I was pastor of a new church that was averaging about thirty folks. The church had been a little larger and a lazy preacher had almost closed the doors.
God opened a door for me to become their pastor and in less than three years we had grew to approximately 170 regular Sunday morning attendees, 100 in the evening and about 60-70 during the Wednesday night prayer and Bible study.
One of our ladies won a lady to Christ that had a very sordid past, she had been a madam and bootlegger for all her adult life. Then when she was about 65 the dear Lord saved her and she became a real influence for the gospel.
The husband that she was with at the time of her conversion was number 6 or 7, I think she was certain for she had married and lived with a great number of men during her life and much of that time was spent under the influence of alcohol.
His name was Chuck (not his real name), and he would come to church with her most of the time. I began to notice that he was under heavy conviction and made a few attempts to speak to him about his soul. He was receptive, but would not take the final step of asking Christ into his heart. He told a daughter his or theirs, I’m not certain which, that he was going to go forward and be saved on the upcoming Sunday. This was on Thursday night that he made the statement.
O-To God that he would have called me, but he did not.
On Friday at about lunch he was preparing his lunch and home alone. For some reason he needed another ingredient for his meal. With the stove turned to low he went out and drove his truck about four blocks to the corner market, he was a notoriously fast driver. On the return trip, a semi truck was across the street backing into a drive, and Chuck came around the corner at a high rate of speed and crashed.
He was instantly decapitated.
I was summoned to the local emergency room and there his wife made this statement, “Pastor he waited too long!”
Sadly that will be the epithet of many in this world today.
James Avery jamesaveryfwb@earthlink.net