Ronald McDonald House was sponsoring a day at the beach for kids stricken with cancer. I was on the same beach with my two daughters for our Hope Chapel Family Camp. I handed out about a hundred million-dollar bill Gospel tracts, when I decided to strike up a conversation with three young people in their teens. When I asked where they would go when they died, one said, “Heaven,” and the other two, “Hell.”

After asking if they had ever lied, stolen, blasphemed, or hated anyone—to which they all agreed they had—I asked if they would be found guilty on Judgment Day if judged by the standard of the 10 Commandments. That’s when two men in their twenties interrupted the conversation by standing between the three kids and me. “You can’t do that here,” they said sternly.

“I most certainly can,” I politely replied.

My daughter D.D. cried out, “Oh, no. Not again!”

“This is a special event,” they said.

“This is also a public beach and it’s my First Amendment right to speak.” At this point, knowing my time was short, I spoke loudly over the shoulders of the men to the three teens, “And if you are found guilty on Judgment Day, you will have to spend eternity paying for your sin in Hell!” I really don’t like preaching to individuals like that, but I have a purpose: I want to speak to their consciences so after I leave, God can remind them of what I said.

I walked off the beach with the young men and explained my purpose for giving the Gospel. “These kids have cancer, right?”

“We can’t divulge that information, sir.”

“Let me tell you, there is a real Heaven and a real Hell. I’m here to warn these kids about that.”

I then asked the two men where they would go when they died.

As nice and honorable and kind these efforts to help the sick are—and we should all help the sick—it pales in comparison to the eternal consequences of our soul sickness. To make helping the sick a priority in place of preaching the Gospel, is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Do you agree?

-SS