The Eagle Magazine
"For Once in My Life"
It was July of 1976; I’d been in Guatemala for over a month. We were spending the day in Antigua, the name means old city, because for two hundred years it was the Spanish Colonial Capital. Today, and for many years, the Capital is Guatemala City with a population of a million. Antigua is now a city of about fifty thousand and is one of the most beautiful cities in Central America.
It was hot that day but being the rainy season, the heat was broken around one o’clock with a shower that lasted about an hour. During this time of year, we got that rain everyday like clockwork, and then it would be sunny till around midnight when the night rain came, that would last for several hours, but come day break the rain would have stopped and the air was fresh and clean. It was as if the Lord God of heaven washed the whole world while we slept.
Well, I had ducked into a shop during the shower, and seeing the rain was over I walked out onto the sidewalk. I thought I knew enough Spanish to get by, but still I was often stumped, especially when speaking with someone I didn’t know well. That evening we were showing a gospel film and I was on the streets of Antigua inviting people to attend. I saw a bearded man about my age, I was 19 at the time, walking my way, so I ask him in Spanish, if he lived in this city. He replied that no, he was there to see the volcanoes. The city is surrounded by four volcanoes, including Acatenango, an active volcano with two peaks. He then begins to ask me if I had visited any of the volcanoes in that area.
I began to tell him why I was in Guatemala and thought I would point to the building we had rented to show the film, then I realized I had turned the corner and was on a different street. At that point my Spanish failed me, I was terrible at directions always getting lzqulierdo y derecho, left and right, confused. At that point the young man said to me in perfect English, “do you mean turn right at the next corner?”. I smiled with great relief and said, “wonderful, you speak English.” He told me he was from upstate New York and was a college student, he had been several months in Guatemala, specifically to study the many volcanoes.
At that point I began to witness to him about salvation. During the conversation, he said. “I don’t need salvation from a man who lived two thousand years ago.” I pointed out that because we are all sinners, we need a perfect Savior to sacrifice His life in payment for our sins, “he paid a debt he didn’t owe, because I had a debt I couldn’t pay.” That’s when it happened, the only time in my life when someone said to me, “I’m not a sinner, not once in my life have I sinned.” I have had people tell me they were, or had attained, sinlessness but never had anyone said to me “I’ve never sinned”. He proceeded to tell me that if he had sinned then so had Christ because he cursed the fig tree when that tree was perfectly innocent.
I spent about an hour with him that day trying to convince him that he truly was a sinner, but I had no reasoning or arguments that moved him even the slightest. In my life since that day, I have prayed for that young man. I often wondered if it was my fault he did not get saved. Maybe if I’d used different scriptures or had a better argument, I might have convinced him? Well, here’s the truth to that…… It’s recorded in Mark 2:16-17, “And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?
When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Of course, Jesus was saying, the self-righteous have the feeling that they don’t need the Savior, notice he said, “I came not to call the righteous”. We never argue anyone into heaven, salvation is of the heart, and until that heart is open Jesus will not come in. I also remember this: Matthew 7:14, “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
I’ve often wondered if that man ever changed his mind, maybe a trial of life, some grief that overtook him or some moment he considered eternity and was moved to come to Christ. I suppose I will not know until my time is done and I step into eternity. But I do know this, it still takes Jesus’ blood and the Father’s forgiveness to enter that straight gate.
