Getting up from his chair and answering his doorbell, he beheld an enchanting and comely young bride standing before his apartment door. She looked to be twenty years of age, had straight brown hair almost to her shoulders, had a beguiling—if not sly—smile, and pretty eyes with pretty glasses. She was about his height—five feet eight inches—and she was attractively slender. And he was drawn to this most alluring girl. But what most distinguished her from other girls was her most beautiful attire: Why, she was a bride with a white wedding gown of silk, long-sleeved, with a Basque waistline, and with a train. At first he said nothing. But she spoke first, “I promised that man that I would be his bride, but I didn’t know that that meant becoming his wife.” In a huff, she blew air into her bangs. What a most eccentric lass this lady was who had come here. Then she said to him, “You do not know me, but I’m ‘Filly.’ ‘Filly Lass’ is my name.”
“I am Flanders,” he said, “Flanders Nickels.”
“Ooo, let me come in quick,” she said brashly. “The man is probably out looking for me.
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Knowing him, I would say that he probably won’t stay back there waiting for me at the altar too much longer.” She made her face into quite a pout, looked down the hall behind her in contempt, and stuck out her tongue at the man who was not there. Then she asked, “So when do I get to come in?”
Flanders Nickels the young man found this impudent eccentric young bride to be a most delightful bride of spunk, pleasingly feisty, novel in frankness; and she was the prettiest bride he had ever seen before. And Flanders Nickels the born-again Christian found in this eccentric lass a soul whom Jesus died for, a lost soul that needed to be saved, a girl to share the Gospel with. And he said, “Do come in, Miss Lass.”
And she came right in, walking right past him, her wedding dress swishing in melody as she walked. He remained there, careful not to step on her bridal dress as she walked by. Yet she still said,
“Don’t step on my train, please, Flanders. My train is more important than anything that you might have in here.”
“You’re pretty saucy for a girl, Filly,” he said in gentle rebuke.
“That’s because I am a dish,” said Filly Lass. At once she began to look into all of his rooms of his apartment. In his dining room, she paused in front of his wooden cross on the wall, and she looked at it with a funny look in her eyes. “How come this is here?” she asked him.
“That is the precious cross of Calvary, Filly, upon which Jesus died for the sins of the whole world,” he preached to her what she needed to hear.
With guile in her eyes, she said, “Humph. I can make it into a little sword.” She reached forth her bride’s arm, removed his cross off of the wall, and held it in her right hand upside down. Then she irreverently said, “En garde! Touche!” and boldly parried and thrust it about as if it were a sword. “I’m a funny woman. Aren’t I, Flanders?” she asked. “I’m funny.” Then she decided that she was done with this antic, and she hung the believer’s cross back up on the wall upon the nail.
Next, the eccentric lass went into the living room and made her presence known in this room,
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too. She saw his portrait of Christ on the wall, cocked her head to the side at it in incomprehension, and came up to it, and stared at it. And Filly Lass asked, “Do you think that Jesus posed for this personally?” And she laughed with herself. In mischief, the eccentric lass put her hand to the frame at the bottom right and began to tap this corner of frame back against the wall, counting as she did so, “One, two, three.” Then she asked, “Flanders, how hard do you think that I could knock this into your wall without breaking off a nick from it?” Then she said, “I better not try. I do not want to get God mad at me.”
Then she came in unto his bedroom with her little storm of mischief from the Devil. She saw his bed, said, “Ho ho ho! The things I can do!” And she kicked off her wedding shoes and leaped up upon his bed, and stood there like a king of the mountain. She saw two poster signs with Bible verses taped upon his wall at the head of his bed. She glared at them, took of her glasses, and squinted in disapproval. “Flanders, what do you call these? What on Earth are these supposed to be?”
He said, his patience tested, “They are Ephesians 6:12 and Job 1:21.”
“Really? Really?” asked Miss Lass. “How come then?”
“They are extra special to me. Those are the first two Bible verses that I memorized since my day of salvation,” he told her.
“How do they go?” she asked, most ingenuously silly. Indeed their whole Scripture was written out in magic marker letters on white paper in these two posters. He began to recite them by memory, but most abruptly she broke in and said, “Who cares?” And she put her glasses back on her face.
She then jumped off of his bed, put back on her wedding pumps, and went on to inspect his little hallway in the center of his apartment. There upon his little lamp table was his hymnbook opened to his precious hymn “Holy! Holy! Holy!” He saw the eccentric bride looking down upon it. He wondered what sacrilege this Filly Lass might come up with in this room as she looked down upon his book of hymns. Should he now take a stand for God and rebuke her when she would speak her
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blasphemy? Was it time now to send this pretty she-devil out of here? He chose to wait upon God for just another little while longer. And, behold, Filly began to sing “Holy! Holy! Holy!” Yet her singing voice was this time not at all filled with the sarcasm that had filled her every word of conversation she had spoken earlier in this little visit. No. She was singing this song not at all with the voice of a little demoness. And she was singing it with the familiarity of a Christian gal. It was as if this eccentric lass were for just this moment sincere here in his apartment. And when she finished this hymn’s first stanza, she quit singing. Then she was her old self again, betraying a huff of disrespect. Yet she knew Flanders’s favorite hymn.
“How did you know ‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’ O Filly?” he asked.
