Day 26 - Witnessing Daily - "Content to Be the Doorman in Hell"

Had to pick up my lawn mower and weed eater from a guy who maintains them for me. He's an older gentleman who maintains landscaping equipment for company and then does his own stuff on the side out of his garage. He called me and said my equipment was ready to be picked up. I grabbed a check from the checkbook and then pulled out a celebrity million dollar that I thought might appeal to him--Robin Williams! Headed over to his house with my oldest son, Christopher. He showed me what he had done to my equipment, and we began to talk about the holiday weekend and what we'd be doing. Then I handed him the check and said I had something else for him, too, handing him the million dollar bill. He laughed and thought it was pretty funny. He liked Robin Williams' caricature. I then swung the conversation to the spiritual, letting him know that it was a gospel tract and asking him if he had a church background. He said he didn't like church or religion "because there are too many phonies." I acknowledged there were indeed many "phonies" who professed to be followers of the Lord but really weren't. I stressed that he shouldn't let the phonies prevent him from being saved and securing his eternal destiny by obeying the gospel. He said he would just "do his thing" and "try to live the way he thought was best and hope all works out in the end." As we went through the law together, showing him that he can't be good enough for things to work out well in the end, he admitted that fact and said "I guess I'm going to hell." "I'm just going to live my life and be content to be a doorman in hell." "Don't do that," I stressed! "God loves you so much that He stepped down out of heaven to pay the penalty for your sins, so you don't have to pay for them yourselves on the day of judgment and suffer God's justice yourself." "I don't want anything to do with religion," he protested. "That's fine," I responded, "because a true personal relationship with the Lord isn't about religion." "It's just not for me," he replied. "But think about your eternal destiny," I pleaded. "I care about your eternal destiny and God does, too." "Do you know what Jesus said to do so that you can know your eternal destiny will be heaven even though you don't deserve it?" "No," he admitted. I explained to him how to repent and trust in Jesus for salvation and how to follow Him in truth. I shared with him how his God-given conscience was working just as the bible said it should, because it was telling him he was guilty. It was telling him his destiny will be hell. And it was rightly confirming for him that being a phony is not right and not pleasing to God. He listened the whole time. He didn't argue. He just lacked knowledge of the truth. I wrapped it up by urging him to read the tract and consider his destiny before it's too. I asked him to think about the high price God paid because of His love for him and to act before it's too late. I also told him to call me any time he had any questions about such things. We parted in a very good spirit. Pray for Leon. I want to see him there, too.