I Met A Christian

   Yesterday I was listening to a sermon by B. H. Clendennen. I listened very closely, as the great man preached about being a soldier. “I never knew anything about a warfare until I got born again” he said. “The greatest need in America isn’t more guns, and bigger bombs, what America needs is militant preachers!” the great man said, with powerful authority.

   He also told a story about when he was in WWII. He told how that, he knew nothing of religion until he joined the Marines. But everyone that was “religious” was just as much a sinner as he. So he said, “if there is a God, He cant be like that, and if He is, I don’t want Him.” Everywhere he went, in boot camp, when he was on the ship, everywhere, people wanted him to claim religion. But he never would claim anything, because he knew that, whoever God was, He wouldn’t produce a people like these so called religious people, that acted churchy on Sundays, and fought in the bars on Mondays. But one day, after returning to base to be given replacement troops, he was introduced to a new recruit. To put it in the man of Gods words, he says it like this, “there he was, 18 years old, 6ft tall, 42inch chest with a 29inch waist. So I took him to the introduce him to the boys, and then we gave him the free beer, but he said he didn’t want it.” then chuckling he would say, “so I said I would hold it for him, if he didn’t want it. So I took the beer and left him there with the other men, but it wasn’t long until someone came and asked me “Sergeant, what are we going to do with that new replacement?” I looked at him and said, “why, what is he doing?” he said back to me, “well, after you left out of the room with the free beer, he took out of his chest pocket, that little new testament bible of his, read it to himself for awhile, and then he knelt down at the cot, and started praying! And you can hear him clear outside the tent!” I said back to him, “well, there aint no law against praying in the tent” at that time there was no law about praying, “so there isn’t anything I can do about it.” So we just had to leave him alone.” he would always say. Then the great man of God would pick his story back up like this, “well, a few days later, I was walking down the sidewalk, after just losing a hundred dollars in a dice game, and that was a lot of money to lose when you are only making forty dollars a month anyway. And fighting a war to get that. So I was mad anyway, then I came upon that new replacement. He was setting up under a coconut tree, reading that little pocket new testament bible of his. So I walked over to him and said, “what’s wrong with you? You some kind of a religious crazy?!” Oh, He stood up,… all 6ft of him, with that 29inch waist, and 42inch chest. He put that little ribbon in his bible to mark his place, closed it up, put it back in that chest pocket and buttoned it up,… then stuck his finger right on the end of my nose… and said, “Sergeant… not you… nor this whole Marine Corps… will separate me from the love of God.” …and I realized I had met a Christian!! He wasn’t just religious, he was born again. The last time I seen that boy, he took a bullet in the head, he was bleeding everywhere, it was a mess. Never seen him again after that. Don’t know if he lived, of if he died, but I can tell you, if he lived… he is walking with the Lord, and if he died… he is in Heaven, cause he was born again! And after I got saved, many years later, I remembered that boy, and I realized He was a true Soldier for Christ! …He was a faithful Soldier! We must be Soldiers!”

   Beloved, I told you this story of brother Clendennen, to ask you one question… when sinners meet you, are they meeting a real Christian? Will they one day, be able to remember how they mocked you, scorned you… but you refused to stoop to the level of mere religion, and held your place as a truly born again believer, that stood on the simple truth… “nothing shall separate me from the Love of this Christ within me!!!”? My God! My God! I am telling you, beloved, we can be such Christians, that the world will look at us and say… “if I ever get religion… I want what they got, cause it is real! Hell comes against them, people make fun of them, but through it all, they hold on to something unseen, but something that is alive, and living in them and through them! Whatever it is… it is real!”

   Beloved, lets give the world something more than religion! Lets give them Christ! That when they look at us, they may say, “I met something real… I Met A Christian!”