WHO killed the soul of James G. Thresher? It wasn't you, was it? God forbid that it was you. But I don't know . . .
Were you the pastor of the district that thirty-six-year-old Jim Thresher lived in? Sure it could not have been you! Soul-wise, Jim Thresher is dead dead as though his body were rotting in the grave.
You see, Jim was invited to take the Bible correspondence course by a Seventh-day Adventist he met in a bus station one day.
What's to be lost if it's free? Jim thought. So he sent the enrollment card in. Then the lessons began to come, and they were thrilling. "Never knew there was so much truth in the Bible," Jim confessed. Then came the lesson asking for a decision to keep the Sabbath, and one asking if he would like to be baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist faith. "Yes, yes," Jim checked on the lessons. "I believe it all."
A request went out to the pastor of the district where Jim lived. "Go see the man; he is ready for baptism," the notice said. But right then the pastor was very busy a church building program, several wed dings, and an inordinate amount of squabbling going on among his church members. Really, he was too busy to go running six miles out into the country where Jim Thresher lived.
So the pastor put it off one day, one week, one month . . .
Three months after he wrote asking for a representative to come to see him, Jim Thresher wrote to the Voice of Prophecy. "Where is your representative?" he wanted to know.
A plea went to the conference office to get someone over to Jim Thresher's home. A month later he wrote again still no representative. Another letter to the conference. Then, five months after his first request, Thresher wrote again to the radio broadcast.
"Don't send anyone," he said. "You are obviously not interested in me. I think I've found another way to the good life. Don't have anyone call on me in the future." Who killed Jim Thresher's soul? It wasn't you, was it?
God forbid that it might have been you!
