John,

Your story reminded me of another.

I wrote a 4 lesson Bible study specifically to be used as an evangelism
tool.  A friend of mine and I were members of a church which had about 150
members.  The pastor had been there 40 years and was a great man of God.  My
friend, Keith, and I had been praying on sunday nights at the church for
close to a year with only one or two others ever coming.  finally, I put
this workbook together and Keith and I went to the pastor.  The idea was to
get others, who were interested of course, to use the work book in
establishing short 4 week home bible studies.  The workbook was made to help
people follow along, filling out information as it was studied from the
Scriptures, which ultimately led a person, not only to Christ, but to the
importance of following Christ into water baptism, and church membership.  I
knew a pastor who had used this method to build two different churches which
both reached a thousand in each church and in an amazingly short period of
time.  Additionally, other spin off churches were being established in
distance communities as a result.  When we presented this to the pastor, he
said he would be willing to announce it from the pulpit and even put it into
the bulletin.  He, on the other hand, said that he had tried everything,
over the years, and our plan would not work.  Keith had a man who worked for
him who was not born again.  He and his wife said they would like to have
the four week Bible study in their home once each week.  They were both not
saved.  The workbook I designed was made in such a way that you were leading
the person to Christ by the second Bible study.  The second week, the man's
wife was born again but when I began talking to Randy, her husband, about
salvation,  he said no.  After some discussion, it finally came out that he
would have to give up his marijuana and alcohol if he became a Christian.  I
worked on him, sort of speak, for some time trying to get him to see how
huge of a mistake he was making and to get saved now and let the rest be
taken care of by the Lord.  He kept saying, no, because, he said, "I know
God will make me give up these things."  A year or so passed and one day
Keith said, "I heard from Randy."  The man had stopped working on the house
building crew that Keith had.  I asked about Randy and Keith said, "Well, he
wants to come back to work.  Unfortunately, he has lost everything but
fortunately he is now born again."  I asked what happened.  Keith reported
that Randy's drinking and dope smoking finally pushed his marriage beyond
its limits and his wife divorced him.  They had two little girls, about 4
years of age, who were twins.  Randy finally hit bottom and checked himself
into a drug and drinking rehab.  Some place along the way, he got saved.
Thank God for that but he paid a big price for saying no once too many
times.

Phil.