We just finished a monumental week of Vacation Bible School. We had a high attendance of 82 (that’s just kids, not including workers), and I have to say that the whole thing seemed to run like a well-oiled machine. Every night that week the church was filled with a “joyful hubbub”. The kids sang louder and more exuberantly every night, building to an admirable peak in Friday night’s program. And the Gospel of Jesus was presented to them many times, in many ways during the week. We know of at least one child, and perhaps two, who prayed to receive Jesus that week; and the seed was sown in so many more young lives.
There always seems to be someone who asks, “Does it really do any good?” The only answer I can give you is: “It did for me.”
I called on the Lord Jesus at the close of a VBS session when I was ten years old. Nobody manipulated or coerced me. They asked if there was anyone who wanted to know what it meant to be saved, to come forward and somebody would talk with you. I went forward…bringing a friend with me! When they found out he only came because I asked him to, they let him go back to his seat. Nobody manipulated or coerced him, either.
A man named Duke came to talk with me. He was an Associate Pastor at the church, and he and his wife were neighbors to my grandparents. I remember him being very soft-spoken and gentle, and he explained very simply what John 3:16 meant and how I could claim that promise for myself. After we talked a while, we prayed together. I don’t remember the words I prayed…but we are not saved by repeating a formula. We are saved by believing in Jesus Christ (Acts 16:30,31). And on that day, I understood that God loved me, and Jesus died for me, and I put my faith in Him.
If you had seen me during my teen years, you would’ve thought that didn’t really do any good, that it didn’t “take”. I came to church because my parents didn’t give me a choice; I played in a rock band in high school (and, believe me, it wasn’t a Christian band); and I gave very little evidence of any kind of real conversion experience. That was how it looked from the outside.
But people couldn’t see what I was experiencing inside. On the inside, I was often pretty miserable. And that was a good thing.
After practicing with the guys, when I’d get in my car and head home. All the dirty jokes and swearing would come to my mind, and I could sense (on the inside)the Lord’s presence with me in that little Volkswagen, and how grieved He was by the things I was doing.
Or the time one of my buddies said, “Hey, Tyra: we got a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine and we’re gonna go out tonight and drink it. You wanna come?” I said, “Yeah!” and turned around to walk away. Immediately I was overwhelmed with as strong a sense of the Holy Spirit’s conviction and disapproval as I have ever felt. I turned right back around and said, “Um…I can’t come.” My buddy asked if I was sure, and smirked and laughed at me. But I didn’t go…because I could sense (on the inside) that Jesus didn’t want me to go.
And one day when I was eighteen, working in a machine shop drilling holes in cast iron parts with a big drill press, I was again overwhelmed with a sense of the Lord’s loving disapproval and grieved heart. A personal crisis had caused me to think long and hard over the two paths I was trying to straddle, and I felt miserable (on the inside).
As I worked, God’s Holy Spirit confronted me: with the things I was doing, the kind of friends I was allowing to influence me, and even the kind of music I was listening to. I thought of one song in particular, in which the singer repeatedly and mockingly yells out the word “Christ!”, over and over. Then I let the drill press lever slip from my hand, and admitted: “There’s no way this is pleasing to God!” And I went and got down on my knees in a dirty little machine shop bathroom, and prayed the only prayer that made any sense to me: “Lord, You be the Boss of my life!” Not a very pretty prayer, but a heartfelt one, and one that marked a real turning point in my life.
So don’t be so quick to dismiss efforts to teach the Gospel to children. You never know what God will do with what’s been planted in the hearts of the kids who came to our Vacation Bible School this year.
Because, only God can see on the inside.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor David