Post Church Fun

I decided to ride the bus home Sunday after church (usually a friend gives me a ride) so that I could have more witnessing opportunities than normal (feeling a bit starved after running out of tracts in Jamaica). So I handed my last available tract (not last existing--I had more at home) to the bus driver as I boarded and proceeded to sit down.

Then the Lord told me to get up and move to the back, so that I could speak with a young man who was sitting back there. He was wearing a T-shirt that was advertising Subway's new breakfast menu, so I asked him if he worked for them. He does. So I asked him about their breakfast promotion, and he told me about it (not that I'm going to patronize them any time soon, but, hey, it was something that he was an expert about, so I gave him the stage).

Then I asked him if he had ever taken the Good Person Test. He hadn't, so I gave it to him. He failed, so I asked him about the consequences on Judgment Day. He really didn't want to focus on that, so I reasoned with him about its necessity, if God is good and just. Then I told him about God's mercy, the Hope that we have because of Jesus Christ, and the Power to overcome sin through His resurrection. I then encouraged him to read his Bible and bid him adieu, because I had to connect to another bus.

I thought I was going to have to initiate the conversation, but the Lord had other ideas. I had tried to give a Gospel tract to this man on the way to church, about three hours before, and he had rejected it. So I was surprised when he asked me if I go to church and what church is is. I told him where Living Hope meets for services and then asked him where he goes.

He doesn't go to a "church," per se (at least not by modern definition). He goes to different regular Bible studies. He said that he's fed up with churches who don't teach the truth (that's understandable), and one of the beefs he had is the existence of a literal, eternal Hell.

Actually, that's understandable, too. I forget who said that he'd love to rip the teaching from the pages of the Bible but dared not to (I think it was C.S. Lewis, or maybe Spurgeon), but I wholeheartedly agree with him. I don't like the idea of Hell, and I would much rather it did not exist, but, since I didn't make the world, or write the Book, I'm not going to take such liberties and try to edit the Word of God in order to make it more bearable for me to watch lost people die in their sins.

Besides, there's no good reason for anyone to go to Hell, since Jesus paid the fine for all. I tried to get to that point with him, but he wanted nothing to do with it. Oh well. Everyone else heard how unreasonable he wanted to be and how simple the Gospel is. May he and they join the rest of us in receiving eternal life. Thanks for praying.