It appears we have another case of a conversion among us: a young Brazilian man who is in Rosario studying medicine. He came to our church as a result of the personal evangelism of one of our members. He is a professing Evangelical, the son of a former pastor, who believed at least to a degree the historical gospel and the basic doctrines of the Reformation and sovereign grace. After a little while, it became clear to us that he was not really born again. Because of this, I began to engage him directly and we began to study the gospel in a systematic way.
After approximately a month, when we were together at a cafe, I had explained to him again about the doctrines of regeneration and the security of the believer in the most practical and concise way that I knew how. At this point, he confessed that he did not love Christ. In fact, he did this in an undeniable way, with many practical examples to illustrate his lack of fear of God, his love for the world, and his hypocrisy toward us. So, I confronted him with the most terrifying words that I could use at that moment. Then, I talked with him in the most tender way possible about the love of God in Christ. He broke down and sobbed right in front of the people in the cafe, exclaiming that he did not want to be an enemy of Christ. He did not want to perish in hell or continue to be a hypocrite (I did not know what to do about all of the people around us!). Finally, I told him there was nothing else I could do for him and that he should seek God until he found Him. Then we left one another.
He left our meeting in tears and I went on to a meeting with a group of people I was discipling. Very late that night, I began to receive voicemail messages from him. Altogether these messages added up to about 30 minutes of audio. He had not gone home after our meeting at 5:30 pm. Rather, he had gone to a large park and he was still there at 11:00 pm. The following is a summary of what he shared with me: He spent several hours sitting on a bench staring into nowhere, without being able to think or knowing what to do. Then he came under strong conviction of sin and was “carried” to the cross. He understood the truths of the wrath and love of God in a way he never had before. Then, he again broke out into sobbing and poured out his heart before God as he sought reconciliation. He spoke with a rapid tone (on the voicemails he left me) and I believe he told me dozens of times, and with great conviction, “I am going to follow Christ! I am going to follow Christ!” He told me (that day and since then) some very experiential and specific things that happened to him (things which accompany regeneration), such that I have no reason to doubt the genuineness of his conversion.
Currently, he is growing in Christ and is preaching to many of his religious but unconverted friends. He is about to move in with some of the other single men of our church, who want to help him follow Christ.
From the mission field, in the battle for the gospel,
Nicoás Serrano