“Oh, my roommate Jenny sings that all over our apartment. She’s a Christian like you, Flanders. You should get to know her. She’s kind of pretty, as far as golden blondes go.” Then Miss Lass said, “I suppose I will have to move out pretty soon one of these days if I can’t get out of the mess that man got me into.”
“This roommate Jenny,” said Flanders, lonely. “You said that she is a Christian, too, like me?”
“Never mind Jenny,” said Filly abruptly. “You have me now.”
“How do you treat Jenny?” asked Flanders. “Are you to her as you are to me?”
“I treat her just as I treat everybody else,” snapped Miss Lass abruptly. “But she is the worst—always preaching at me and reading her Bible and praying and going to church.”
“It sounds like she has a burden for your soul,” said Flanders. “I have a burden for your soul, too, Filly.”
Heedless of his words, Filly Lass went on to say in triumph over a roommate, “She stopped preaching at me after I went and threw her Bible into the ocean that one day on our vacation together.”
Then she said, “I shut her up. I did good. Now I can rest.” Then the eccentric lass said, “I’m a good person.”
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“You are a good person?” he asked.
“I am a good person,” she said again.
“Do you want to hear what the Bible says about that, Filly?” asked Flanders Nickels.
“Can I not hear what the Bible says and pretend that I did?” asked Miss Lass.
Asserting himself for the cause of her soul, Flanders said to her, “It’s either me or your husband right now, Filly.”
“Groom, Flanders! Groom!” exclaimed the eccentric bride. And in concession and with a huff and with a sigh and with a rolling of her eyes, she sat down at his dining room table. And he sat down with her across from her. And he held up his King James Bible in the air in both hands in great love for God’s Word.
“Yick!” said the eccentric bride in offense at the Word of God.
“Amen!” said Flanders in praise of the Word of God.
“Shoot,” said Filly, telling him now to go ahead and read a verse at her.
And the born-again believer began to witness to a wild young wench of the Devil: “Filly, it is written:”
At this table, the unsaved bride turned around in her chair and turned her back to Flanders. And she said, “My eyes refuse to look inside a real Bible, Flanders.”
“Are you afraid of what it says, Filly?” he asked.
“Filly Lass is afraid of nothing!” she snapped at him, and she turned back around in her chair and faced him again at this table. “Shoot,” she said again. “Go ahead and read to me. But do not expect this woman to take a look inside to see what you might be reading in it at me, O Flanders.”
In acquiescence, Flanders nodded his head, and he began to witness to her with the Word of God from the book of Romans: “It is written, Miss Lass, ‘For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.’ Romans 3:23.”
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“It was said, Mr. Nickels, ‘I am a good person,’” she said. “Did you forget?”
“I remember, Filly,” he said. “But God says that we all are sinners.”
“Who are you going to believe, Flanders? A big Book full of words or a fairy princess bride?”
asked the eccentric lass.
Undaunted, Flanders preached further on this verse: “I am a sinner. You are a sinner. Everybody other than Jesus in the Bible was a sinner.”
“Name one person in the Bible who was a sinner,” she said.
“Everyone,” he said.
“Not Noah,” she said, proud of her knowledge of the great flood. “I know all about Noah. He built a great big ship.”
“Noah was a sinner, too, Filly,” said Flanders.
“He saved the animals,” she said in indignation and naivete.
“Noah went out and got drunk one day,” he said. “That’s a sin against a holy God.”
“Yes, that is,” she concurred. “Noah and I seem to have a lot in common now. I should have married him instead.”
“So you get drunk and sin, too,” said Flanders.
“I do other things and sin, as well,” bragged Filly. “I suppose that doing sin makes me a sinner.”
“Filly Lass, admitting your sins is the first step to salvation,” said Flanders. “Being born again, Noah was not sinless, but he did sin less. He was righteous in the eyes of God, and he was a holy man of faith.”
The eccentric lass went on now to confess in flirt, “Filly Lass, not being born again, is neither a righteous filly, nor a holy lass.”
“Well,” said Flanders, “at least that’s a start.”
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“Do you mean that there is more?” she asked.
“Do you admit that you come short of the glory of God, Filly Lass?” he asked.
“If I say, ‘Yes,’ are we done then with all of this?” she asked.
“If you say, ‘Yes,’ we officially start this night,” he said.
“Then I will say, ‘No,’” she said.
“Would you mean it, Filly?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “That would be a lie. I come short of God’s glory.”
“That wasn’t too bad,” he said.
“There’s a next Bible verse, isn’t there?” she asked.
And Flanders went on to share it with her, “It is written, Miss Lass, ‘But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’ Romans 5:8.”
She stole a secret glance toward his open Bible and quickly turned away her eyes. But Flanders saw her, and she became embarrassed for her curiosity about the Scriptures. She said, “I did not look.”
He said, “You did look.”
And she said, “But I did not see anything,”
“You did not see anything,” he agreed with her.
“I am a sinner,” she confessed again. “And that verse makes it sound like God went and died for me as I am.”
“That’s because He loves you, O Filly,” he said. “God the Father gave His only begotten Son—the Lord Jesus Christ—to die for you. And He did so out of His perfect love for you—even with all of your sins every day for all of your years.”
“I can see why He did so for you, Flanders. You’re one of those born again Christians. But myself? I am hardly a born-again Christian,” said the eccentric lass. “God is good; I am bad.”
