FIRE!
What would you do if you saw your neighbor’s house on fire and you knew that they or their children were probably still in the house?
As you watched the flames shooting up through the roof and smoke billowing out of the building, would you simply call 911? Or would you rush over there and bang on the doors and windows until you knew that they were safe?
Would you call frantically to them until you found out?
Or would you simply do nothing and say to yourself, Oh, they’ll be ok. I’ll just stand idly by and watch and let someone else handle it?
In April 2012, Newark Mayor Cory Booker made national news when he experienced burns to his hand while trying to save his neighbor whose house was on fire. He rushed into the house and grabbed up the woman out of her bed where she lay. Having experienced 2nd degree burns to his hand once, my husband told me it was the most painful thing he had ever experienced in his whole life. Maybe we don’t know what we would do, but I’m certain it wouldn’t be to stand by and do nothing. No, I suspect that adrenaline would soon start pumping and the fate of that person possibly suffocating or experiencing the agony of a tortuous death would overwhelm us to act – and act right then.
That is how this ministry began. In the twinkling of a moment, God changed who I was forever.
I was standing at the entrance to a very long and darkened hallway that narrowed as it continued, completely black the further you looked. I walked down the corridor a bit and saw an oversized doorway on the left. A large neon sign with flashing lights above the doorway beaconed people in. I heard laughter and could see people just inside the room sitting at a raised bar or simply standing in small groups joking with each other. The sound of music, vibrant lighting, and the clinking of glassware filled the air as the party in the room continued.
Standing at that doorway, further down the hall I saw a very small door with a bright light shining from behind it. The door was shut, but a small amount of the light crept through the crack around the door. As I watched, many people turned and went into the party room to my left. Only three or four out of all the masses of people walked by the inviting room and traveled to the small door at the end of the hall.
Then, horrified, I realized the people in my dream that were going into the boisterous room were being deceived into entering the gate to hell. I saw, from a distance, people being cast into a pitch black cavernous place. The blackness was almost as though you could feel it. The only light to behold was burning embers smoldering throughout the place, with an occasional flare up of flames. They were soon in torment, crying out for help. Yet they entered in groups at a time through that enticing door. Very few resisted the temptation and chose to stroll down the corridor to the smaller door which was illuminated from behind. I knew then that the door with the light behind it was a depiction of Jesus. He said once, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved ...”
The scene troubled my soul and made me ache for the lost people around me. Its portrayal of the choice we all make—and so many are deceitfully enticed to make wrong—was vivid. And to this day, I can still hear their incessant moaning and cries for help. Weeping and screams still echo in my mind but it’s the continual moaning that remains strikingly intense.
The very next day, I started telling people about Jesus and how they could escape that awful place. God gave me a heart felt burden for those on the wrong path. It was like a fire shut up in my bones – I could not remain silent. Those people entering that room could have been my neighbors, people I work with, or the person pumping gas across from me. I would walk into a restaurant and see forty people in the room and wonder how many of them had been born again and knew whether they had eternal life in heaven. Since that time, I have wept many tears over the masses of people that don’t know Him as their savior. It was but a short time later that the first billboard went up at His prompting to ask that important question. The ministry has expanded from that starting point in an attempt to reach as many people as possible for Christ – to reach them before it’s eternally too late. Before they reach separation from God in unquenchable fire - forever. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
We know that God is not slack concerning His promises, not willing that any should perish, but desires that all should come to repentance. His utmost desire is that people from all nations, tongues, and tribes spend eternity in heaven with Him. Would you consider helping us bang on the doors and windows of that burning house? It may be your friends, neighbors or colleagues.
Until the entire map below is covered, we have much work yet to do.
