OH, WHY DIDN'T I LISTEN!

I was holding a meeting in East Texas in the 1950s toward the close of the Korean War. One night I had something in my spirit. I knew God was speaking to a young man. I said, "Young man, I see right out in front of you — it's only a step out in front of you — a black wall." (I could see, in the Spirit, a black wall.) I told him, "And once you step into it, you're gone. I don't know what it is — but it's something right out in front of you. I do know this much. If you'll come to this altar and give your heart to Jesus, you'll be saved and never go into that darkness." That young man didn't come. The pastor even talked to him, but he wouldn't come.

The next week, while holding a meeting about 100 miles away, I got a letter from the pastor. He said, "Brother Hagin, I thought you'd be interested in knowing this. The young man whom you said was going into darkness went out and got drunk. He thought he was going home, but he went into the wrong house. He began slamming, hammering and knocking on the door. He tore the screen door off and kicked the door in. "The man of the house didn't know who was there. He unloaded both barrels of a shotgun right in the boy's face." This pastor said, "I went to the hospital and the boy was still alive. The doctors didn't understand how he had lived, and they knew he wouldn't live long.

"I talked to him and told him who I was. You couldn't look at him, it was so pitiful. But somewhere down in his throat, I heard these words come out of him: 'Oh, why didn't I listen! Why, oh why, didn't I listen? I couldn't see this darkness out in front of me, but I could feel it. If I had listened to God, I wouldn't have been drunk. If I had listened to God, I wouldn't have been out there And then he lapsed off and never did say anything else." The poor fellow went out into eternity. Was it God's fault? No! God tried to get him to stop. God did His best to arrest his attention. But he didn't listen. He had the power to listen. Why didn't God overrule him? Because God doesn't work that way. (Kenneth Hagin)