He went on to say, “Even as a Christian, I myself am bad, The only righteousness that I have is
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not my righteousness, but only Christ’s righteousness within me. Also, Filly, I was not always a born-again believer. Most of my life I was a lost sinner and mightily unsaved from my sins. Jesus, two thousand years ago, died for me when I was still lost in my sins a few years ago. In like manner, Jesus, two thousand years ago, died for you who are lost in your sins yet today. Do you understand God’s love better now, O Filly?” he asked.
“I can see that you are trying to tell me that this only begotten Son of God on purpose went and died for me in all of my badness in order to save my lost soul,” she said. “And He did so because His love for me is the love from God.”
“Yes! You’ve got it, girl!” said Flanders Nickels.
In her thoughts, she began to see this Jesus as maybe One that she should hear Flanders tell her more about. “When did you find this Jesus, Flanders?” she asked.
“I found Jesus three summers ago on the Fourth of July,” he told her.
“Three summers ago on the Fourth of July?” she asked.
“Yep!” he said. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Why my best thing that ever happened to me also happened three summers ago on the Fourth of July,” she said. “Do you want to know what it was, Flanders?”
“Was it anything to do about Jesus?” he asked.
“No. Better than that,” she said.
Alas, there was much work to do with her yet this day before he could lead her to salvation. Her foolish reply betrayed her ignorance of the Saviour and of her desperate need for the Saviour.
Filly Lass went on to tell him, “I found a little treasure chest full of old-time gold and silver coins. The treasure I found was better than any other treasure that anyone else has ever found. Even a man like you never had anything like what I have.”
He had Christ, Who owned all the cattle of a thousand hills, and Who said in a minor prophet
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book in the Bible, “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine.” This pretty young bride spoke abundant folly yet without a personal Saviour in her heart. But he went and asked her, “How did you find this little treasure chest, Filly?” He needed to steer the conversation back toward salvation, but he was not sure how to do that with this secret coming out from her.
And the eccentric lass said, “It happened that day that I decided to dig a hole taller than myself with Dad’s shovel. I was living at home then with my parents. And I did not know that this money was down there. It was a complete surprise. I just felt like digging a deep hole, so I went and dug a deep hole. I must have dug almost six feet deep into the earth. I stood there, thinking to myself in gaiety, ‘I am six feet closer to Hell.’ And I laughed at my clever wit of religion. I was deep in this hole. This hole was only about three feet in diameter where I stood. And its top was a few inches above my head. I was holding the shovel. And I felt like I was done with my fun for the day. I was about to climb up out of the hole with a little help from the shovel. But I wanted more. So, for just a little more fun for myself, I thought to dig just a little bit more deep. And I pushed the shovel into the earth at my feet again, and immediately my shovel hit something hard. To make a long story short, I dug out a wonderful, terrific little iron box about one foot wide by four inches deep by six inches high. It had no lock or anything that made it hard for me to open. All I did was to open its lid in my hands. And, lo, gold and silver coins like the kind you see on pirate movies in big treasure chests. Though this was a little treasure chest, it still was heavy in my hands as a teenager. But I was a determined young woman, and I got myself out of that big pit, all the while holding my treasure tightly against myself. And then I ran right into my bedroom and hid it under the bed. No one ever saw it but myself. Nobody in my family ever saw it. Nobody in my family ever knew about it. Even Jenny my roommate doesn’t know.
Nobody knows. But now you know, Flanders. Promise that you won’t tell.”
“I promise, Filly,” he said.
Then she said, “I suppose that you have another verse from the Good Book that you think that
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you have to tell me about,”
“A woman’s soul is more valuable than a woman’s treasure chest,” he said.
“Hm,” she said in denial.
He then said, “It is written, O Filly Lass, ‘Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.’ Romans 5:9.”
“’Wrath,’” she said. “W-r-a-t-h” Then she said, “I am a spelling bee champion. Did you know that, Flanders?”
This time he did not wait for her to quit talking about herself. This time he turned assertive and at once commenced to preach this Scripture verse to her. And the eccentric lass found herself forced to listen to more preaching from this man of God: “It is the shed blood of Jesus that saves souls, Filly. He shed His perfect blood on the cross by way of crucifixion. That means that they drove His hands and His feet to the cross with big spikes, Miss Lass. Then they erected this cross and drove it into the ground, shaking His tortured body as they did so. And then they left Him to hang there vertically upon the cross. And then they stood there, watching Him suffer the most cruel agony, and waiting for Him to die.”
She broke in and said, “No one should have to die like that.” Her words about herself were stopped now for a moment.
And Flanders went on to testify more about Jesus and this Bible verse he was explaining to the eccentric lass: “His body was so ravaged that He was not recognizable as a human being. He let this abomination happen to Him so that we can be declared justified in His sight. Here, the word ‘justified’ can be defined as ‘just as if I have never sinned.’ I am justified, because I got born again. You are not justified, Miss Lass, because you are not born again. For you yet in your lost state, it is not just as if you have never sinned. And that means that if you die right now, you will have to pay for all of your sins for forever after in Hell. That is what ‘wrath’ means in that Bible verse, Filly. Myself, being
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declared just by Christ’s shed blood, am saved from wrath. Yourself, not declared just by the shed blood of Christ, are not saved from wrath. Jesus saves to the uttermost, Filly Lass.”
Yet, instead, the eccentric lass reiterated from before, “’Wrath,’ ‘w-r-a-t-h.’”
