I'm sitting at a table talking to the lady sitting across from me. Standing beside her are two of her children, an elementary school girl and a somewhat older son. Our conversation consists of my asking her the various questions on our Survey Evangelism and recording her answers. We're at an outdoor community Christmas event where there's a parade and vendors are hawing their wares. Except, us, our evangelism team is not selling but seeking to give away living water.
She's a former Lutheran who has left that denomination for a non-denominational church where she likes the music and the in-the pew dancing during the church services. Her daughter likes those things too, especially the dancing, the girl tells me. The daughter is a live-wire kid who can easily quote John 3:16. You can't help but like her; her enthusiastic personality and smile are contagious.
One survey question stumps the nice lady: "What does the word 'grace' mean?" I ask. (That's my favorite question on the survey and I'm eager to hear her answer.)
But she just sits there. And sits there. I think I hear crickets in the distance. She's thinking, trying to come up with something. Her pause isn't dramatic; it has become awkward. She's heard the word, but has no clue. She's as quite as Mark McGuire before a congressional committee. I break the silence by moving to the next question.
"I'm sure I'm going to heaven," she tells me, "Because I'm raising my kids to be like Christ" and "I'm a good person." She's so sure, she's 100% sure.
The survey is over; the questions, miserably answered, are all done. Now, the last question: "Would you like to hear the Bible's answer to these questions?"
"Sure," she says.
So I begin to answer the questions by drawing the diagram and explaining Christ and Him crucified. She and her daughter begin to listen with intent.
And then it happened.
I hadn't noticed earlier, but standing about 25 feet away, leaning up against the wall of a building across the narrow street stands a man who fits the description of Cassius: "Yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look,"Julius Caesar remarked to Mark Anthony.
This "Yon Cassius" calls out, "Let's go!" He was semi-yelling to the lady to whom I was speaking. Like I said, I hadn't noticed him up until then, but there he was. He's been there all along, standing there with their teen-aged son, who also had the Cassius look, both of them leaning against the brick wall, the backside of a building.
She continues to be intent and calls back to him, "No. He's drawing me a picture. Come over here and see it."
Cassius then makes his move, along with Cassius Jr., and they walk across the narrow street to have a look-see, just as they were told to do by Mrs. Cassius. I say a brief, "Hi," and continue. (Looking back, I should have backed up and started all over again. As usual, my hindsight is 20-20. I'm learning; next time, I'll back up.)
I continue, and as I do, Cassius Jr. starts to go into motion, pacing aimlessly back and forth and then he makes some snide, teen-age arrogant remark that thinks is funny. Nobody laughs. This is awkward. The problem is, I don't catch exactly what he said because he's moving around and teenagers aren't the most articulate of the population. I ask, "What did you say?" He says it again, but Jr. isn't Demosthenes; I still can't understand him. I move on.
As Cassius Sr. stands there, he's silent, standing in pout mode. (Typical; this isn't the first time our evangelism team has run into a sullen husband whose wife wants to hear the Bible's answers to the big questions of life, but he gets all huffy about it. He and his pout won't be the last. Cassius is ubiquitous.)
At the conclusion of the gospel presentation, I ask her, "Is there any reason you shouldn't trust Christ alone right now?"
She says, "No, no reason at all."
I point out to her that trusting Christ alone means not depending on all those works she's mentioned earlier, like, "raising my kids for Christ," and being "a good person." I tell her that I'm talking about trusting Christ ALONE. She agrees. (Cassius is still pouting, just standing there, aloof from me, from kith and kin.) He's silently letting me know that he doesn't like all this. He's trying to punish his wife with his silence. (He calls it punishment; I call it peace and quiet.)
I give her two pieces of our literature and off they go. Cassius is happy now.
What was all this? What was going on with with Cassius and Cassius Jr.? They were, to use a term attributed to Lenin (but that's disputed), "useful idiots." Stalin or Lenin, or somebody, coined the term to describe those in the West who blindly supported the likes of Lenin and Stalin while they committed atrocity after atrocity.
But who was using those useful idiots that day?
What I was seeing is that we often see, and that's Luke 8 in action, although unsuccessful this time: "[T]he seed is the word of God. Those beside the road are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart." When we plant the gospel, there's often someone, a useful idiot, leaning against a wall, standing or sitting nearby who wants to kill it, to snatch the gospel away. He's acting as the devil's tool, the devil's fool, Satan's useful idiot, but he doesn't know it.
There's a supernatural component every time we take the gospel to the lost, and sometimes that component is the wrong half of the supernatural universe. It wasn't only her husband's command, "Come on, let's go," it was also the snide remark of her son; it was also the pout.
The snatching strategy varies. It isn't always, "Come on, let's go." It can be someone standing by who trots out the old tried and true ploy of the devil, "It JUST CAN'T be that simple," they say. (They always seem to put the "JUST" in there somewhere for dramatic emphasis, don't they? It's as if they think they've come up with a new thought.)
Why can't it be that simple? Is salvation only for the brilliant? (As if it's a simple thing to trust Someone you've never seen, Someone no one living has ever seen, and Someone and whose message is in a Book that's been under attack as soon as it's ink was dry, and to trust this Person for the biggest question of them all--How can I have forgiveness for my sins and eternal life?)
She went home, trusting Christ alone. She, now a believer, is there, inside the family. So is the literature. The seed has been planted in the lives of the other four.
That's exciting!
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