The Church Security Guard…

While we were at a conference last month, I had an interesting witnessing opportunity. The conference that we were at was a Christian conference, and was being hosted in a large Christian church.

Partway through the conference the Lord put on my heart that I should be attempting to share the gospel with some of the staff that were helping at the conference, several of whom appeared to be lost (obviously, we can never judge one’s salvation, but, we do know from Scripture that the fruit of one’s life testifies as to whether they know Christ, and when one sees a person that blends in to the world and doesn’t appear to have any fruit of the Spirit, one tends to suspect the person doesn’t know Jesus).

Near the front entrance there was a desk, behind which sat an older gentleman, who was the conference security guard. At one point I had a few minutes and stopped by the desk. I started the conversation by asking some questions that I genuinely wanted to know about: had he ever had anything exciting happen while he was working as a guard (they’d had several people at different conferences or worship services faint); was the job boring; did he enjoy his work; etc. I then segued into the gospel by asking him if this was just his job, or if it was his church as well. He said it was both.

I We chatted about the church a bit, and then I started into the good person test. I was surprised when he felt he had kept the ten commandments! We went through several of the commandments: lying, stealing, blasphemy, and adultery – which he readily admitted to. I then asked if he were to die, and God judged him based on those ten commandments, as He says He will, would he be innocent or guilty. He said it depends upon how you look at it.

I said God has told us how he’ll look at it, and that we just went through four of the commandments and he was guilty of breaking them all, so if God judged him based on just those four commandments, would he be innocent or guilty. He finally admitted he would be guilty. I asked if he would go to heaven or hell, and again he hedged!

Here was a church-going man, who admitted to breaking the commandments, but didn’t appear to have any clear idea about true salvation, heaven and hell, and from what Jesus had redeemed him.

Instead of pressing the point of heaven or hell we then talked about the false hope that many have. Those that would claim to be Christians but aren’t. We talked about the various court-system analogies (confessing one’s sin, trying to live right, and doing good works) and how such strategies are useless when it comes to our eternal destiny. He agreed with everything.

I then shared the gospel with him – which he also agreed with.

I was concerned for his soul as he appeared to know some things about God in his head, but it didn’t appear to have changed his heart!

All in all, we had an excellent conversation (he enjoyed our talk as well!) and he definitely heard the entire gospel: from breaking the commandments to what Jesus has done for him.