Bill sat in the bar of a local public house, cigarette in mouth, whiskey and soda in hand, playing cards fanned out in the other. “How long have you been divorced for now Bill, a couple of years isn’t it, come on let yourself go,” said one of his drunken associates. A woman of no good reputation put her hand on Bill’s knee and squeezed it. Her scarlet lipstick matched the overdone rouge on her face. The pub hooker and Bill knew it. Everything was going downhill for Bill, there was even spilt coffee from a week ago on his shirt, and the smell of whiskey hid the smell of his BO Body odour. “Cheat,” one of the players exclaimed, then there was the sound of arguing, drunken pirates. Bill played the ace of hearts and won the kitty, “Jesus!” he exclaimed, he had won the lot, quite a sizeable kitty. He gathered it all and cupped his arms around it as they all walked away, apart from the lady of the night. “How about it Bill, me and you,” she said. Bill grasped a handful of notes and gave them to her. At that precise moment Bill swore that the upturned ace of hearts had turned to the face of Jesus, with the sound, “I’m saving you Bill from this moment on,”
Bill said to the woman, “not tonight,” so she left him alone, counting what he had given her with a smile on her face.
Bill purchased a Holy Bible and an electronic slim line bible also, and went back to his home, sat down in the peace and quiet of his living room, and reflected on his godly encounter. The crocuses were well-developed in the winter snow as Bill gazed through his window, an orange centre and white on the petals. It was Jesus who came to Bill earlier on, and Jesus came to him again, “Bill you need to start again like a child, and receive the word of my father like a baby suckles milk from his or her mother.” Bill was astonished. He quickly typed child to see what god had to say in his electronic concordance. God’s word came from Luke chapter nine verse forty two which read:- And as he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down, and tear him. And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father. Bill sat very still as god revealed truths to him. This particular passage was where Jesus cast out the bad spirit that was harming a child, where the child became well again and was given back to his father. The revelation to Bill was a similar miracle that had been done to him. But rather than Jesus casting the devil out of Bill, god his father decided to cast Bill out of the devil; the devil in this case was the public house, with its immoral sexual activities and alcohol and drugs. Instead of Bill being in the devil’s house among cheats, he was now among god’s angels and children, and Bill grasped a very important message which was, no matter how deep in crisis you are, even at the point of socializing with the devil, Jesus is always around looking for his lost lamb and all that you have to do is let Jesus pick you up over his shoulders and take you to his father’s sheep pen in heaven.
Bill thought about a few of his buddies at the pub who he did like and felt sympathy for, where they weren’t all like hogs and swine rolling around in the mire. Dare he go back and try to rescue one or two of them. Bill waited for some sort of confirmation from god, where when typing in his electric bible pig came up with Mark chapter five verse eleven which read:- Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. After Bill read the whole passage about Jesus casting out devils and sending them into pigs, Bill waited very quietly for god’s truth to manifest into his being. This is what Bill concluded. The immoral people in the pub were the pigs and the devil and his dark angels were inside the pigs’ being, through sex and drugs. Jesus had compassion on Legion the devil possessed man by casting out the devil, and leaving the man well and in his right mind. Bill would go to the pub and talk with his friend who he felt sorry for, and save him. Bill went to the pub and explained his new-found faith in Jesus, and told his friend to contact him anytime. The rest of the cheats and pigs in the pub would end up spiritually killing themselves with booze, like the herd of swine drowning at the command of god.
Bill had turned from his cheating card playing buddies just in time, it was an about turn that led him away from the bad influence. Bill had saved one of them as well, like Jesus and the lost sheep. The cleansing effect of god’s word from the Holy Bible combined with the physical well-being of detoxification was a turning point in Bill’s life. Light at the end of the tunnel was now very colourful very bright and a very good landmark to follow, always keeping on the straight and narrow, that slender pathway that leads to the land of ‘milk and honey’.
Jesus had saved Bill. In the most dire of places, god is always present, like a battle field during war, all blown up and cut up and sludged up and brown soil and dead bodies and if one looks carefully, very carefully like going over every square inch of battle field with a magnifying glass, that single blossom of a poppy can be found full of Jesus.
stephenjohn316 