“Filly, are you listening?” he asked her in some disgruntlement.
“Onomatopoeia,” she went on to brag on her erudite spelling savvy, “o-n-o-m-a-t-o-p-o-i-e-a.”
“This is not a spelling bee here tonight,” he said, becoming flustered with this most eccentric young bride now.
“Could you play along with the state spelling champion?” she asked, bragging on further upon herself.
“The spelling bee you won was the state championship spelling bee, Filly?” he asked, letting himself become distracted away from his work for God over her soul.
“Uh huh!” she said, nodding. “Test me, Flanders.”
He thought for a while, then said, “Habakkuk. He was an Old Testament minor prophet. Spell his name, O Filly.”
And this woman unlearned in the Scriptures went on and spelled out correctly, “H-a-b-a-k-k-u-k.” Then she asked in great self-confidence, “Well, am I right, Flanders? Am I right?” He nodded his head in assent. And she said, “You thought that I was going to spell his name with two ‘B’s instead of two ‘K’s. Didn’t you, Flanders?” He nodded. He had always got his friend Proffery on this one, but not this gal. She did know how to spell most adeptly. And he got caught up in this fun game with his eccentric lass.
And Flanders said, “There is a name in the Bible with eight letters and six syllables, Filly. If you spell this, you are a better speller than I.”
“Well, what is it?” she asked.
“Elioenai,” he said.
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“Who is he?” asked the eccentric lass.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“What did he do?” she asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Elioenai,” she said. “E-l-i-o-e-n-a-i.”
“Filly, you are a better speller than I. And I got ‘A’s’ every quarter in spelling class,” he said in praise to her.
“Tell me another Bible name to spell for you, Flanders.” she said.
“Ah, how about the longest name in the Bible?” asked Flanders.
“Tell me it,” she said.
“Mahershalalhazbaz,” he tested her.
“Who was he, and what did he do?” she asked.
“He was the son of the prophet Isaiah,” said Flanders.
“Oh,” said Filly Lass. And she spelled out, “M-a-h-e-r-s-h-a-l-a-l-h-a-z-b-a-z.”
“Wizard,” he bragged on this spelling savant. “Wizard.”
“The long ones are not always the hard ones, Flanders,” said the spelling wizard.
“How about the second longest name in the Bible, girl?” he asked.
“Who was he, and what did he do?” asked Filly Lass.
“He was Chushan-rishathaim, and he was King of Mesopotamia in the days of the judges,” he said.
“Ah. Remember. Just because it might be a long word, it is not necessarily a hard word, Flanders,” said again Miss Lass.. And the eccentric champion speller correctly spelled out this name as well: “C-h-u-s-h-a-n-r-i-s-h-a-t-h-a-i-m.”
“Is there no word in the Bible that you cannot spell?” he asked, impressed.
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“There is no word in the English language that I cannot spell, Flanders Nickels,” she boasted in great swelling pride.
“I can see why you win spelling bees, Filly,” he said.
“Test me again,” she said.
“I’ve got one on my mind right now,” he said. “It is kind of tricky, but it is the easiest of the ones I tested you with so far, Filly.”
“Whatever it is, I will spell it with my eyes shut,” she said in utter self-confidence.
“It is a name once again of a Bible man whom I know nothing about other than his name,” said Flanders Nickels. “It is ‘Maaseiah.’”
“Ha ha ha!” she said.
“What is so funny?” he asked in query.
“A name in the Bible of whom you know nothing about, Flanders. Ha ha ha! You of all people know this Bible Man the best of all Bible men.” she said. And she went on and said, “Messiah—M-e-s-s-i-a-h.”
And he corrected her and said, “No, Filly Lass. Maaseiah—M-a-a-s-e-i-a-h.”
Her braggadocio was all of a sudden dumb on her lips, her pride having caused her to fall, and she turned red with shame. And most awkward silence suddenly came upon the two here in the dining room. The eccentric lass tugged on the long sleeves of her wedding gown along both wrists. She ran her hands across the silk of her wedding dress over her lap. She ran her index finger down and back up the “V” of her Basque waistline of her bridal dress. He, too, was suddenly embarrassed for her with her.
“Filly, you spelled a word wrong,” he said.
“I never did that before,” she said. For her it felt like her world had come to an end. The eccentric lass was now humbled and ready to hear more about Jesus from this good man of God.
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And this time it was she who steered tonight’s conversation back to God, and she said, “My roommate Jenny once told me that this Messiah is the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.”
“He came to seek and to save us who are lost,” said Flanders.
“Where did sin come from then?” she asked.
And he went on now and again pursued her soul in his work for God: “It is written, Filly Lass,
‘Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:’ Romans 5:12.”
“I can see now why everything that lives here in this world has to grow old and die,” she said.
“It looks like that verse says that that is because there is sin in this Earth.”
“If this world had no sin, we would all be able to live forever, Filly,” he said.
“How did it come to be? Who did it first? Whom can I blame for the sin that makes me have to die someday?” she asked.
“It happened first with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden,” said Flanders. “These two parents of the human race committed Earth’s first sin, and because of that, sin passed down generation to generation all throughout the human race everywhere all the ages of mankind since. We both inherited our sin natures from Adam and Eve six thousand years ago.”
“Stupid Adam and Eve,” said the eccentric lass. “It’s all their fault!”
