Five Guys in the Car

As noted before, we live on a corner lot, at the top of a hill. The street that goes down the hill has a green-belt trailhead where people love to congregate and sit in their cars and do all sorts of things, like socialize, eat, drink, and smoke. This past Saturday afternoon was one of those times where a group of guys were sitting in their car on this street, smoking and talking. I had to really work on my nerve to get myself to go out there to speak with them. I put on my jacket, grabbed a stack of Million Dollar Bills and prayed a quick prayer as I walked down toward the car. There were five guys in the car, and they were early high school aged and they were smoking cigarettes.

The guys gladly accepted the million dollar bills and without hesitation entered into a conversation with me. They asked, what the million dollar bills were, I told them they were Gospel tracts. I asked if they had heard the Gospel, they said they hadn't. I explained that "Gospel" was just Bible talk for "Good News." But before I could give them the Good News, I'd have to give them the Bad News first. They said okay. I said the Bad News is that we all have to die someday. And I asked them what they thought happened to someone when they died. There were a variety of answers, but one guy said, "I guess the whole heaven and hell things play a part." I said, do you guys think you'll go to heaven when you die, what do you think someone has to do to go to heaven? Do you guys consider yourselves to be good people. Then the driver had an interesting response, he said something like, "I'm probably not what you (or the Bible) would consider a good person."

As I began to go through a few of the Ten Commandments with them, one of the guys in the back seat got a phone call, but I went through them as quickly as possible. They agreed they had lied, (they denied ever stealing anything), and contested that looking with lust was equal with adultery. The driver asked something like, "how can you be guilty just by thinking something, its not the same as doing it." And I told him that our own judicial system had the same idea, where a person can be convicted of "Conspiricy to commit murder" without having done the actual crime.

They admitted that when they stand before God on Judgement Day that they'd be guilty and that they would probably deserve Hell. I tried to explain to them that Hell was a reasonable punishment for committing sins against a Holy and Righteous, Eternal God. At that point, the guy in the back starts complaining that he had to go so I very quickly gave them the Gospel, that even though they deserved Hell, God did something for them so they wouldn't have to go there. God became a man in Jesus Christ and died on the cross to take the punishment that they deserved. In other words Jesus paid their fine. At that they said they had to leave and drove off.

I did say to Dillon, "Talk to me again sometime." and he shook his head and said yes, he would.

God bless...