Several years ago I parked my car in a residential area in Chicago. As I got out, my eyes glanced across the street. The homes on that street were two-story dwellings, the bottom floor being a partial basement. The entrance to the lower floor was under the front porch of the top floor.
My eyes fell upon three young men under the front porch of one of the homes, standing in front of the doorway to the lower residence. I was locking my car door when I felt that God conveyed to me a very specific and unmistakable directive: “Go tell to those young men about my Son.”
I had learned by that point in my Christian life that to ignore such a clear prompting of God as this would make for the kind of unrest that wold take away for some time the peace and closeness with God that I had come to enjoy so greatly. I crossed the street and began walking toward them.
As I approached them, I could tell that they were in their early to mid twenties. They all had long hair and were all dressed in similar fashion: blue jeans and denim jackets. They also seemed to share another distinction in their appearance: their clothing was covered with unusual emblems, hand-drawn with a black marker, along with some insignias and buttons that I did not recognize.
Not knowing how else to begin, I simply introduced myself and told them why I was there. I said to them, that “as I got out of my car across the street just now, God impressed upon me to come over here and share my faith with you guys.”
That was when they all broke into a slight grin and began to exchange knowing glances with one another. I had the distinct feeling that something was amiss. I also knew that it would be best to deal with this now. I asked them directly, but politely: “Alright now. I see that you all have this we-know-something-you-don’t-know look; does anybody want to tell me what that’s all about?”
As their smirks grew to modest grins and they looked at one another as if to decide which of them should spit it out, the one to my right looked at me and gave me the answer: “We worship Satan!”
I could tell that they fully expected their startling confession to end our encounter, perhaps sending me running back to my car with arms flailing. In fact, it had the opposite effect: I
became very determined to tell them about Jesus Christ. Here is how our conversation went:
Calmly and and in a quiet tone, I spoke: “So you fellas worship Satan. Well, I worship the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me tell you why. I worship Him because of His great love for me. Have any of you ever been truly loved? Jesus loved me so much that He was willing to bleed to death and die a death of torture and anguish on a wooden cross to pay for my sins when it was fully in His power to avoid the cross and be in Heaven. He loves me so much that He has prepared a place for me in Heaven that is so beautiful as to defy description by any human language. If I had been the only person on earth, He would have given His life for me just the same. And you know, He loved me this much when I was pretty unlovable. He had no illusions about me. Not only that, but He has given me a life of inner peace and blessings right here on earth.”
“Now if I may, let me ask each of you an important question: what kind of deal does Satan have for you? Is he motivated by love for you, or are your lives just fuel for his rage against God? I think everyone knows where Satan winds up. He winds up in the fires of Hell as a prisoner himself, doesn’t he? And guess what? He wants your company there. Does that sound like a good deal to you?”
The three young men fell silent. The smirks were gone. They were no longer looking at each other, or at me. They all looked down. Quietly, I again began to speak.
“One day I prayed a prayer to God–a very important prayer. I reached out to Him from my heart and asked Him to come into my life,” I told them. “I’d like to pray that prayer with the three of you again right here, right now. If you want, you can pray along with me in your heart. That is 100% up to you. Only you and God will know, and I won’t ask you after. If what I am going to pray expresses what is in your heart, then pray. If it doesn’t, then don’t. Is that fair?” Something had changed in their demeanor. The cockiness was gone as all three just shook their heads in agreement. I began to pray aloud.
“Dear Lord, I thank you that you cared enough for these three young men to send me over here to express your love for them. I sure do thank you that You offered this love to me one day in April in 1983. We all know that we are sinners and that we have fallen fall short of pleasing You. For this we are truly sorry and ask your forgiveness. We want to turn our lives around today and accept not only your love for us, but also the payment You made with your own blood on the cross for our sins. If there is anyone here serious about trusting You to save their souls from the eternal fires of Hell, I pray that You would take them in right now and accept them to be one of yours for all eternity, just as you did me. Amen.”
After that prayer, the atmosphere under that porch was transformed. The young man on my right was visibly moved. Not a word was said for probably over a minute. This young man then related to me the following story, which I will do my best to recount in his own words.
He began by telling me of an experience he had had the very night before: “Last night I went to a Black Mass at midnight [a Satanic ritual and worship service]. It was my first one. The priest gave me a cross. It was made out of wood. He wanted me to break the arms off it [a symbolic expression of being anti-Christ]. Everybody there was looking at me and waiting. But there was something saying to me, ‘don’t do it.’ Everybody there waited and waited . . . but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t think I was going to have any problem breaking the cross, but when they put it in my hands and I looked down at it, I was shaking and I couldn’t do it. I have been up all night with my friends and we talked about it, and that I should try again at the next Black Mass. I didn’t know why I couldn’t break it.”
Then the young man looked toward me, although not directly at me as he spoke a few short words that I have never forgotten: “Now I know why. I just asked Jesus to save me when we prayed.”
The other two men never spoke. As I had promised, I didn’t ask them anything. I prayed for all three of them regularly after that, especially the one I knew had put his faith in Christ, but I never saw them again.
As I look back on that experience now, I am struck by not just the beauty of God’s grace, but by its power. God’s grace reached into a Satanic Black Mass and touched the heart of a young man on the edge of a dark and eternal abyss. God pulled him back from the edge, and within hours sent a divinely commissioned messenger to bring him into the heavenly fold.
We serve a wonderful and gracious God.
Jerry Kaifetz
