I learned to be on the alert for, “But…..”

Jesus tells us in the Matthew’s gospel that heaven can be entered only through the narrow gate. He says that the highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide enough for multitudes to choose its easy way Matthew 7:13-14. I witnessed the confirmation of that truth numerous times every day when I was out there on those streets as a public gospel messenger. Life was a mini hell for many of them and they readily admitted it, even when it was a life of their own making.  Some of these same people did not dispute that Christ was offering them an alternative way.  It appeared they simply didn’t want it. 

In conversations with them there were very few who did not acknowledge that there were only two ways to live: right or wrong, good or bad, with either heaven or hell at the end of it.  But the problem was, while they did not see themselves as living right or good, neither could they see themselves living the opposite.  It was as though they believed themselves to be living in some middle way here and now and therefore, there would be some middle place for them in eternity.  In other words, “I may not be a saint, but neither am I a thief, or a murderer or a molester.  There’ll be a place for me somewhere when I die.”

Twenty-nine year old single mother Lee had a little of that thinking in her. She was one of four in the family who were on drugs. She had recently been released from jail for dealing and possession. Whilst she was inside she said she’d undertaken some Bible studies and although she could see in the Scriptures that it was Jesus Christ alone who died for her sins, she told us she now doubted His current existence. Which meant that she now doubted in His resurrection to life and that He now sits in heaven today as God and Man. Lee and her brother were picked up on the side of the road by a Christian minister after a car break-down.

This man asked us if we could make arrangements to visit these two as they lived just a couple of streets away from our church.  We used these incidents in her life as examples of the reality of Christ coming to her in practical ways; that is – she was introduced to Him in jail through Scripture studies, a church minister came along and gave them some needed assistance, and now here we were from a church just around the corner from them, offering help.  Lee said she could see that, “maybe there’s something in what you say, but……”  I learned to be on the alert for, “but” from people.  Usually that little word meant our time together would be limited.  It was in this case.

Sixty-three year old Alan was the same.  I was doing a foundational Bible study with two invalid sisters one day when he called to visit them.  See my post: I hope not.  These two women began sharing the spiritual and mental changes that Christ was bringing about in their lives and he just sat there as though they were talking to someone else. I said to Alan that it was the Lord speaking to him through those women and I asked him for a response. He threw out doubts and smokescreens galore about Jesus Christ and the women quickly agreed when I told him I did not believe a word he was saying.

He smiled at that challenge and then said he had to go.  A gospel messenger knows there are no coincidences in life.  Whether he knew it or believed it or not, that’s what I told Alan. I asked him to wait until he heard God’s message for him. Once again I knew our time together would be limited, because of the “but” that Alan expressed before objecting to each answer given to his questions.  Alan had already been close to entering eternity, having had a serious stroke some months earlier.  His health was still poor with other sicknesses included, and he had a very unhappy marriage.  Christ was his Solution to all, but he sought for another way.

Mr Harlan had a mini hell going on in his being too. He’d lived all sixty-nine years of his life with his parents. When both parents died within a few weeks of each other, his life fell apart. When I first met him one year earlier life was fine for him. He spoke about his aging parents at the time of that visit and I spoke about Jesus Christ and His purpose for coming to earth.  I mentioned also that Christ will prepare us for death if we place our trust in Him as Saviour and Lord and the giver of eternal life.  Mr Harlan didn’t dispute any part of my gospel message, but he didn’t really see it as applicable to him either.

Twelve months later all had changed.  I was looking into the eyes of a broken old man who had not long come home from a psychiatric hospital.  Soon after the death of his parents, the reality of it all struck him so deeply that he had a nervous breakdown.  As I stood at his door on that second visit, I retold Mr Harlan the message of Christ.  He heard me say that there is a Father in heaven who waits to reveal Himself to him through His Son and all he had to do was choose to believe and ask for the Son to enter his life.  This man had spent all his life trusting in his parents for his well-being, and now he was most reluctant to transfer that same trust to God, that day Psalm 118:8.

One day I spoke with an old lady who told me she was a regular church-goer.  Being told this didn’t really mean all that much to me, because I’d long since learned that such a practice did not necessarily mean one was acquainted with the Lord Jesus Christ.  In fact, this lady was typical of those who certainly were not acquainted.  After I preached the gospel to her, she said, “I would like to believe, but…..”  When I mentioned that belief and unbelief were the only two choices she had, she nodded, again with a, “Yes, but…..”  I asked her if there was anything between those two choices and she just smiled.

I knew the church that she attended.  It was a Uniting church made up of two or three church denominations that were dying .  The unity did not come about as a result of any love for Christ and a desire to hold on uncompromisingly to biblical truth like those  denominations had held to in former days.  It was the opposite of that.  Compromise was the name of the game and that lady was a product of it.  She was proud to tell me that her church centennial was but a few days away from being celebrated.  It is a beautiful old building, but as a church its doors are closed today.  They do reopen on some Saturdays, but only for weddings. 

Another lady from that same church was also a product of its biblical compromise and unbelief.  She’d been “going to church” all her life she told me.  In her mid sixties she said she’d heard the gospel of Christ many times from early childhood days, but then went on to say, “I sort of don’t believe.”  Given that she was a church-goer, I interpreted her “sort of” as, “maybe there’s another way to heaven.” So I asked her if that is what she thought.  Like many of her kind, this lady was not comfortable sitting on the fence, but equally, she was not comfortable with making the decision to accept or reject Christ either.

Then she said that her husband, “is always knocking the gospel, so I don’t know what to think.”  She had a most unhappy demeanor and I couldn’t help but think that perhaps part of the reason for that was because over many years she had allowed everybody else’s opinions and thoughts to crush her own – not only with the gospel of Christ, but in other areas.  Mind control is a dreadful thing to suffer under, whether it be in cult-type churches, Christ-denying churches, the political arena, the workplace, or under the roof with those one daily lives with in the family home.  Her mini hell was created as a result of her habit of indecision.

Mrs Earl was another church-goer controlled by others.  One was her angry, heavy drinking husband, the other was her thirty-five year old drug addicted daughter.  She came from a suburb many miles from our church but she phoned us one day for help.  There were demonic problems within the home and she was advised by her minister to talk with us because, “we don’t do that kind of thing (deliverance ministry) here.”  Her church leadership did not out-rightly deny demonic realities and the Christian’s mandate to deal with them in Jesus’ name, but neither did they embrace them.  It seems they sat on the fence in this regard.

In the end, Mrs Earl, being a product of her church, sat on the fence as well.  Three times she phoned in tears expressing a desperate need, but apart from some personal guidance given to her over the telephone we were not able to help beyond that.  Basically, she came up with a “but” for each step we suggested she and her daughter take, before any real ministry take place.  I couldn’t help but think that in her case, as well as that of her church leadership that they believed there was another way.  Or perhaps they really believed that wrong was right, bad was good and hell was heaven.  “………He is a double minded man, unstable in all his ways.”  James 1:8;  “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”  James 4:8.