“Take heed, Filly, we still sin because we choose to sin. Sin is my fault and your fault. And have only ourselves to blame for falling into sin,” Flanders edified the young bride.
“Did they eat a fruit from the tree which God told them not to eat from?” she asked about the Garden of Eden. He nodded. “Jenny told me about that a few times.” said Miss Lass. “That does not seem to me to be all that bad. How come they had to die just because they ate a nice fruit from a nice tree?”
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“Why, Filly, if God Almighty says not to do something, and you go and do that, that is the sin of disobedience. If a person disobeys the Word of God, that gets God’s attention real fast. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. One is asking for trouble when he says, ‘No,’ to God.”
said Flanders.
“It sounds like you are saying that there is no such thing as a little sin in God’s eyes,” said Filly.
“All sin is bad in God’s eyes, Filly,” he said.
“Did God strike Adam and Eve dead when they sinned in the Garden of Eden like they did?” asked Filly.
“No. But because of their sin, seeds of decay began to grow in their bodies. And they became mortal, and their physical bodies began now to age. And in time to come they grew old. And then they
died,” he preached to her. “All because of sin.”
“Is there any definition out there that tells all about what sin is that makes it the bad thing that God says it is, Flanders?” asked the eccentric lass.
“Pastor taught me the definition of sin,” said Flanders. “Sin is ‘any thought or word or deed that rebels against God’ s authority or that breaks any of His commandments God has given us throughout His Word the Holy Bible.’”
“That says lots,” said Filly, ready to hear more.
He continued his definitions: “Sin can be a sin of commission, when a person does something about which God says ‘Thou shalt not.’ Or sin can be a sin of omission, when a person does not do something about which God says, ‘Thou shalt.’ That is, the one is doing something that you should not be doing; and the other is not doing something that you should be doing.”
“Committing and omitting. I understand,” said Miss Lass.
He continued further on his sermon on sin: “This sin can be a sin of the ‘pride of life,’ when a
person wants to play God in his own life. Or this sin can be a sin of the ‘lust of the eyes,’ when a
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person sees, then desires, then takes that which is forbidden by God. Or this sin can be a sin of ‘the lust of the flesh,’ when a person takes that which is natural and perverts it into that which is unnatural.”
The eccentric bride said, “That can be just about everything. You make it so that a girl can’t have any fun.”
He concluded his definitions of sin, saying, “Any and all sin comes about either from temptations from the Devil or from temptations from the world or from temptations from the flesh.”
“Whoa, Flanders, you know more about sin than anybody I know,” praised Filly this Christian fellow. At once she could see how her words could be taken wrong. He laughed. She laughed. She then said, “I mean that you can see sin coming a mile away and flee from it, Flanders.” Both laughed again. Filly Lass was becoming quite the welcome visitor now for Flanders.
Then, to his surprise, Miss Lass asked him to read to her the next verse he had for her, and with hopes and a silent prayer for her soul, he read it to her from his King James Bible: “It is written, O Filly, ‘For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ Romans 6:23.”
“What’s it say?” asked the eccentric lass in sincerity.
And he went on to preach this glorious verse to her: “Filly, when one sins with sin, he reaps a harvest. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. And he that soweth of the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. To put it succinctly—sin reaps death. And this death here means not only the first death, but also the second death. In the Bible, ‘the first death’ means when one’s physical body ceases to exist, and his soul departs from his body. You and I and everybody else knows about this because of funerals and cemeteries and passing of loved ones. But when the Holy Bible talks about ‘the second death,’ nay, that is something far more terrible. This second death is when one’s eternal lost soul goes into the lake of fire for ever and ever. A sinner pays for his sin with his first death and his second death.”
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“Flanders, I am beginning to see that a sinner like myself has no hope,” said Filly Lass. “I thought, though, that I heard some good news in that verse you read to me…something about eternal life, I thought.”
“Yes, Miss Lass, there is hope. You do not have to die in your sins and go to Hell,” he said.
“I now feel hope for my first time today for you. And you can have hope now, too.” And he explained now the good news of this bad news/good news Bible verse: “Through Jesus Christ you can end up in Heaven for ever and ever instead.”
“That’s the best news I heard from you today, Flanders,” Miss Lass said.
“It is called ‘eternal life,’ Filly,” he said.
“Could you tell me how to get for myself this eternal life through Jesus Christ?” she asked, searching now for truth.
“Only believe in your heart,” he summed up. And he elaborated for this eccentric lass who knew nothing about the Saviour Whom he knew everything about: “You must understand that Jesus is God. He is both God the Son and the Son of God. Do not think to buy eternal life; it can only be gotten freely. Do not think to earn eternal life; it can only be gotten freely. Do not think to work for eternal life; it can only be gotten freely. What I am saying is that neither money nor rituals nor works can help you in any way to get this eternal life for yourself. You have to humble yourself before the Lord Jesus and ask Him to save your soul. That is how one gets this eternal life through Jesus Christ the Lord.”
“That Bible verse called it ‘the gift of God,’” said the eccentric bride.
“God’s present for you right now as we talk about salvation and the Saviour,” said Flanders.
“I bet that all I need to do to get saved is to reach out for this gift of God right now, and to take it in my hands, and to say, ‘Thank You, Jesus,’” said Miss Filly Lass, upon first understanding the freeness of the gift of eternal life.
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“Milady, you are not far from so great and eternal salvation!” he said in jubilation.
