Conversions from a Funeral Sermon
Four weeks ago, I preached at the funeral of a late brother who served the Nigeria Police and was of the rank of Inspector. His name was Mbre Jack. His funeral was attended by many policemen and women such as I have never witnessed. And also our brothers and sisters in Christ as well as the whole village where he was born people came in huge numbers because he was a good person.
The topic of the sermon I preached was "the three greatest questions of life." The questions were:
- Now that I find myself in this world, what is the purpose of my being here?
- Where did I come from?
- And where am I going from here?
A part of the sermon said:
No one can keep himself from dying.
No one can put off the day of his death.
No one knows what is going to happen tomorrow.
We know too little if we think we do.
No one knows everything.
We have no one to tell us everything, no one to tell us now, there had been none to tell the people right from the time of the creation of the universe I doubt there shall be none to tell us in the future. It is only God who holds and knows the future. This is the battle no one can escape (Ecclesiastes 8.6-9).
People gave great attention and listened to the word of God that day. The next day after the funeral, I saw a police van coming to my house and a high-ranking police officer with five other junior policemen came out of the van. I received them into my house. The one that sat down was only the officer and the rest remained standing. He then asked me am I really the priest who preached the word of God at the funeral of inspector Mbre Jack yesterday. I answered "yes" and asked, "Was there anything wrong?" He said, "no." At this point, he asked three among his men to excuse him leaving two with him.
He spoke in a low voice saying, I came to see you and to confess the sins of my wickedness. You have touched my life so seriously that I had a sleepless night. I did not allow my wife to sleep with me and I refused to eat my last meal of the day. I told my wife never in my life had I ever heard such preaching of the word of God and added I am indeed in great trouble. He said my mission here is to confess my sins and I want to know whether sins of this degree of wickedness could be forgiven, what I have to do to be forgiven, and what I have to do to become a man of God like you and I want to be a member of the church that I am preaching with all of my family and I promise to always invite you to come and preach that same sermon to my fellow policemen especially those of us in high ranking. We left my room for our church auditorium. He confessed his sins and confessed Christ as the son of the living God and upon this confession was baptized. We spent over three hours preaching Christ to him and answering his questions. He attended Sunday service with his family and with some policemen and their wives. Three of his policemen were also baptized. They attend our classes and worship services with their families. The wife of the officer told me her husband is indeed a changed person. And said she wants everybody in the family to follow suit. She said that she is indeed happy.
