It had been raining, and the soccer field was a soggy mess. In fact, as Brian stood in a mud puddle beneath the goal post, he wondered what he was doing there.
He loved hockey and enjoyed playing goalie for his team, but this was the first time he had ever played in a soccer match and he wasn't very excited about the playing conditions. It had been raining earlier in the day, and although the rain had stopped, the sky was beginning to look ominously black again.
Suddenly a vivid flash of lightning lit the darkening sky. Then something happened which will remain in Brian's memory as long as he lives.
"The St. Regis team was coming down on me," he reported, "and suddenly there was a flash. I felt the hum of electricity, like a current, all around me. My senses made me think something was behind me and I turned around. When I turned back, the ball was just rolling along by itself and everybody was down."
Twenty-one players plus the referee had dropped in their tracks. Only Brian remained standing. "I just stood there looking over the field at all the bodies," he said. "It was a weird feeling."
Gradually the stunned players began to stir and groggily get up on their feet. The referee, however, remained down. The paramedics were called and they rushed him to a nearby hospital, but nothing could be done for him and he was pronounced dead.
Brian's brush with death on the soccer field was not his first close call. Two years before, he had narrowly escaped death when he totaled his semi. Two such experiences in two years made him think that perhaps God was speaking to him, but he told the newspaper reporter who interviewed him, "If God is trying to tell me something, a letter would be nice."
Although Brian didn't seem to realize it, God has sent a letter to him, and to you too. In His letter to us, the Bible, His messages are clear and easy to understand: "All have sinned"; "The soul that sinneth, it shall die"; "After this [death] the judgment"; "The blood of Jesus Christ His [God's] Son cleanseth us from all sin"; "The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom. 3:23; Ezek. 18:4; Heb. 9:27; 1 John 1:7; Rom. 6:23.
Won't you believe His letter, and accept His offer of salvation today?
"Almost persuaded" now to believe;
"Almost persuaded" Christ to receive;
Seems now some soul to say,
"Go, Spirit. go Thy way,
Some more convenient day
On Thee I'll call."