How Late is Late?

A pastor I once knew told this story:

"At the end of my service one Sunday, while giving the altar call, a burden fell heavily upon me for a young man who was sitting at the end of the pew about midway up the aisle. He was just a teenager, a handsome young man, and I felt the Holy Spirit was specifically pointing him out to me. I left my pulpit and walked up the aisle. I invited him to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. He declined. I did something then I had never done, I pleaded, and again he declined. He made excuses, saying he was still young, had his whole life in front of him, and therefore had plenty of time to make that decision.

"The Spirit of the Lord pressed heavier upon me and I began to weep uncontrollably. Over and over again I pleaded with the young man but he continued to waver. I regained my composure, difficult as that was, then  returned to the pulpit to dismiss the service. I was speaking with parishoners at the front door of the church when we heard the crash just a block down the street. Some of us ran to the scene. It was the young man I had pleaded with. He had been killed instantly by a drunk driver who had ignored the stop sign."

The young man in this story - which is a true story -  had a date with destiny. Though he was still in his youth, his life came to an abrupt end in the flash of a moment. One must wonder if his life would have been spared if he had surrendered to the pastor and to Jesus. If he had, his departure from the church would have been delayed by well-wishers and welcoming handshakes and he would not have been at that intersection when the drunk driver ran the stop sign.

On the other hand, the omnipotent God knows all things and I believe He was pleading with the young man through the heart of the pastor. Only God knew if this was indeed this young man's time to die or if his life was stolen. Because God knows the beginning from the end, and the outcome of all situations ahead of time, He knew how this particular morning would turn out and I believe He grieved for the young man, bearing witness before men of His love and long-suffering.

One can only hope that the young man was convicted as he rushed from the church and that he surrendered to Christ in those last moments when he pulled his car from the curb and drove that one block to his death.

Don't think for a minute I am one of those preachers that tries to preach a dead sinner into heaven. I don't believe in that. I do however recall reading Chuck Colson's testimony regarding his conversion some thirty-plus years ago. He had been invited to a Christian fellowship in a private home. He was not a Christian at that time but he went. Feeling uncomfortable he left early, in a rainstorm, running to his car at the end of the driveway. Just as he closed the car door the Holy Spirit fell upon him with heavy conviction and he wept before God uncontrollably. There, in that rain and tear soaked night, sitting alone in his car because he was too shaken to drive, he gave his heart and his life to Jesus Christ. Today his prison ministry is well known and the night of his conversion is well documented.

It is not so with the young man that died. We have no way of knowing the content of his heart or the direction of his private thoughts just moments before that crash. We can only hope the words of the pastor and the patience of the Holy Spirit broke his heart in time.

So, we have to ask, "How late is late?" Can we slide in by the skin of our teeth? Some people, even theologians, don't believe in deathbed conversions. But I do! I have stood by sickbeds and administered prayers of faith more times than I can remember, and I have seen the enfolding of the Holy Spirit, the sparkling eyes, the warm lit faces covered with peace,  and the joy of one who has just met the Savior.

The thief on the cross was a deathbed conversion. He confessed his sins and agreed he deserved his punishment. Then - "Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom." He called Him, Lord, and with reverence he asked forgiveness ("Remember me...").

While the Disciples did not understand the marred and bloody death of their Messiah, the thief became the first convert to go through the Cross to follow the God-man upon it ("This man has done nothing wrong"), bearing witness before scornful men that the innocent Jesus was Christ the Lord.

The prophet Joel had prophesied that the day would come when all who call upon the name of the Lord would be saved (Acts 2-21 and Joel 2: 28-32).

That day came with Pentecost. There were 120 saints gathered in that upper room who became the seeds of the Church. Nicodemus was among them.

Moses was 120 years old when his life and his mission were interrupted by disobedience.  He will return to Jerusalem with Elijah to complete his mission during the great tribulation.

Before that God had given Noah 120 years to build the ark and preach the Gospel. Noah built the ark but he didn't win a single convert. There was just too much wickedness, too much violence in the earth, and all the people laughed at him - that is - until it began to rain - when it was too late...

