A friend of mine in the army handed me a Gospel of John one day. I was not saved at the time, and tried to hand back the Gospel, but he insisted I take it home with me. He was the last one I would ever expect to see with a Bible under his arm, but he told me that he had recently taken the Lord Jesus as his personal Saviour, and had been wonderfully saved.
I finally took the Gospel, but on my way home I tore it to pieces and threw it away. That is what I thought of God’s Word a few years ago. Little did I realize as I stood tearing God’s Word to pieces, that it would be only a few months until this very Book would tear me to pieces, and I would see myself as a sinner, lost and needing the Saviour of whom that Gospel told.
The following Monday I met George again. He asked me, “Jack, how are you getting along with the Gospel of John I gave you last week?”
“Why, I threw it away before I got home,” I answered.
“You did?” he replied. “Well, here’s another one.” Week after week George kept handing me gospels and tracts; the more he handed me the more I threw them away.
Six months passed, and we went off to army camp together. I thought, “Surely George will forget all about his old religion with all the drinking, gambling, and cursing, for he had been a wicked man the summer before.”
The first day we were at army camp, I heard several fellows using the Lord’s name in vain. George spoke to them, “Listen, the name you are dragging down is the name that is taking me up to heaven.” That hit me!
That night when lights went out, George reached into his bag, took his Bible and flashlight, and sat on the edge of his cot. After having read for awhile, he got down on his knees for prayer. We could curse at him, throw shoes or anything else, but he stayed there until he was through.
After watching George in that army camp for two full weeks, and noting the marvelous change in his life, I decided he had something that I didn’t have. Whatever it was I wanted it.
That summer I bought a Gospel of John and started to read it through. George invited me to a gospel meeting, and I went along with him one night. I didn’t like the way the preacher talked about sin, righteousness, and the judgment to come. He spoke about a real heaven and a real hell, and about the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He told us that the only hope of heaven was by being “born again.”
I didn’t like it and angrily left the meeting. That night as I lay on my bed, it seemed as though all the blackness of eternity loomed up before me. I realized for the first time in my life that I too, was a sinner, but that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, died and shed His blood on the cross of Calvary for me. I slipped out of bed, got down on my knees, and asked the Lord Jesus to save me. I know I passed from death to life, from the power of Satan to God.
The gospel of Christ can save ruined, helpless, lost sinful men and women, boys and girls, who will but believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
ML 06/18/1961