“I was baptized as a baby,” said Filly all of a sudden. “Doesn’t the Bible say that in order to get to Heaven, a person has to first get baptized?”
“Nay, good woman. That is the teaching of false churches. Infant baptism is not mentioned in the Bible. Nor does it have anything to do with going to Heaven. It is the teaching of man and not of God,” said Flanders, surprised by this fiery dart from the Devil who wanted this bride’s soul.
“How can so many people be wrong?” she asked.
He quickly went to what his own good Baptist pastor always went to when confronted by a Catholic or a Lutheran who said that baptism was how to get to Heaven: “When the Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross, two thieves were also crucified with Him to both sides of Him. The thieves knew that they did not have much more time to live. But one of the thieves was repentant. He did not have any time left now to get down off of his cross and go and get himself baptized in order to be ready
to meet his Maker. He knew that his Maker was this Jesus on the cross next to him. And in placing all of his faith for his salvation entirely upon this Jesus, he said a nine-word prayer to Him; ‘Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.’ And Jesus assured him of his newfound salvation with a fourteen-word promise: ‘Verily I say unto thee, “To day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.”’ This thief on the cross was saved by simple faith in Christ.”
With most revelatory Holy Ghost wisdom from all that she was learning today, the eccentric lass said, “I can either pay for my sin, or I can accept Heaven for free, Flanders.” And she also said further with great eternal truth, “And this Jesus the Lord makes the difference.”
“Yes! Yes! Filly!” he said. “Heaven or Hell is determined by what a person does about Jesus on this side of eternity.”
“And baptism in this life has nothing to do with the life to come,” she said in understanding.
“Amen,” he said. “Jesus saves!”
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“Jesus saves,” confessed Miss Filly Lass words that she had never thought before would come out of her lips.
“Praise the Saviour of the world for what I have just heard you say, girl!” he said.
“It was good what I said. Wasn’t it, Flanders?” she asked.
“Do you want to hear the next pair of verses I have to show you today, O Filly?” he asked.
“Ooo, can I look at them while you read them to me?” asked the eccentric lass.
“You really want to look into the Word of God now,” he said.
“Well now I am ready to see the inside of a Bible for my first time,” said Filly now so different from how she was here in this dining room when she had first come in.
“It is written, my lady,” he began, and he then read these two verses with her now standing at his side and looking into the Holy Bible as he read to her from it: “’That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.’”
“Romans 10:9-10,” bride and Christian both said.
“Do you know what this Scripture says, Filly?” he asked, ready to now share the Gospel with her.
“I think I know, Flanders,” she said. And before he could tell her the Gospel, she went ahead and told him this same Gospel: “Jesus died for our sins and rose again the third day.”
“You know it, Filly!” he said.
“And now I believe it, Flanders,” she said. Then she said, “I heard it from Jenny lots and did not like to hear her say it lots. Now I want to hear it from you, Flanders. Now I like it.”
To make this beautiful young bride happy, he told her this Gospel again so that she could hear it now that she believed it: “Good news! Glad tidings of good things! Christ died for our sins, and He
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arose from the grave on the third day!” A pensive reflection came upon Filly Lass’s features for now.
“Do you believe in your heart that this same Christ the Saviour did all that for you personally, Filly?” he asked her a hard question. “Or do you just know in your head that He did that for the world out there?”
“Oh, for me, Flanders,” she said. “Both for the rest of the world, but also just for me, Jesus loves me that much. And I think that I now love Him back.”
“Filly, I can see that you have Jesus in your heart now.” Flanders told her.
“Funny how things are happening to me today that are all unlike me,” she said. “I just said that I think now that I love Jesus. I never said that I loved anyone before.”
“Now you need to confess Him,” said Flanders Nickels, her soul now on the verge of so great salvation.
“The old Filly Lass used to make men confess her,” said the repentant eccentric lass. “She made men get on their knees before her and call her ‘My princess.’ All the men are crazy for me as a woman. And all the boys were crazy for me as a girl. It all started when I was ten years old with a nine-year old boy. I even once got three grown men fighting for me in a street fight when I was seventeen years old. I liked it that way. I felt desired. And I felt desirable in the eyes of men. And not only did I do everything that every other woman did with men that was most wicked. But I myself invented new ways to do the age-old thing with men with my wicked imaginations come true. This woman before you dressed as a bride does not deserve to be wearing white. I have corrupted my woman’s body that the Good God has given me. I have violated not only my womanhood over and over, but also my girlhood as a minor and as a child harlot. I am sorry. This woman whom you do have a crush on and whom you have a love for her soul is a fornicator and an adulteress and a prostitute. I do not belong in a good place like this. And you do not deserve a bad woman like me in your Christian home.”
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Not fazed by this confession of abominations, Flanders Nickels compassionately said to the eccentric lass, “Filly, it sounds to me like you are saying that you are too bad of a sinner for our loving God to forgive you.”
“I really think that now. Yes,” she said, her body trembling in fear of God.
“I thought the same thing about myself when I came to the Lord for my salvation, Filly,” he said.
“You never did the things that I do,” she said. “Nobody did.”
“A man in the book of Luke thought he did,” said Flanders.
“Was he a murderer?” she asked, thinking about what was commonly regarded as the worst of sins.
“No, Filly. He was a tax collector.” said Flanders. “Jesus had him as a character in a parable.
The Bible called tax collectors ‘publicans.’ And the Jews regarded publicans as chief among sinners.
