SOME ARE HARD TO REACH

By Pastor Dick

There was a certain man named Joe, one whom I would call hard-to-reach. He seemed to go out of his way to make life miserable for himself and for all who were close to him. In his younger days, he would rather hang out at the bars and chase after other women than be home with his wife and children. When he was home, he was usually drunk and abusive to his family. It would not take much to anger Joe, but what upset him the most was when someone would try to speak to him about Jesus.

When Barbara, one of his daughters, was a teenager, she turned to Christ and was born again by the power of God. She soon led her mother and one of her brothers to the Lord. Needless to say, this did not set well with the father. He could see a change in them and was afraid they would get out from under his control. He made life hard for them: they would have to sneak out of the house to go to church, and he even burned their Bibles. One day when he was in a rage, he grabbed Barbara and began to beat her, pulling out globs of her hair. That is the day she fled from home.

Twenty years later, after a long struggle with cancer, Joe was rapidly approaching death. One day, while lying in a hospital bed, one of his nephews visited him and tried to prepare him for the crossover by telling him about the love of God and the forgiveness that was available for him because Jesus died on the cross. When his nephew left the room, Joe had some special instructions for the nurse: he said to her, "Don't let that nut back in here!" Over the years others had tried to bring the good news to Joe, but, as I said, He was a "hard-to-reach" man!

His daughter, Barbara, would not give up on him. She can only remember one encouraging sign from him--it was like a spark of hope that ignited her faith. It was the time she wrote him about the Lord and she later discovered he not only saved the letter but that he also showed it to his wife!

Barbara stops by to see my wife and me about once a year. On a recent visit, she informed us that her father had died. She told us that right up to the time of his death, she had no assurance that he was saved. Then she went on to say, ". . . but then I had a dream."

Now this really got my attention because over the years I have shared some of my dreams with Barbara and she would always listen, but then say, "I'm glad the Lord speaks to you that way, but, as for me . . . well . . . I'm just not into dreams."

Actually, she went on to tell us about two dreams. The first one she had while she was at home visiting, six months before her father died. The night she had the dream was difficult for her because her father had to sleep in a room on the first floor as climbing stairs was too hard for him, which meant Barbara had to sleep upstairs in her father's bed. She was not looking forward to that because she thought it would bring back many unpleasant memories about her abusive childhood. But she climbed into his bed, had a prayer, fell asleep and had a dream where she heard the angelic choir. She woke up and could still hear the singing of angels, and she said, "Dad, will you listen to that?!" He said, "Yes!"

It was her father who answered but not him in the flesh, because he was still downstairs out of hearing distance. The next morning, when she tried to talk to him about the Lord, it was the same old story: he was still as hard-to-reach as ever. He would not talk to Barbara except to yell at her.

If you have loved ones who shut you off when you try to speak to them about Jesus, and they refuse to listen to others as well, keep praying for them and have hope, for the Lord knows how to communicate with the hard-to-reach! He knows how they need to hear the Gospel, and He loves them much more than you do. He will see to it that they get the message of how He took the punishment for their sin on the cross of Calvary. He may use you as a messenger, or He may use others. He may use angels (those "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation" [Hebrews 1:14]), or . . . He may just do the job Himself!

Barbara told us that after that visit she returned to her work in Minnesota; then, about five months later, the Lord spoke to her heart to go home to Rhode Island to be with her dad because he was going to die. So she left her work and drove fifteen hundred miles to be with him for the remaining time he had here on earth.

When she got home, she did not get much of a welcome from her father; he simply did not want to listen to what she wanted him to hear. But that did not discourage her, for she knew the Lord had sent her there.

Her hard-to-reach father could no longer physically beat her as he did when she was a teenager, but he still knew how to strike out at her with his tongue. When she tried to talk to him, he would tell her to shut up and get away from him. She knew this was not the time for her to be concerned with getting her feelings hurt; what was on her mind was the eternal destination of her father! Oh, his verbal blows still hurt some but not for long, for, by God's grace, Barbara had forgiveness for her father for all his past and present abuse. She just continued to love him in the Name of the Lord.

After a few weeks, on the last day she saw him alive--when he could no longer talk or kick her out of the room--she would talk to him. Even when he was unconscious, she would keep saying to him, "Dad, all you have to do is ask Jesus into your heart."

The Lord gave Barbara the second dream two weeks after her father's death. In the dream, she was sitting on a couch in the living room of her mother's house. Her mother, sister and two brothers were there with her when, suddenly, her father appeared in their midst, seated on a hassock. He looked tanned and healthy, and he was smiling. No one could see him but Barbara. She said, "Dad, you look great!" He reached out to touch her sister and his hand went right through her. He looked at Barbara and laughed.

Barbara then said to him, "Dad, isn't there anything you want to say to us?" He stood up and walked toward the wall. And as he walked through it, he said, in a voice that sounded like an echo, "I just want to say, 'JESUS IS THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE!'"