EVEN AN ANGEL

The light faded out of the Western sky as I walked past a storefront church housed in an antique-looking theater. He seemed to materialize out of the shadows-- long gray hair, wearing a dirty-pink beach hat and large rimmed glasses.

“Do you know anything about this church?” I said. He huffed, “I don’t believe in church.” Still he was eager to launch into religious talk.

That hooked me; so I visited his apartment near the church occasionally. “What’s new Wayne?” he would greet me. “My name’s Rick.” “Oh.”  I kept returning; even though his language was crude as he commented on the wrongs of the planet.

Around my tenth visit he invited me in. “Would you like a cup of coffee Rick?” While drinking microwaved, instant coffee, the usually ornery, Sherm suddenly shifted our conversation. “I’m worried.”

None of the males in his family had lived to his age—sixty-three. “So if you died, what would happen?” He assured me he was squaring away death related legal matters that week.

“No, where would you go?”  He motioned his head southward-- his cemetery plot’s location. “That’s where they’ll bury me.”

“No. I’m asking about your eternal destination.”

He responded quickly: “Heaven . . . an angel told me my name’s written in the book of life.”  Beyond his supposed angelic encounter at age eighteen, he offered no reason for claiming his ticket to heaven.

The Apostle Paul said: “Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let him be eternally condemned.” Paul preached one Gospel-- the Good News of Jesus.

Sherm, I wish that angel had read you this scripture: “This is eternal life: knowing, understanding, and being acquainted with . . . the only true God and likewise Jesus Christ.”