Yesterday I was awakened from a siesta by the squeaking of a rusted van door and the sigh of relief of worn shocks as the occupant got out of a rust red 1980 Dodge conversion van. A thick puff of dust rose around a pair of feet, with ankles as thick as fence posts, as a woman stepped from the vehicle. She sported a pink checkered sack dress that hung well below her knees. Her hair was graying blond and piled haphazardly upon her head in the semblance of a bunn. Her face was red from the exertion of getting out of her vehicle, but she put on a big smile as she waddled towards the house, a Bible in one hand.
Bubba BiGot Jr. III was sitting in a rocker on his front porch. He scowled like Clint Eastwood's character in 'Gran Torino', as much in distaste of the butt-ugle van sitting in his driveway as at its driver. Bubba, or T.T. as I like to call him, is a Ford man. Undeterred by his stare, the woman approached the bottom step and greeted T.T. "A glorious day to you sir! My name is Faith Newsome and I'm from The First Apostolic Free-Will Baptist Church over in Durham, and I was in the area and wanted to see if I could speak to the young lady that lives here. She visited with us a couple of weeks ago with Sister Ruby Pike and I just wanted to see if she needed a ride to church tomorrow."
T.T. scowled even more at the mention of Ruby Pike, that self-righteous busy-body neighbor who lived a couple of houses down the road. "She's out of town for a couple of weeks visiting her mother." T.T. responded, hoping the woman would turn around and get back into her van and leave.
A look of disappointment replaced Faith's smile. This was the third house she'd visited trying to get people to come with her to church the following day. "I see." she replied. "Well, please tell her I came by and I hope she will come out and visit us when she gets back, from Georgia, isn't it?
"Yep." T.T. said. Obviously his daughter had told Ruby Pike and she'd blabbed it all over the church.
Unwilling to trudge all the way back to her van, the woman decided to strike up a conversation with T.T., hoping he'd at least invite her to get out of the sun and have a seat on the porch. "Sir, before I go, could I ask you a question?" Faith climbed the first step as she spoke.
T.T. sighed. I could hear it from the van where I was busy marking the tires. He knew what was coming. "Sure", he replied.
Faith took another step. "Well, if you were to die today, do you know where you'd spend eternity?"
"Sure do." T.T. said.
After a few seconds it became apparent that T.T. wasn't going to elaborate further, so Faith tried to draw the answer from him. "That's good. So you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?"
"Yep."
T.T.'s reticence to respond with more than two words was causing Faith to have doubts that T.T. really believed in Christ. She wanted to help him understand what being saved really means. "And you know that we've all sinned and fallen short of the Kingdom of God and that without Jesus' atoning blood spilled on your behalf you are condemned to an eternity in the fiery pits of hell along with Satan and his host of demons....eternally separated from God....with no hope just eternal pain and misery...away from those you love and who now rest in the loving arms of the Creator." Faith paused for breath. "You do know you can't get to Heaven without Jesus, don't you?"
"Yes ma'am. I've gone to church most of my life. I've read the Bible from cover to cover. I know what the Bible says."
Thinking she'd found a flaw in T.T.'s response, Faith took two more steps and stood on the porch only a few feet from T.T. I moved a bit closer in case T.T. needed help fending her off.
"But don't you know, Mr. BiGot, that just going to church and reading the Bible doesn't mean you have a saving relationship with the Lord! You've got to repent from all your sins and obey the Word of God if you want to spend eternity with the Father."
"I 'spose." T.T. replied.
A lock of Faith's hair had worked loose from the clip and now hung over her eyes. She was starting to look more and more like Carrie's mother from that Stephen King movie.
"Not every church teaches the entire gospel, Mr. BiGot. You've got to be in a Bible-believing, Spirit-filled church if you want to get to know God."
"I attend The Carpenter's Shop over in Creedmoor."
Faith had never heard of the church. "That's good, but you need to hear the gospel from a preacher that knows the Word like our pastor. Pastor Woody Carver has been preaching at First Apostolic Free Will since 1992. He's a powerful man of God who ain't afraid to call sin sin. He don't stand by like other pastors and accept sin in his church. You won't find any homosexuals or harlots there. If you don't pay your tithes, he'll call you out in public because not paying your tithes isn't a financial issue, it's a faith issue and it needs to be dealt with. You need to have folks around you who will help hold your feet to the fire when you start back-sliding. That's the kind of Christians you'll find at First Apostolic Free Will Baptist Church."
T.T. had heard just about enough by now,so he decided to have some fun with Ms. Faith. "I used to be a Baptist, but then I got saved." he replied.
Stunned, Faith just stood with her mouth hanging open. No he didn't! This insolent heathen wasn't insinuating that FAFWBC was not doing the Lord's work? I moved closer in case she was was going to draw a butcher knife from inside that tent she wore.
"Well," she huffed. "All I know is what the Word says, and my Bible says that "A good man obtaineth favour of the LORD: but a man of wicked devices will he condemn." And in the gospel of John that "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."
"And in my Bible it says "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation."
The two of them spent the next fifteen minutes throwing scripture verses at one another. Faith concluded with "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." That's found in John 5:24 if you don't have time to look it up.
T.T. shot back, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, get thou fat ass off my porch and move that piece of crap van out of my yard before I buy up that church building of yours and shove it where the sun don't shine!"
Faith stomped off the porch, hurling back unpleasantries. T.T. smiled and said things like, "Go in pieces."
"Be blessless."
"Fast and pray sister, with emphasis on the fasting!"
It took awhile for the dust to settle from her stomping before she could see well enough to back out of the drive.
After she was gone, I told T.T. that he didn't act very Christian-like to Faith. "I know", he admitted. "But I'm sick of in-your-business-Christians who think they've got the inside track to God. The next time someone says "Well, all I know is the Word, and the Word says blah-blah-blah." I'm going to make them eat it."
I'm going to ask God to go easy on T.T. the next time I see Him. T.T.'s bark is worse than his bite. He's like the President, he don't know when to keep his mouth shut.
Posts
11 years ago
