Fighter and a Drinker

At a visit from a pastor, he sat and listened. The pastor tried to encourage his friend to accept Christ and be baptized. Then asking permission to speak, the Gypsy man addressed the group then present.

He shared with those listening that he had been a fighter and a drinker—a rough man. Unbeknownst to him, his son began to have an interest in spiritual things and was baptized. By his son’s witness, the man’s wife also desired a new beginning and was baptized. This made him glad because now as a Christian, she would no longer be nagging him to quit his wild living, he reasoned.

He knew there was something different in his family, but pride and stubbornness kept him from their influence. Then she invited him to the church by saying, “Just come once.

If you do not like it, you do not need to return.” Feeling this was a way to get her off his back, he consented. But his plan was to argue with the members, and, therefore, insure himself he would never be welcomed again.

When he entered the church, he found the people loving, kind, and pleasant. They took him in like family. He later confessed that this completely troubled him. It was not how he had planned it: what he gambled for.

While at the church he began to feel a tug on his heart. Deep within he desired a change of heart, victory over his violent temper, and the enslaving habit. The love and acceptance he found at the church caused him to open his heart. Through the spoken word, he found power to overcome, and a loss of desire for alcohol.

He also noticed a change in his temper. This awakened a desire in him to completely forsake his old ways and experience the washing away of his old life in baptism. Then he said to his friend, looking him straight in the eye.

“I was then baptized and am a new man. You need to do the same!” With a downcast glance the friend responded, “You are right! Right here and now I make my decision to be baptized.”