I was wrong. I mean
specifically that I was wrong yesterday.
Otherwise that statement is too true too often. But yesterday I said I remembered only 6
people from my high school graduating class.
Actually it is seven. I strained
my brain and remembered someone I thought I would never forget. We’ll call him Fred. Fred was a bully. Somehow he found me in the hall almost every
day and reminded me of what was going to happen to me every night after
school. It helped insure my invisibility
after school.
Three years after graduation Fred finally caught up with
me. I was in a mechanic’s shop getting
my car worked on. Fred came in the door
and saw me. He picked up a piece of iron
pipe leaning by the door and holding it in his hand like a police baton and
pounding it in his other hand he came across the garage toward me. When he got right to me and I knew I was
dead, he put out his hand and said, “Hi, Dave, (nobody calls me ‘Dave’, but I
thought I would let it pass) good to see you.”
I shook his hand.
“Good to see you too, Fred.”
Maybe I lied a little. “You’re looking
good.” Then, because I am awkward and
can’t talk to people very well, I said very bluntly, “You seemed to have
changed.”
“Yes, I have,” he said.
“I am in the Navy and someone told me about Jesus and now I am a
Christian.” Suddenly I stopped thinking
he was going to hit me with the iron pipe.
Also, at that exact moment, a commercial came on the radio playing in
the shop. It was for an evangelistic
crusade specifically targeting young adults.
Fred had been a faithful witness at just the right time. I was instantly convinced that I should go to
that crusade and I did. It was there
that I was saved two days later.
Fred was a faithful witness.
The evangelistic team was a faithful witness. They were both following the pattern of Jesus
Christ whose name in Revelation 1:5 is “The Faithful Witness”. Jesus gave witness to the Father’s love. The disciples gave witness to salvation in
the finished work of Jesus Christ. Their
witness was to bear fruit for God’s glory and for all eternity. Their witness was to reap the harvest. Alexcenah
Thomas gave us the wonderful hymn, “Bring Them In”. It is not sung enough anymore. “Who’ll go and help this Shepherd kind, help
Him the wand’ring ones to find? Who’ll bring the lost ones to the fold, where
they’ll be sheltered from the cold? Bring them in, bring them in, bring them in
from the fields of sin; bring them in, bring them in, bring the wand’ring ones
to Jesus.”
The Friday
Benediction
Until Monday, my friends, may the good God envelop you with
His grace; may you prove the common confession of faith, “I believe in the holy
Christian church and in the fellowship of the saints”, and may you be enriched
with joy and hope as you exercise that confession this weekend. Amen
Visit my website at www.davidccraig.net for inspiring Christian
books.
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