Editors note: This is a true personal story. The names have been changed to protect the privacy of some people.
Before I began serving as Pastor of Abilene Baptist Church, I was serving a fine group of people in Metter, GA at Metter Baptist Church. The Lord gave me a wonderful ministry among those great people for four years. I remember that Dr. Michael Guido was a member of the church and he was also the head of The Guido Evangelistic Association. We became great friends and I gained a lot of wonderful insights for ministry from my dear friend, Michael. He made my time in Metter especially delightful. I will never forget him and his far-reaching ministry.
There were many wonderful people in the Metter Baptist Church and Mrs. Jones was one of them. She was an elderly lady who would, from time to time, bring our family the most wonderful pound cake one has ever put in their mouth. My taste buds would start singing the Hallelujah Chorus when I saw her coming with a pound cake. She was a faithful member of the church who was respected and loved by everyone. Mrs. Jones had a husband who was almost the total opposite of her. He was as old fashioned as one can get with very little room for fun or friendliness in his personality. Mr. Jones was a member of a church which was located right behind our facility across a wide alley-street. They had a theology which was almost totally different from ours which taught that if one was to be saved they would be saved no matter what they did. It is stated like this: “What will be, will be” and he believed that approach all the way down to his bones.
One day, Mrs. Jones brought me a pound cake and then she asked me to go see her husband and talk to him about being saved because she doubted that he was. So, the next day I made my way out to the old white country home on the outskirts of Metter. It was such an old house that it had the kitchen separated from the main house by a covered walkway. It was surrounded by pecan trees that were bare of leaves and pecans as it was in the midst of winter when I went to see him. After I knocked on the door several times, he finally came and welcomed me inside. It was almost as cold in the house as it was outside. I was taken to the living room where there was a pot-bellied stove providing the heat. It was so hot that the metal was a dull red. I looked around that room and I observed that there were old Atlanta Journals stacked on the floor about knee high all around the perimeter of the room. Some were so old that the paper was dark brown and crumbling away. I thought, man, if a spark got out of that pot-bellied stove in this room it would go off like a bomb.
Mr. Jones was chewing tobacco and spitting the juice in a tin can sitting down by his chair. As I began to talk with him about his soul and how he could make sure he would be in heaven, he took a moment to spit in his tin can and then said this to me: “Preacher, I believe that what will be will be. There ain’t nothing I can do to go to heaven and I can’t do nothing that will keep me from going there. I believe what will be will be.” I left that day having gained no ground with this old country fellow. He let me know the conversation was over.
It wasn’t long before Mrs. Jones was back with another pound cake and another request that I visit her husband to talk with him again. I agreed and went back out to that old country home. After a good, friendly conversation, I brought up the subject of being saved again and was told the same thing as before: “Preacher, I believe what will be will be and I can’t do nothing to change things. If I’m going to heaven, I’m going to heaven and if I’m going to hell nothing can stop it.” Very discouraging!
Now, Mr. Jones was a man who was not in good health and about every three months he would be put in the hospital in the Intensive Care room. He would be near death with tubes all over him putting medicine in his veins. Then, about two weeks later, he would be back at the coffee table with the “boys” in a local restaurant. This happened so much that when I would hear that Mr. Jones was in the hospital Intensive Care room, I would say: “Don’t worry he will be back at the coffee table in only a few days.”
After one of these trips to the hospital, the family of this dear brother called and asked me to come see him as he was in very bad shape and was calling for me. Of course, I immediately went to see him. They had put him in a private room so that he would die in private with his family around him. I tapped on the door and his daughter stood and welcomed me by saying….”Come on in Brother Bill.” When Mr. Jones heard my name, he sat up in the bed as far as he could because he had been restrained due to his trying to pull the tubes from his arms. Even though his hand was tied to the bed frame, he managed to crook his finger toward me and signal for me to come to his beside in a hurry. When I got to his bedside and took him by the hand he said: “Preacher, preacher, I done done something ain’t nobody ever done before. Well, I wanted to find out what in the world that could be and I asked him what he was talking about. He said, “Preacher, I died and they got me back!” “Ain’t nobody ever done that before!!
Obviously he did not know that people could be resuscitated. Well, the door was standing wide open and I asked him: “Mr. Jones, when the lights went out you thought it was all over didn’t you?” He said: “Yes, I did. I thought I was a goner.” I replied by saying: “Mr. Jones, when the lights went out was ‘what will be, will be’ good enough? He quickly responded by saying: “No, no, no it wasn’t. I want to be saved right now.!!” So, I led Mr. Jones to give his heart and life to Jesus.” It was a glorious experience to see his face light up and peach come into his eyes.
One day some months later while at the Georgia Baptist Convention at Jekyll Island, I received a phone call which related to me that Mr. Jones had actually died and that the family wanted me to come and preach his funeral. This was after I had been called to Abilene as Pastor. I agreed to leave the convention and go to Metter and someone came and got me from the convention. The next day we held Mr. Jones funeral service. I determined that I was going to tell that story at his funeral and I did so. After the service we went to a beautiful cemetery and interred our old friend.
Following the brief cemetery ceremony all the friends and neighbors were standing around talking and visiting with each other. In a few minutes, Mr. Jones daughter came to me and said that she wanted to tell me “the rest of the story.” She said that one day not long after my hospital visit when he got saved, she was taking him down to another town not far away to get his hair cut. His barber would cut his hair for .75 cents and he always went there for a trim. She said that as she was driving along, she noticed that he was crying and she inquired as to why he was doing so. She related to me that he told her this story: He said that “when he died in the hospital that the devil came and got him. He sat him down on a keg of nails and told him to remain there because he was leaving for a minute but that he would be right back to get him.” He related to her that as the devil was leaving, he looked up and saw someone else coming down the road dressed in a gleaming white robe. That person told him: “Mr. Jones, it’s not your time” and immediately he woke up in the hospital and told his daughter to call for Brother Bill. A few minutes later I came to the door and led him to trust in Jesus for his salvation. So, then I had the rest of the story.
This man never really died but was resuscitated before death came. But, what he experienced during those moments of near death was real and resulted in finally getting his attention and ultimately his accepting of Jesus Christ as his savior. Many people think that they have done something so bad that they cannot be saved. Others think that they have denied Christ for so long that they don’t deserve to be saved. Then others are trusting in a process to be saved that does not include Jesus. The Bible teaches that “a person must believe that Jesus is God’s Son and that God raised Him from the dead.”.. Romans 10:9-10. That is what Mr. Jones finally did and we give the Lord all the credit for his salvation. Friend, this story teaches us that, with Jesus it’s Never Too Late.
