I sat uncomfortably on a hard metal folding chair in a musty room at the mountain conference center. I was fourteen, away from my family for the first time. The previous night was a blizzard of skits, games, flirting, and practical jokes. I was exhausted, still a bit shy, but having fun on my first “snow camp” youth group retreat. Now it was time for the devotional.
The speaker was a middle-aged emergency medical technician from a big city. I was transfixed as he described the pathos of accident victims who had died despite his best efforts to give aid. There was the young man who was impaled on the steering column of his car, desperately trying to push his way off as his last breaths escaped. “I pleaded with him to receive Christ,” the speaker said, “but he just kept fighting for his life with fear in his eyes.” Then there was the boy who laying dying of his injuries in an emergency room. The speaker reported the boy’s last cries : “ ‘oh, the pain, the pain!’” The speaker was certain that the boy felt the flames of hell licking about him in those last moments.
The speaker paused as the flames of hell seemed to simmer under my chair. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned as an EMT, it’s that life is fragile, life is short. You all think you’re immortal, but you’re not. Death will come like a thief in the night.” The room grew warmer. “What would it feel like to be burned alive for eternity? Eternity never ends. No relief.” My vision was tunneled onto the speaker as he moved towards the close.
“Some of you think you’re safe because of your parents, or because you said a prayer when you were young,” he continued, “but you aren’t living for Christ, and you’re lost. You need to be sure. You need to know you’re saved from the horrible fire of hell.” I listened as he cataloged my sins: listening to rock music, playing games that involved sorcery like Dungeons and Dragons, lusting in my heart after girls. He was speaking to me, alone, the only person in the room. “The question is, do you have the guts to stand up in full view of all these people and proclaim your allegiance to Christ?”
I did. I stood up. I begged God to save me. And I felt . . . the same. I tried to feel relieved, joyous, clean. But I wondered – did I really repent unto salvation this time? I’d prayed and expressed faith when I was younger, after all, but that wasn’t good enough to keep me from rock music and other sinful pursuits. Did I really know now, was I really sure?
When I got home I threw away my expensive collection of Dungeons and Dragons books. I stacked all my rock albums in a pile and demolished them with a sledgehammer so that no one else could become corrupted by them. And I paid very careful attention in church. What I heard was as intoxicating as it was frightening.