A Mississippi pastor recently set a record by preaching through the entire Bible in a 96-hour marathon. One of the most surprising results of the accomplishment came from hundreds of miles away in Texas.

Pastor Matthew Olson of First Baptist Church of Sharon preached continuously from Genesis through Revelation from May 30 to June 4. About a week later, he said he received a message from a young woman named Lindsay.

“You don't know me, but I've been trying to get a hold of you,” she reportedly told him. “I need you to know this: God used you to save me during the 96 hours.” Then she explained why she wanted to reach him. “I was a witch up until last week.”

Lindsay told Olsen that she and several friends who practiced witchcraft learned that a group of Christians they knew planned to watch the livestream of Olsen’s preaching. The witches decided to join them—in order to curse him to death.

“My friends and I started cursing you, watching you and calling curses on you,” Lindsay told him… We wanted you to die.”

At the time, Olson was about 72 hours into his preaching marathon and had reached the book of Romans. Exhaustion had taken such a toll that two men were physically supporting him while he continued to preach.

Lindsay told Olson that she initially responded to the display of his weakness by continuing to curse him. Then something astonishing occurred.

Olsen was deep into explaining the gospel and the righteousness that comes through Christ alone.

It was then that Lindsay and another participant named Marcus experienced something Olson himself cannot explain. According to Lindsay, each believed they heard Olson personally address them and tell them that Jesus loved them.

“We watched two men hold you up, and you looked into the camera and… you said that you could see us, that you loved us and that God loved us,” she recalled.

Their friends became upset and left, but Lindsay and Marcus stopped what they were doing. Christians who were watching the preaching came over and began talking with them.

Lindsay said she trusted Christ that night and was baptized about a week and a half later.

While Olson says he never spoke Lindsay’s and Marcus’ names, he knew that the Holy Spirit was at work in each of them through the preaching. “It is, to me, one of the best stories of the entire thing,” he said.

Olson didn't know what was happening in Texas while he preached. In fact, he says exhaustion was so severe that he has no memory of that particular portion of the marathon. But he knows what he was preaching.

According to footage of the livestream, Olson had reached Romans 1 and Paul's declaration that the gospel of Christ “is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”

When we share the gospel, we rarely know what happens after that moment. The person who seems uninterested—or even hostile—may be listening more closely than we think.

This is one reason why Chick tracts are such an effective way to reach people. When we hand someone a gospel tract, we give them the opportunity to read it for themselves, even when there isn't time for a conversation. That tract can then go home with them and be read later—or even get passed along to someone else.

Let's keep putting the gospel into people's hands. You never know how God may use one simple tract. We keep hearing from people who read a tract, then put it away. Eventually they came to Christ, and tell us that the tract started the whole process.

It works!