? Well, you sit down and give us a sermon.’ So I went through the sermon and then the backcall sermon. I took out the book From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained and placed it with them. I explained why these books were printed and then we studied part of the first chapter. Before we left they commented that in all their years of going to church they had never read the scriptures about God’s new order of righteousness. This call has been turned over to Witnesses in a nearby congregation.”