He Wouldn'T Let Me Go to Hell

I grew up in a non-Christian home. My father was an agnostic who believed that nothing can be known as to the nature or existence of God, but I believe it was just a cover for the fact that he was a big sinner. My mother was a Catholic who didn't go to Mass very much and never read her big red Catholic Bible, which always sat prominently on her living room coffee table.

I was a latchkey kid because both my parents worked and we lived in a suburb of Chicago and across the alley from the back of our house was a minister. I went to school with one of his sons and this man took an interest in this lonely teenager who he knew wasn't living in a Christian home. So one day he invited me to have breakfast with his family and I was so lonely I agreed.

I'll never forget sitting at this pastor's kitchen table and he did something so strange it shocked me. He had us bow our heads in prayer as he said grace and gave thanks to God for the food before us and he actually thanked God that I was there. Imagine that, talking to God about me.

Well I started to attend their little church service and I soon enjoyed singing what they called hymns. This pastor had a Bible bookstore at the front of his meeting hall and he gave me my first job in that Bible bookstore. I mopped the floor with an old oil rag mop and learned how to work an old cash register but the thing that interested me the most in that Bible bookstore was a rack of gospel tracts.

There had to be over a hundred different gospel tracts for sale in that store and when things got slow I would grab one of those tracts and read about a pearl of great price or a buried treasure in a field and stories about old sea captains and hunters and I just loved reading those gospel tracts. You see friends, this man, this pastor, cared enough about my soul that he wouldn't let me go to hell and as I tell him my message today friends, he wouldn't let me go to hell. He prayed for me and he was kind to me and he gave me my first Bible which I still have today inscribed on the inside cover in his handwriting.

He was a man who was full of Jesus and he wanted me to know his Savior. Like I said, he wouldn't let me go to hell. Well I liked that little band of Christians who were like a big happy family and they accepted this awkward teenager into their midst and they treated me like they had always known me.

This man kept praying for me and loving on me and witnessing to me because he wouldn't let me go to hell. And one night he brought in a traveling evangelist from Canada who was my namesake and during that service I came forward and gave my heart to Christ Jesus. I was just 14 years old and that pastor was wise enough to have me meet him in his study early the next morning to explain to me what salvation in Christ was and he got down on his knees and he wept over me while he prayed that what happened to me would last and that I would grow in my knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

Well I was so excited I went home and told my parents what had happened and my mother started to swear and cuss and she cussed out those Christians and she forbade me from ever going back to that church again. We moved away shortly after this and I never ever saw that pastor man again but he was a man who cared enough about my soul that he wouldn't let me go to hell. Jesus said, I am the bread of life.

He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Jesus invites poor sinners to come to him and believe on him and he has a pure gospel promise to all who come and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Dear friend, perhaps your path has crossed with a teenager who is lost in the need of Christ Jesus.

Why not reach out to that young person and pour your life in them. Let them see Jesus in you and begin to agonize over their soul in desperate prayer that they will come to know the Savior. Be like that man who wouldn't let me go to hell because he cared enough for my soul.