The gospel: so, you don’t believe in God?
Atheism and every “ism” under heaven is no problem for God. The gospel is for the atheist, too. Since atheists are so intellectually and factually driven, let me share a true story with you, a testimony about a former atheist.
This former atheist was named Pamela Sheppard, born in Harlem in 1943. The second generation of West Indian immigrants in America. Pamela was raised and influenced by her father, who insistently taught her that Christianity was the white-man’s religion to subdue black people into passivity. Not only was she proudly an atheist, but she also mocked and didn’t even entertain the possibility of there being a God. She was sharp, reading at an abnormally young age, and attaining a 4.0 GPA in high school; she would be one of the first black students to attend the University at SUNY Albany in the 1960s.
Pam heard the “soul” of the gospel, from the holidays and from certain movies, she “knew” Jesus existed, but she did not want to believe in Him. Everything in her free will was set against everything against God. It would not be until March of 1977 that things for this atheist would change forever.
One night, Pam had a dream. In the dream, there was a black baby, maybe perhaps less than a year old. This baby had puncture wounds, and Pam was concerned and wondered if the diaper pin accidentally pricked the baby’s delicate-tender flesh. As she looked at the baby, the baby spoke to her and said,
“Bring me my cross, Pam!”
Shocked that the baby was even able to speak, let alone tell her she needs to bring a cross, she insisted that she needed to give the baby a pillow and not a cross. As she went to grab the pillow and bring it to the baby, the pillow turned into a cross. And that was the end of the dream.
Pam would wake up with the cross on her mind, and it seemed to be on her mind everywhere she went. She would see crosses everywhere she went. Soon enough, a supernatural message was conveyed to her, whereby she was told,
”Pam, you are a materialistic sinner, read Romans 3:23.”
Outraged that she was being called a sinner, her self-righteousness refused to acknowledge any sin. Yet, Pam went and bought a Bible for the first time in her life at the age of 33 and went to Romans 3:23, where it reads,
”All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
Still justifying herself, she refused to believe she was a sinner. But then, suddenly, the conviction of the Holy Spirit started to strike her, she started crying, and out of her mouth she declared,
”I am crying for what they did to Jesus!”
Shocked that she confessed Jesus, a voice then said to her,
“Everything you have ever heard about Jesus is true!”
The first thing that went off in her head, and she always famously described “like a light bulb,” was Jesus Christ's resurrection. She understood Jesus physically rose out of that grave, and she received the saving faith to believe. In the blink of an eye, in a instant, a hand reached out into her heart, reaching to her spirit, and she became born again, a new creation. She went and grabbed her Bible, and the first passage she opened up to was,
“Very truly I tell you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).
Immediately, she understood what had just happened to her. This experience would forever remain with Pam and become an example of the gospel. An example of how salvation is a total gift from God, by grace alone, through faith in Christ alone. She would go on to carry the torch of the gospel for over 47 years, preaching and teaching that salvation is not of works. She primarily focused on debunking and contending against (similar to Martin Luther) how man’s freewill is unable to save him from his sinful state, he utterly needs the cross and resurrection of Jesus, or to hear the gospel.
It is in Pam’s testimony do we see God sovereignly in control over salvation, not us. We also see that while the body and soul of the gospel are essential to the working of salvation, the gospel must reach the spirit.
So, you atheists who think God does not exist, you are now without excuse! Watch out! You might wake up one day with a cross calling your name.
In general, as I reflect upon the gospel and Pam’s testimony, on one hand, she was a firm, hard-core denier of God, living in sin, and all kinds of immorality, but then, the new Pam conformed to Christ, was radically contrastically a different nature—an absolute powerhouse for the church, full of faith, love, overcoming her racism, hatred, and need for personal vegenace. I could go on talking about the Christ in her. God does the impossible.
I hope this encourages any soul out there who has doubts about God’s existence and saving hand. Jesus was not just a man who walked this earth; He was God with all the fullness and power to save mankind from sin and death, and He will always be the one before beginning and without end. The First and the Last.