Looking Down Into Hell

Romans 1.16 declares, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Do we still believe, friends, that the gospel of Christ has power to save? If we do, we sure don't act like it. When I come across a startling conversion story of a hardened sinner, it does something inside of me.

It throws gasoline on the embers of the altar of my heart, and a raging fire commences. I want to go out and save the world. I want to run into the streets with tracts in one hand and my Bible in the other to tell lost sinners about the one who came down here so we can go up there.

But most folks don't get excited about evangelism in our churches anymore. If a young person gets saved and gets on fire for Christ, there's always some old member who's a wet blanket and who will throw cold water on his hot enthusiasm. We have too many wet blankets in our churches who come every week just to sit and soak and then complain it's too cold in the sanctuary.

And I think as well, most of us today don't get excited about the Gospel anymore because all we see are decisions for Jesus, but no real transformation of the life, no evidence of regeneration. Well, I want to share a Gospel story with us this evening, friends, about an old sinner who got saved because I know it will stir your heart to evangelism and make you want to be a better soul winner for Christ and the Gospel. This story is told by William Schubert.

He was an evangelist and missionary to China in the 1930s. He was also good friends with John Song. Before Schubert left for China, he was in revivals in Southern California and God was doing things all under this man's preaching.

He was a real prayer warrior. But I want you to listen to the stirring account of a man named Charlie Waterman, the streetcar conductor who got saved in 1917. Listen to William Schubert's words.

In March, we had Charlie Waterman come speak at our church and tell the story. He told how he had been a drinker and a gambler and how his wife had prayed for him for 17 years and how he would curse her and spit on her while she was trying to pray with her children until finally she decided she must leave him. Even her pastor advised her to leave him for the sake of the children.

So when he had been gone several days on one of his sprees, she finally decided it was too much and packed everything and was about to call a taxi to take them to her mother's when the Lord said to her, pray once more. So she knelt down and said, Oh God, show Charlie where he is going. While she prayed in Pasadena, he was over in a dive on the east side of Main Street in Los Angeles.

Something said to Charlie, Charlie, if you don't repent, you will go to hell. He went to the next room and drank down a big swig of whiskey and as he did so, he looked right down into hell. He said he saw the fires of hell and the lost souls being tortured by the demons and one of the demons came right up after him.

Then Charlie cried out, Oh God, save me. Everything came clear and he was sober and walked out of that place and went home. On the way, he telephoned his wife to meet him and to call old sister so-and-so who he had hated because she often urged him to repent.

They prayed for him until he prayed through about 2 a.m. in the morning. Then the three of them razed the neighborhood by shouting. The next morning, Charlie asked his wife, Doesn't it say somewhere in the Bible about counting the cost? She found it and read it to him.

So he pulled out the tobacco and papers from one pocket and the playing cards from the other and threw them all into the stove and never smoked or gambled again. The fellows he had gambled with laughed and said, Charlie will be back soon. So they saved his chair and put a teddy bear in it.

But Charlie told us the teddy bear still has the chair. He could tell you how many years and months and days and write down to how many hours and minutes since he had been saved. He never read the Bible in his meetings but would quote it from memory, often several chapters, as memorized on a streetcar.

Let me pause here for a moment and end the story, friends, to underline this dramatic conversion of a man whose life was radically changed by Almighty God. He could tell you when he was saved, how he was saved, and since he's been saved, and how he traded in his pet sins for his Bible, which he's memorized every chance he got. And this man, Charlie Waterman, spoke in this revival meeting in this church, and God was all over him and people got saved right and left.

Listen to the rest of the story. After Charlie Waterman told a story at Downey Street that night in March 1917, he gave an altar call. The front was filled with seekers.

Almost everyone we had on our list of prospects was saved. After we closed the meeting and I was locking the door, two or three others came back in tears from the street and went to the altar, and we prayed them through too. Then after that, here came two or three more.

The Lord had made a clean sweep. Well, that's the end of the story, friends, and I hope you enjoyed that story, and I hope it will teach us how to pray better for the unconverted, that God would open their eyes and show them where they are going, that God would give them a glimpse of themselves in the fires of hell and awaken them to their great danger and their need of a Savior in the person of Jesus Christ. Let us pray.