~ Especially for Young People ~

The next night there was another good service and a number of people came forward to accept Christ. I particularly noticed one young man. He was bandaged and painted with mercurochrome as though he had recently been in an accident. I had noticed that he walked down the aisle slowly and painfully. I explained to him briefly the plan of salvation and asked him to wait near the front so I might speak to him later. 

As I stepped back to the pulpit, I noticed him walking slowly back down the aisle. He walked back to where he had been sitting and took a young woman by the hand, speaking to her earnestly, and then, leading her, came back down the aisle to the front. It was his sister, and she, too, had come to accept Christ. Then I noticed that he had walked back down the aisle, took another young woman by the hand, turned and came back down the aisle leading her to the altar. She was the girl to whom he was engaged to marry, and she, too, had come to receive Christ. All three of these young people were happily converted.

I was surprised to learn that the young man in bandages was one of the young men who had come the night before and had talked and laughed during the service. One of the three had that very day bought a beautiful used convertible and had taken the other two friends for a ride to the top of a nearby mountain.

The road was narrow, winding, and dangerous. When they had begun their descent, the driver had stepped on the brakes, but the little rubber facing that is bonded to the brake pedal slipped off and the young man's foot hit hard on the accelerator. The car jumped into passing gear and shot toward the curve.

The car turned sideways and skidded over the precipice. All three were thrown out of the car. Incredibly, none of them was killed. All, however, were injured, and taken to the hospital. My young friend was injured the least of all, and after having been bandaged, he had been permitted to return home.

Late that afternoon, he had begged his father to have an ambulance take him to church! Surely the boy was delirious! They did not know if he had suffered internal injuries and it would have been dangerous to move him at all. He was supposed to lie quietly in bed! 
Then the boy explained to his father, "Dad, just last night I went to church, and my friends and I made fun of those who took the preaching seriously. We joked about the idiots who went forward at the invitation. But today, Dad, when that car began to skid and I knew it was going over the cliff, I just had time to think one thing. I thought, 'Only last night I could have been saved! Only last night a man preached about Jesus and urged me to turn from my sins, but I wouldn't do it.'" 

The young man paused and then continued, "Dad, when that car went over the precipice, I thought I was going to hell! I did not think I could possibly come out of that alive. But when I did come to, I prayed and promised God that if He would just let me live until tonight, I would go to church and be saved."

The father had been so impressed that, even though the doctors had forbade him to do so, the father took the back seat out of the family car, filled it with pillows, and made his own ambulance in which to take his son to the revival meeting. As a result, the young man came to know the Lord as well as his sister and his sweetheart.  

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