SS 13 “Modern Day John the Baptists”

In this week’s Salvation Story the Lord actually told me HOW it would happen (long before it happened). He said it would be through my oldest brother’s only daughter Roberta. And this is why I also began to believe that God would do the same with my third brother’s two daughters, which He did that I hope you’ve read in Teen Suicide Prevented.

Like so many of us, my brother Robert had three boys before he got his girl. Not only did he get his girl, but Roberta was born on Robert’s birthday. So when she was grown, and I heard she was getting married, I wasn’t surprised that the young man my brother approved of was a close friend of her brothers, and who I found out later, looked up to my brother as the father he never had.

Though I could instantly see Roberta’s new husband, Frank, was friendly and warm when they came to visit, I didn’t know he was a Christian. Actually, he may not have been a believer when we met, but soon after Frank and Roberta’s first son was born, we got an exciting Christmas newsletter. In it, they told how their lives had changed when they went to a family summer camp held by a local church, and during their “awesome time that week” together they had accepted the Lord to be the head of their new family!

Honestly, this news came out of nowhere and I simply had the hardest time fathoming that the Lord had already begun to work in this “wicked” family. Let me explain how I could say anything so horrid because the word was well chosen.

While my nephews were in their late teens and early twenties, they were a hugely successful rock band, and part of their name was the “wicked” something. Can I say I was more than a bit shocked, even before I saw footage of them performing in many nightclubs all over Hollywood and sold-out concerts?!?

So when I heard one of its band members married my niece, and together they had both been transformed, turning over their family to the Lord, it was more than just a little awesome 🙂

It didn’t take long to hear about Frank’s new venture selling used cars, mainly because he wanted to have an easy way to meet new people with whom he could share the Lord! Yes, you read that correctly. So stop for a minute and think of the most unlikely person you know who’d found a job for the purpose of sharing the Good News, and you’ll begin to understand the magnitude of this transformation. Now, we are about to kick it up a notch, ready?

The lead singer of this notorious band was my second oldest nephew who has hair down to the middle of his back and who, may I say now, was probably the “wickedest” of the group. Intelligence to the point of being on the upper scale of geniuses, has been the downfall of a great majority of my own family. It takes faith, not logic, to know the Lord. "Faith like a child," if you remember. And this nephew is beyond brilliant, in fact, he’s written so many computer programs, from his home, that he has purchased scads of homes and properties and cars to the extent that I’ve lost count. And the only reason I am saying this is because each of you knows or heard of someone like that: A friend or boss or family member who you’re sure would never, ever come to know the Lord. But that’s only because you don’t know what God is capable of and what He’s planning to do if you’ll just move your lack of faith out of the way. 😉 Mine, too, would have been blocking the salvation of my family had it not been for me seeing and acknowledging the verse RMI was founded on, “Nothing is impossible” Luke 1:37.

Though I’d love to tell you all the details, but because I heard the account of the salvation of my two oldest nephews from the men in my family (men who skip all the details we women love to hear and instead are satisfied to just share headlines), all I can tell you is that my nephews, Keith and Kelly, were saved—and saying they were “radically” saved is an understatement.

My Keith and Kelly's primary home is close to a casino (they each own several). Like clockwork, Keith and Kelly began going to the casinos to explain the end of the world and to preach the Good News—just like John the Baptist did. Their delivery was the same, "calling out to be saved," and they looked a bit like him. Never feeling convicted to cut their hair, it is still long down their backs while the Lord is using their intelligence to be able to answer any question thrown at them by the men who’ll stop to listen. And listen, they do.

Keith said that at first, the regulars and workers did their best to ignore them, even getting security to make them leave, but then something happened. Now everyone stops to not only listen but to ask questions and are fascinated. Soon Keith and Kelly began gathering converts to also begin sharing in and around the casinos.

The verse my entire ministry began with “Nothing is impossible” Luke 1:37. is being lived out every day when I think of the impossibility of my nephews coming to know the Lord and starting their own ministry on the grounds of the local casino. By Roberta marrying the man she did, who led her two brothers, then her third brother who accepted the Lord along with his wife, the only two who remain are my oldest brother and my SIL who I am sure will be soon because He said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, and your entire household” Acts 16:31 TLB and He is faithful beyond what we could ever imagine!!