FACING THE GALLOWS

THE ONE STORY that lives in my heart until today unfolded before my eyes when I was called to the death cells in 1976. There was a man who was condemned to death after he had committed three murders. He had chased away two different ministers, throwing their Bibles and literature out of his cell. I was asked to try and minister to him. On my first visit, he said that he was agnostic, believed in evolution, and wanted nothing to do with God. We talked for about an hour, but he did not move 1 mm from what he believed. Eventually I took out two pictures of our youngest daughter. One was taken in hospital, when she was given a one percent chance to live. The other was when she was about three years old, after being healed by God. She was a perfect little girl with all her faculties working. I told him about her healing and showed him the pictures. Without saying a word, he went on his knees and he accepted Jesus Christ as his Saviour. I gave him my Bible, which I still have today with all that he wrote in it while studying it during his last days. He started serving God and testified to all around him. The morning we took him out of his cell to be executed, I prayed for him and he took hold of my arm as we walked up the steps towards the gallows. At the gallows I wanted to pray once more for him but he refused. He said that he wanted to pray for me that God will never let me tire of working for Him in the prisons. His next words then sent a pain through my heart. He said: “Pastor, if I had only met you three years earlier, I would not have died as a murderer on the gallows.” Those words have stuck in my heart until today. Was there no one near that man in those dark days that could have told him about Jesus? How many people are missing Heaven because children of God do not talk about Him enough? - Philip Kruger, NOW, October 2010.