Everyone admitted that this infidel lecturer was a smart man. In debate, he could generally make his opponent, however clever, trip himself and look utterly ridiculous. As a lecturer, his arguments were subtly convincing, and his ability to mislead his hearers was attested by the spread of infidelity wherever he presented his infamous addresses.
But "God is not mocked," and He was holding in reserve one of His own to confound this emissary of Satan.
One night during one of his lectures in a rich mining town, he observed the presence of a most intent listener. The man was still wearing his rough, grimy miner's garments, and the massive frame and scarcely concealed muscles bespoke a man of unusual physical strength.
When the speaker concluded all his arguments against the Bible as the inspired Word of God, Jesus Christ as God's holy Son, and Christianity as the logical consequence of belief in them, he exultantly felt that he had successfully demolished in his hearers any faith that they had held in such theories, as he labeled them. He ended his address by saying. "Now I'm sure that I have succeeded in accounting to you for the myth that is called the religion of Jesus Christ.”
He had hardly finished when the miner whom he had previously noted rose slowly to his feet. Though clothed in grimy garments he towered majestically over his neighbors. His voice boomed through the hall as he addressed his words to the infidel speaker.
"Sir," he said, "I'm only a working man and I don't know your fancy word 'Myth.' But these people know me! They know that until three years ago I was the toughest man in town. They know that up till that time I had a miserable home, I neglected my wife and children, I cursed, I swore, I drank all my wages, and whoever withstood me soon felt the force of my fist.
"Then someone came along and told me of the love of God to poor sinners. He gave me a glimpse of Christ Jesus dying on Calvary's cross for lost wretches like me. He lifted me up with hope and faith in the very things that you now call a myth. I believed those very things that you now deny, and through my new-found trust in the cleansing power of the Savior's blood, my life was changed. These folks can tell you that all is now different. We have a happy home. I love my wife and children. I feel better in every way, and God has taken from me the desire for liquor. A new power has taken possession of me since Christ came into my life. Sir," and his face was all aglow, "if what you say is true, then how do you account for me?”
The lecturer had no explanation to offer, and that working man sent people home feeling that the Bible is still the Word of the living God, that Jesus Christ is anything but a myth, and that the gospel "is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.”