And this publican came to think the same thing about himself. He prayed to Jesus in repentance unto salvation.”
“What did he do when he sought Jesus as Saviour?” asked Miss Lass.
“He stood far away, would not dare to look up to Heaven, and pounded his chest, and prayed to God to save his lost soul,” said Flanders.
“What did this publican say that got him saved?” asked Filly.
“He said simply, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner,’” said Flanders Nickels.
“If a bad man in a parable can get saved, then a bad woman in a strange apartment can get saved, also, Flanders,” said the eccentric lass.
“I have one last Bible verse to show you, Filly,” he said. “This verse is God’s greatest promise in the Bible.”
“Which one in there is it?” she asked, pointing to his open Bible page.
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“Romans 10:13, Filly,” said Flanders Nickels.
And the eccentric bride read this verse out loud from where she stood to Flanders’s right where he sat at this dining room table: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Then she said, “Thus it is written.”
“Are you ready to pray and ask Christ into your heart as your personal Saviour, Filly?” he asked.
“I am, Flanders.” she said. Then she said, “I am, Lord.”
“I can lead you line-by-line through the prayer,” the Christian man said to her.
“I know what I need to say right now to accept the free gift of eternal life,” she said.
Filly Lass sat back down across from Flanders at this table. And disciple and mentor bowed their heads for her to pray and get saved with her own words to God.
Suddenly a loud motorcycle came upon their ears from just outside this upper apartment. It roared and boomed and shook the walls and the windows. The Devil had sent a distraction upon the peace of the Holy Spirit in this apartment at just the wrong time for Filly and Flanders. And this noise “from Hell,” took the eccentric bride’s focus away from this most urgent prayer of the moment.
“Harley Davidson!” yelled out Miss Lass in agitation. And she stood up abruptly at this table and ran to the window, her arms holding up her wedding dress as she ran, and she looked out this window and shook her woman’s fist.
“It’s just a motorcycle, Filly,” said Flanders.
“No, Flanders. It’s a man,” she said.
“A man on a motorcycle?” he asked, befuddled.
“The man Harley Davidson on the Harley-Davidson motorcycle,” explained the eccentric bride a truly zany circumstance.
“Do you know him?” asked Flanders in confusion.
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“Yes, I do, and he knows me,” said Filly Lass. “He’s the man I left at the altar.”
“Lord, help us,” prayed Flanders.
“He must have found me,” said Miss Lass.
“How I wish that he would turn his motorcycle off,” said Flanders half to him and half to God.
And just like that the Harley-Davidson motorcycle engine was turned off.
From outside the man Harley yelled up into Flanders’s windows, “Filly, I know you’re up there.
I talked to Jenny at the church right after you disappeared, and she said that you went wandering. I found your wedding veil lying around right here out back. Why did you leave me at the altar? I’ve got something to tell you, and I’m coming up to tell you what it is, whether or not you want to hear it.” Outside those living room windows in the next room that looked out back, Flanders knew that a low roof below those windows stretched outward and hid the back alley from view from within.
He knew that Filly could not see Harley out there and that Harley could not see Filly in here. But Filly nonetheless foolishly yelled out at the groom, “I am not here, Harley Davidson!”
“Oh, Filly Lass, but you are,” said the bridegroom. And then there was an interim of silence. Then the sound of motorcycle boots began to pound on the steps that led to this apartment from the back. Then the sound of motorcycle boots thumped on the hallway outside of the apartment. Then there came a knocking upon Flanders’s apartment door.
“Don’t open it, Flanders,” begged Filly Lass.
“I have to open it, Filly,” said Flanders. “You must hear what this man has to say. You brought all of this upon yourself. You have to face up to it.”
“Okay,” she said. And both came to the apartment door, and Flanders opened it, expecting to see a wild and crazed motorcycle tough guy.
Behold, a most formally dressed gentleman in a white tuxedo jacket and white dress pants and white dress shirt and white tie and white socks and white shoes. He had sideburns of white like unto
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the Civil War style. His chin was clean-shaven. And his upper lip had a white handlebar mustache that spanned beyond his sideburns. And he had monocles over both eyes. And he had a fob that connected his belt loop to the inside of his front pocket of his slacks. He pulled out from that pocket a pocket watch that was attached to this little chain, and he opened it, and he said, “It is getting late, Filly. Everybody is getting ready to leave the church.”
“What do you have to tell me, Harley?” she asked defensively.
And he started to stammer out an unintelligible utterance. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Miss Lass, I don’t really want to get married.”
“Really, Harley?” she asked in delight.
“You are happy to hear me say that, Filly?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” she said.
“You don’t want to marry me, either,” he said.
“No, O good Harley,” she said. “I’m not the marrying type.”
“I’m not either,” said the bridegroom.
“When did you find that out?” asked the eccentric bride.
“When I found out that becoming a groom meant becoming also a husband,” said the gentleman dressed in white.
“Oh, Harley. You’re too much,” said Filly.
“The marriage is off,” said Harley in delights.
“The marriage is off,” said Filly in glee.
Then bride and bridegroom put their arms around each other and danced together a wedding dance. Flanders watched in great puzzlement as this dance continued. Then it was over. And they took their arms away from each other. The groom bowed in his bridegroom’s attire. The bride curtseyed in her bridal attire. And then Harley Davidson walked away, happy and content and
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satisfied.
