While in seminary I was privileged to be the pastor of a country church for a couple of years. Those years were very valuable to me because I was able to learn many things pertinent to the ministry which would prove to be very beneficial in the future. My first opportunity for service after seminary was at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Cartersville, GA. Those great people saw fit to call me as their Associate Pastor in charge of Evangelism and Education. It was a daunting task but one which I relished and the Lord blessed my ministry among those good people.
The Pastor under whom I served was a man by the name of Rev. Howard Merritt.
He had been the pastor of the church for seven years when I arrived. We had a lot of good times together and one day we were discussing people we had led to the Lord over the years. Some are ready to be saved while others are difficult people to lead to a saving knowledge of Christ. As we discussed our different experiences, Howard mentioned a certain man who lived in the city that many had attempted to lead to Christ without success. He just seemed to be beyond the reach of those who tried to witness to him. So, the Pastor gave me an assignment. He said: “Bill, why don’t you go and try to win him to the Lord. I think he just wanted to see if I would have any success beyond what others had experienced. He told me a little about the man and the circumstances so that I would not go into the situation blind. As you will see, there was one little fact he failed to mention.
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A couple of days later I was able to determine that this person was at home and would be open to speaking with me so I drove over to his house. He was very friendly to me but one could tell that he was guarded. I’m sure he was thinking “well, if they think this guy is going to win me to the Lord, they have another think coming.” We went into his den, sat down and began a conversation. I didn’t want to jump right in and start a deep conversation so I looked around for something with which I could break the ice. I happened to notice that he had a chess set on his coffee table. It was a nice one. Now, the back story on chess is that I was pretty good at the game. When in Valdosta State University, I worked for a clothing store in one of the shopping centers. There were four of us working in that store; the owner and three salesmen. As most who have worked retail sales can affirm, “when it rains it pours.” We would go for an hour or so with no customers but then the store would fill up and we could hardly handle the crowd.
But when business was slack, we found something to occupy our time.
The store had a gift section and, in that section there was a chess set. So, we all decided that after the store was cleaned and put in order each day, we would play chess until customers came in. None of us knew much about the game except I knew how the pieces were to move. This was during the days of Bobby Fisher who was a world champ chess player. People were intrigued with the game at that time. So were we. We read instruction books and played a lot of chess. As it turned out, another salesman and I were better players than the other two. We were pretty evenly matched. We played chess for several months and became fairly proficient at it but, we did not know what level of chess we were playing. We had nothing by which to gage our game until this particular person went to summer camp for Reserve training. When he returned, he said: “Son, (a term of friendship) we are playing pretty good chess! I played the Georgia State Champ from last year and beat him three games out of five.” Man, was I excited. I knew we had really dedicated ourselves to learning the game but I did not know we were playing chess at such a high level. Although Bobby Fisher would not have been impressed, we were.
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So, here I am in this man’s den looking at this chess set and he said: “Do you know how to play chess?” I decided I would tease him a little bit so I acted as if I only knew some rudimentary things like the movement of some of the pieces and he said well, let me show you some moves.” I thought that it would be a good thing to do just to break the ice, so I said, “lets see….this Rook moves straight horizontally or vertically as long as the board is unobstructed, right? He answered in the affirmative. “And this Bishop can go diagonally as far as there is room.” Yes, again. I went through all the pieces of the game and convinced him I knew almost nothing of the game of Chess. Then I said, “if I were to move this pawn out one space, what would you do.” He replied that he would move a certain piece a space or two. Then, I asked him that if I moved a Bishop diagonally to a certain spot, what would he do. He moved another piece on the board. “If I moved my Queen diagonally to the right?” He made his move in response. Then I put my Queen right in front of his King and said: “Checkmate!” He looked at me with a grin on his face and said: “You have played this game before!” I confessed that I had and we had a good laugh.
As we talked, I noticed that he relaxed with me. And I began my presentation of the Gospel and salvation through the blood of Jesus. This dear man looked at me with tears in his eyes and said: “Pastor, I can’t be saved.” Why? I inquired. He told me that the reason he could not be saved is that he had killed a man with a pool cue. The story of the incident was related to me through sobs. It seems that he was playing a game of pool with some men one day and his opponent had cheated during the game. An argument ensued and then a fight. Feeling fear for his life, my host said that he had turned the pool cue around and hit the man across the bridge of the nose with it. It killed the person instantly. So, now I knew why this person would say that he could not be saved. He said, “God isn’t going to let me in heaven because I killed a man with a pool cue.”
The door was wide open! I told him that anyone can be saved. “Not me” was his reply. Then, I explained that any sin other than blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would be forgiven by the shed blood of Jesus if a person with a repentant heart honestly and truly asked Jesus to save them. I explained that the scripture says,
“….and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin”…I john 1:7. It further says…”If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”….I John 1:9.
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And that’s still the message today. There may be many reading this article today that feel as my friend did. They may feel that they can’t be saved because of something in their life. It could be anything that the devil has convinced them that God will not forgive. Remember this, God’s grace and mercy can reach further than any sin could make us fall if we will only come to Him in repentance and accept the fact that He will do as He says and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God wants to redeem a person from any and all sin. It just takes a person accepting His forgiveness in faith and relying on God to do as He says He will do. The sacrificial death of Jesus on the Cross is powerful enough to deal with any sin in your life. Trust Him and let Him do what he died for….the forgiveness of your sins.
Reverend William (Bill) Harrell has been in ministry 48 years. He served as the pastor of Abilene Baptist Church in Martinez, GA for over 30 of those years. He can be reached at wfh@williamfharrell.com. You can also check out his blog at www.williamfharrell.com.
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