I believe God gave the Church its final 120 years in 1890. We have had some great world evangelists in those 120 years but it just wasn't enough. The 120 years started out great with the first pioneering emigration to Israel of  Jewish pilgrims to prepare the land for the homecoming of the Jews. Then came the Azusa Street Revival in California that circled the globe, the great Welsh revival, Aimee Semple McPherson, Maria Woodworth-Etter, Billy Sunday, A.A. Allen, the great tent revivals of the 1940s and 1950s and those that carried the torch to new heights: Oral Roberts, Kathryn Kuhlman, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Adrian Rogers, Michael Evans, Bill Bright and a host of other notables that have followed the Spirit wheresoever He goes...

But the Church did not heed the awakening voices of these pastors and  evangelists. Staid and snug in every corner of every city and town in the civilized world, the pastors of the local churches slept on and failed their primary call. They failed basically because they did not stand against the steady flow of false teachers and hungry wolves.

Satan had sown tares among the wheat, sent spies into our camps, trained insurgents to pollute our sanctuaries and charmers to defile our youth. There was little to no real awareness among the pastors because of their own lukewarm hearts so, being deceived by the great deceiver, they rejected and threw out the true prophets and the anointed teachers thinking they were doing God and the Church a service. If they had been Spirit-led they would have discerned the difference. If they had been Spirit-led there might have been another great awakening, and the many who were lost might have been saved...

Judgment begins at the House of the Lord and teachers will receive the greatest scrutiny and judgment. The blood of the lost drips from the hands of the "Prosperity-Gospel" preachers and the sleepy pastors and teachers of the local churches.

Don't look for another flood. God promised Noah He would never send a flood to destroy the earth again. Look instead for earthquakes, violent shifts of the earth's crust of catastrophic proportions, invasive armies and nuclear wars. That is - if you are late - if you are left behind when Jesus comes...

How late is late?

I remember a pastor's wife who was a co-laborer in the faith during the 1980s. She told me this story: she was not always a Christian. In fact, she was not a Christian when she fell ill, was hospitalized and died. She didn't know a whole lot about heaven and hell - had never really cared about such things - but suddenly she felt herself falling, all tangled up in other people's bodies, or as she put it, "like worms falling out of a can." She fell and fell and then she began to feel heat and she knew in that moment she was falling into hell. Fear grabbed her soul and she screamed, "Jesus" at the top of her supernatural lungs. She knew she didn't have a physical body yet she had a body - arms, legs, hands, a head, etc. - a whole body - and it was falling into hell.

Suddenly, she stopped falling, just as the demons of hell were stretching to grab her feet. She screamed the Name of Jesus again and Her "body" began to  rise. She rose higher and higher until she could see the crest of the pit. She woke up on a stretcher in a linen closet with the door closed. She found out later that the orderlies had been taking her body to the morgue when they were interrupted with another call. So they wheeled her into the linen closet. They would take her to the morgue when they returned from the emergency.

She woke up totally healed of her maladies whatever they were, and they were such that she died of them. She woke up saying the name of Jesus over and over, weeping and thanking Him again and again while she lay in that linen closet. In the meantime her husband had left the hospital to notify the family and make funeral arrangements. When the orderlies returned, they all but fainted to find her alive, well, and perfectly coherent.  The doctors were notified and she was taken to a room where she insisted she was healed and she wanted to go home. Her husband was finally reached and he rushed back to the hospital.

She told her husband about Jesus - how He had delivered her from death and hell and had healed her. She told him how she had given her heart and life to Jesus and how she wanted him to be saved too. To bring this story to a close, they entered a Bible College and later built and established a church. There the husband preached the mercies of God and the wife played piano though she had never had a lesson in her life.  I attended their church for about a year and was greatly blessed by their fellowship. They are retired now, looking to their home-going whenever Jesus comes...

So...how late is late?

If you're late for a bus you can probably get the next one.  But if you're late meeting the Bridegroom you won't get into the wedding.

If you're late to a party you've probably missed nothing. But if you're late to a dinner "by-invitation-only" with the Savior you'll find the door closed and latched.

Yes, I know, you were just a little late. But late is late and even a moment's delay can be too late...