Flanders saw that her wedding veil that he had brought was lying on the floor where the hallway
ended at these steps going down. “Filly, your bridal veil!” cried out Flanders.
Without saying anything, Filly Lass went and picked it up and set it upon her head and came back to the apartment with it on. Her pretty face shone with happiness and contentment and satisfaction. She and Harley were not going to see each other again. But both felt good about that with not an iota of bitterness. Marriage was not for everybody. And the single life was a gift from God.
“You are happy now, Filly,” said Flanders, mystified by this eccentric lass most particularly now.
Just then the motorcycle started up again, but this time it was not loud. And it then drove away quietly. And then they could hear it no more.
Then Filly Lass said, “It is time for me to ask the Saviour to save my soul.”
And bride and believer came back to the dining room table and sat back down at it. They both bowed their heads. Flanders waited. Filly prayed: “Dear God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
In those eight words was this eccentric lass’s cogent, plenary, and sincere prayer for salvation.
She had in this manner asked Jesus to save her soul. And God did hear her words from Heaven.
And Miss Filly Lass became a born-again believer like Flanders. The eccentric bride had become a Christian now.
To assure her of her newfound salvation, Flanders asked her, “If you were to die today, Filly, where would you go?”
She said, “I would go to Heaven.”
And he said, “And how do you know that?”
And she said, “Because I prayed and asked Jesus to save me.”
“That’s right, my Filly!” said Flanders. “This day so great salvation has come upon the most
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eccentric woman I have ever known!”
“Why, Flanders, that was the best compliment you have given me,” said Filly in flirt.
“Indeed so great salvation this day has come upon the most eccentric lass any man has ever known,” teased Flanders.
“And that is the best compliment any man has given me, Mr. Flanders Nickels,” said Miss Lass
in coquetry. Bride and bride’s date laughed together in merriment.
“Well, Filly, how’s it feel now that you are born again?” asked Flanders.
“I feel like my life now is safe in Jesus’s arms,” she said. “And I no longer wish to do my things that I thought that I needed to do in life.”
“Like those sins,” he said.
“Yes, like those sins,” she said. “How come that is so?”
“Because now that you are born again, the Holy Spirit of God indwells you,” said Flanders.
“The Holy Spirit is God,” she said.
“Yes. In II Corinthians 5:17, God says in His Word, ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,’” Flanders confided to her about her new life in Christ.
“I used to do things that the Devil told me to do. Now I want to do things that the Lord tells me to do,” said Filly Lass.
“Filly, when you came here today, you were a child of the kingdom of darkness. But now you are a child of the kingdom of light,” said Flanders. “You have been brought out of darkness into marvelous light. Satan used to be your father; now God is your Father. The Lord used to be your Enemy; now the Devil is your enemy. You used to be wicked; now you are righteous. You used to be lost; now you are saved. And you used to be on the broad way to Hell; but now you are on the narrow way to Heaven.”
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“So many good and great things have happened to me today in this dining room, Flanders,” said Miss Lass. “What a difference that Christ makes for a young woman like myself.”
“Ephesians 4:22 says what you used to be, Filly,” he said.
“Can you help me find that verse?” she asked. He helped her, and she read it out loud for herself: “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;” She looked up at him. “Was I that bad, Flanders?” she asked. He grinned, and he nodded. “I was that bad,” she said.
“My comely and alluring eccentric lass, whatever came to your mind came out of your mouth.
And whatever you thought to do, you went ahead and did,” said Flanders about “the old woman of sin.”
“That’s a polite way of saying that I was rude,” said Filly Lass in confession and with a laugh.
“My eccentric lass has become an eccentric lady,” said Flanders.
“Is there a verse like this one that tells what I am now, Flanders?” asked Filly, pointing in his Bible to Ephesians chapter four.
“Yes, two verses later, my fair bride,” he said.
“Ephesians 4:24, then,” said Miss Lass. And she read this verse out loud: “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” She looked up at Flanders. She said, “Am I really now all that good?” she asked.
“In Christ you now are, Filly,” he said.
“I would like to try to start reading a Bible now, Flanders. And I would like to go to church with you. And I would like to try my hand at praying now. And I even no longer want to provoke my Christian roommate Jenny,” said Filly. “Does that make me a better woman than I was before?”
“I quite behold a new woman in Christ, Filly,” said Flanders in great admiration for her.
A moment of thought passed across her pretty features. “I do like how this wedding dress feels on me,” she said. “And I do not want to go home and take it off yet. I still want to be one man’s bride.
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Even for just this day. Would you…?”
“I would be glad for you to be my bride for the day, beautiful Filly,” he said.
“What should we do for fun as make-believe bride-and-groom?” she asked.
“We can go for a walk together, and I can show off to all the world my beautiful new bride,” he said, enamored of the woman.
“What if they think that we’re getting married?” asked Filly.
“Who cares what they might think,” he said. “We know far better.”
“I’m not the marrying kind,” she said.
“Nor am I the marrying kind, either,” he said.
“Are you the boyfriend kind?” she asked.
“In the Lord, Miss Filly Lass,” he said. “Are you the girlfriend kind?”
“In the Lord, Mr. Flanders Nickels,” she said.
And Flanders and his pretty new girlfriend bride went out into the world for a most happy walk as son and daughter of God and as brother and sister in Christ and as boyfriend and girlfriend in the Holy Spirit.
