Answers to Your Questons, Part II

(continued from part I)
That's when he told me that he was leaving for China the very next morning, and he still had some packing to do. So he had to leave right away.
I still didn't believe him. I continued to think he was someone that the church leaders had sent to pull somekind of a trick on me. So he began telling me about being a missionary in China. "You cannot begin to imagine how many people, in China, know all about you!" he said. He told me how he had gone to church after church, preaching the word, and then inviting everyone to "receive Christ into their heart!" He said, there were many times he had risked death, just to go somewhere and preach, and he always told them about the night that I went forward. "I told them all," he said, "about 'receiving' Christ and not just believing!" He also said that he had prayed for me, at leasat three times a day, over the past five years.
That, I didn't believe either. Everything kept piling up and piling up. "I did pray for you, every day!" he said. "I prayed in the morning, at noon, and at night, and that's the very reason I'm here right now!" Then he told me how he had not wanted to come back when the time came for his first two furlows.
"When my third year furlow came up, I wanted to come. But it just didn't happen. All the doors and windows seemed to suddenly close, and I couldn't make it. The first time it happened I ignored it. Then came my 4th year, and another new opportunity to come back home. I was actually expecting to go, and then all doors closed once more and I was unable to make it. When it happened that time, I began to become aware that it was God and that he was trying to tell me something.
When the fifth year came, I had everything ready, and I was really looking forward to coming home for a vist," he said. "Then, just as before, all the doors sarted closing once again. So I went and prayed to God, and He told me that I needed to come here and speak to you!" As he said that, he tapped me right on the chest! Nevertheless, I still din't believe him. "Why would God do something like that?" I asked.
"Well, I didn't know! He said. "All I know is that I was so surprised that he had kept me in China all that time, and I was going around telling everyone there about "receiving Jesus," just as you had done. I mean there are thousands upon thousands of persons over there who have heard the word of God, and they've "got it right!" he exclaimed. "So I told God, I've been praying for him (me) morning, noon and night, for all these years, so what is it that you want me to do?" He then said that God told him that if he would promise to come and speak to me and tell me what had happened to me on the night that Billy Rose came, then He (God) would surely let him go home. He decided. And as soon as he had made up his mind to come and speak to me, he said, all the doors suddenly opened right up and that's when he had finaly, excitedly, headed back to the United States.
None of this was true, I had decided, and it must have shown on my face. He looked at me, and then he stepped back a little, and he began looking up in the sky. I was wondering what he was going on, so I asked. He replied that he was simply praying, and asking God what he needed to tell me so that I would know that what he was telling me was all, the exact truth.
Suddenly, there came over him a real flash of joy, and he began to thank the Lord. At the same time, he put his arm around my shoulder and said to me, "let's walk over to this cab. I've got something to show you over there."
We walked over to the cab. The driver stepped out. "Who am I?" He asked the driver, and the driver said he surely didn't know. "You've never met me before today, is that right," he said, asking the driver to confirm it or not. The driver agreed it was true. He had never seen this may before that very day. "And exactly where did you pick me up?" he asked the driver. At that, the driver said "Why. . . at the airport."
"And what did I tell you when I got into your cab?"
"You told me to take you right over here to this church. You said that there was a man over here that you had to speak to, and that he would be outside the church, at the back of the building, right here, waiting for you."
"You see," he said, turning to me. "I didn't even go home when I landed at the airport. I promised God that I would come and see you, and that was the very first thing on my list of things to do when I landed, and so here I am. Now do you believe me?"
I looked intently at the driver. He shrugged a little, and wasn't much help. The missionary didn't miss it, when I did. "Oh! I know!" he suddenly said, beckoning the driver to open the trunk of the cab. "Look, look, look" he said, "here's all the evidence you need." And at that he pulled a suitcase out from among a bunch of them while saying, "And were did all this luggage come from?" The cab driver immediately said, "I picked all that up when I picked you up at the airport . . . and we drove straight from there after you got off your plane!" Then he briefly restated it, saying they had driven right to this very spot, where I had seen him waving from the window!
"And just look at these air line tags!" he shouted. I looked. Every one of them were stamped, and official. They were each from China. Then he began to reach for his coat, to pull the airline tickets out from the pocket! "I belive you!" I said. "I believe! But why in the world did the Lord send you here to tell me all this?
"After talking to you and seeing what has been going on in your life at this church, I know exactly why the Lord sent me to speak to you." he said. "He sent me to tell you, that you're attending a dead church."
Even that was very difficult for me to believe, but it began to rapidly began to sink in as they drove away. He wouldn't give me his name, or tell me where he attended chruch. All he would volunteer was that all of his family lived in New Port Richey, Florida. In any event, this was one of the most incredible things that I had every had happened to me, and within a few weeks time I started attending another church.
After I left, all those who I had left behind, those who I had initially visited, and then tried to bring along in the light of having some real "spiritual values," they all broke off from that church and started Idelwild Baptist, in Tampa, Florida. Years later, I walked into the santuary there, and was greeded by various individuals who knew me from "way back then." It was a real comfort. So, in reply to your question and your wanting to know "if I am now a Christian," the answer is, "absolutely, yes." And I would advise anyone who is attending any church to be ABSOLUTELY SURE they have received Christ into their heart, and that they are indeed working on a "heart level" and not a "head level," in terms of any of their day to day encounters and/or experiences.

Elijah, 10/29/03 Tweet