"FOREVER IS FOREVER!"

...."FOREVER IS FOREVER!!!"


...As We stated last time in our ongoing Saga of how God Miraculously and lovingly got my attention and plucked me out of the bottomless pit...

I found myself in attendance at Gary Knight's Funeral, at The New Hope Baptist Church In Comstock Michigan...Billy Mann Was the Pastor There, and He was waxing eloquent,  on the reality of our  fragile mortality and uncertain Human lives...

...Now this is no great revelation...

... that we are here one moment and then gone in  another...

...But Gary Knight, and Ephraim Maya,  visited my wife and I, sharing  God's plan of Salvation  In Kalamazoo just a week earlier...

...Gary pressed me to make a decision, right then and there before they left...
...and my argument for not becoming a Christian at that moment...
... was based on the fact, that I was a young man about 19 20 years old,
... and I felt like I had plenty of time left before I needed to be overly concerned with spiritual matters... Like Life and Death... and my Eternal destination!

Oh I believed in God as a matter of intellectual understanding,
... but I was a party animal, and a devout Hedonist.

...I was totally committed to the Philosophy of...
....If it feels good ???

DO IT!!!  
...PARTY TILL YOU PUKE!
IF IT WORE A SKIRT, OR TIGHT BLUE JEANS, WITH OR WITHOUT BIKINI PANTIES...TRY MY BEST TO FIND OUT IF THEIR WAS A CHERRY INSIDE.

THAT'S THE GENERATION THAT I GREW UP IN!!!

Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll
 ...There was no way I was going to give that all up For A God and A religion of ...
..."THOU SHALT NOTS!"...

I had enough Bible Knowledge to send me straight to hell!

...I had heard that God was a loving and a forgiving God and that you could could make a death bed confession!

... I was enough of a scam artist to believe that I could Live a long lifetime of self serving pleasure seeking and still get into heaven at the last moment, even with the smoke rolling off my ass...

That was my plan for getting into heaven...

I would cheat the devil out of his due at the last moment and then I would have the last laugh...I would have my cake and eat it too!

...That was basically what I told Gary and Ephraim and Gary being the dynamic and excited witness for God that he was, never Blinked an eye,
 but proceeded to tell me,
 That I was living a dangerous gamble and that the eternal destiny of my soul was at stake.

He passionately challenged me and my ridiculous ideas of outsmarting God and the Devil and assured me that we have no guarantees for the next 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days, 5 weeks, 5 or 50 years...

And that we could easily die in the blink of an eye and never get that chance to get right with God before we went out into eternity forever at that instantaneous moment of death where it would forever be too late... with no remedy for our redemption.

I remember so well the very scripture he opened his Bible to and had me read it out loud...

Galations 6: 7-8
"Be not deceived, God is not mocked: For whatsover a man Soweth, that shall he also reap."
"For he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit, reap life everlasting!"

I don't know if those two Awesome young men of God were discouraged that day when they left our house, at not being able to convince me to turn my life over to God's control...

I suspect they went out to their car that day and prayed together that God would  show me that what they had shared with me would somehow be revealed to me in such a way that I would have no choice but to believe it was absolutely and undeniably true!!!

One week later to the day...I was sitting in a church for the first time in a long time saying Good bye to Gary Knight as they shut the lid on his coffin and his Pastor was pleading with all of us present to accept Jesus As our Lord and Saviour,

...Just like Gary had predicted...He died suddenly and in a blink of an eye while working for the city of Portage Michigan trying to set a flagpole in place, was electrocuted when the pole came in contact with some high voltage electrical wires.  

He was killed instantly while his workmate was spared with some burns to his hands and feet.

I'll never understand why I didn't respond to God's tug on my heart at Gary Knight's funeral???

The Holy Spirit was definitely calling me to surrender and be saved...
 but I chose to walk away, rejecting God's loving call on my life...
 ... I continued to gamble with my soul hanging in the balance for a couple of more years.

For the next two years, God pulled out all the stops in showing me his love and mercy as he over and over again tried to woooooo me into the fold, ...

But I have to tell you that my guardian angel worked a whole lot of overtime and definitely earned his wings protecting me, because Satan and his demonic legions unleashed Hell's fury in an all out assault to destroy me and my loved ones...

SO STAY TUNED FOR THE REST OF THAT STORY, BECAUSE IT IS NOTHING SHORT OF MIRACULOUS HOW I AND ALL THOSE CLOSE TO ME SURVIVED UNTIL APRIL 12, 1981 WHEN I WALKED THROUGH THE DOORS OF TEXAS AVENUE BAPTIST CHURCH AT 12:05 PM THAT SUNDAY AFTERNOON ON THE LAST DAY OF THEIR REVIVAL AND GOD BROUGHT REVIVAL TO THAT CITY, THAT LITTLE CHURCH AND TO JUST ABOUT EVERYONE IN MY LIFE.

IT IS AN INCREDIBLY EXCITING AND MIRACULOUS STORY...

"GOD IS NOT WILLING THAT ANY SHOULD PERISH, BUT THAT ALL WOULD COME TO REPENTANCE AND TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SAVING GRACE OF JESUS CHRIST!"

In Jesus Name

Brother Michael