Death of an Antagonist

I am a fairly easy to get along with kind of guy, mostly because not much actually matters to me.  Oh, I have some, well many, hard and fast beliefs but honesty, if you do not care to believe as I do - that is your problem, not mine, and we will not discuss the matter again.  Well, unless it is something important and you need to learn whatever the point is ...

Do you have an antagonist?  You know, someone whom is more than happy to cross swords with you - over just about everything?  I did, but the real problem enveloped a church and destroyed it - and - God continues to judge that church to this day over what happened ...

So try and picture the situation: Swiss Boy (me!) and Hutterite by faith, visits a Conservative Baptist Church about 30 years ago.  In the Sunday School, one of the men takes on the task of educating me in front of the class on real Christian doctrine.  I still sort of feel sorry for him, because he lost mightily.  It is not that I am right and he is wrong, it is that he is the product of a degenerate Christian culture which actually does not believe the Bible anymore.  And, I am a Biblical literalist.

He and I stayed in loose communication through the years, I think because I made him think.  I taught a series of classes not so long ago on Archaeology and the Bible.  He came and was a real asset.  Not to say it was all that good because we also had to cross swords one night after class because --- yes he brought up what killed the church we had met at and how it was the Devil whom destroyed that church.  And yes he did not understand he was the one representing Satan viewpoint there and its ways ...  He never has understood because his culture, his Christianity, do not allow for such a thing to occur - nor could his best friend have done what was suggested that started the war at the church in the first place.  No, the problem must be some where else ....

Sad part was, his friend was guilty and of even more than I was aware of at the time.  When that friend died, all came out about him and what the church had done to cover up the problem in the community!  OMG!

And now my antagonist is dead.  Sad.  I actually liked him.

He was not that much older than me, maybe ten years at the most.  He knew his Bible, within the context of his culture, he did well raising his family and providing for his own.  From the Germanic viewpoint, he did well.

Is he in Heaven?  Probably, we are judged yes, by our testimony of salvation, but also within the context of what our cultural understanding is about Jesus.  And I would add, what we do with what we have, in obedience to Him.  Jesus has to judge that one, no man can judge another in that regard.

He will be missed and I am left with the thought of how fragile man is, when something as simple as going to a sauna can overheat you to the point of a heart attack ... Sigh ...  But, it must have been his time.  Sauna, backed over by a bread truck, flu ... all the same to God, same end for us - when the appointed hour comes, we go, we have no say in the matter.