Have you learned through the years that what you don’t know can hurt you? I heard some time ago about a Mexican bandit named Jose Rodriguez, who lived down close to the border. He made regular trips across the Rio Grande to a little Texas town and he would rob the banks and then he would go back across the river. He became such a nuisance that finally they alerted the Texas Rangers and a man was assigned to try to find and to arrest Jose Rodriguez and recover all of the money. The Ranger made his way down toward the Rio Grande and got on the trail of Jose. When he caught up with him he was entering a little border town right across the Rio Grande in Mexico. As the Ranger crossed the river and went into that little town, he saw Jose going in the cantina. And so the Texas Ranger went into the cantina, slipped behind Jose, pulled out his trusted .44, cocked it, and put it right at the base of the head of that bandit. Then he said to him, “Jose, I know who you are. And I have come to reclaim the money. If you don’t give me every cent, I’m going to blow your head off right here.” There was just one problem: Jose Rodriguez did not understand one word of English. And the Ranger could not speak one word of Spanish.
Fortunately there was a man standing at the bar and he understood both languages. He stepped up and said to this Texas Ranger, “Would you like for me to interpret for you?” The Ranger said, “I would. You tell Jose Rodriguez exactly what I’ve said.” So the man relayed the message. “Jose, this is a Texas Ranger. He knows who you are. And he has come to reclaim the money and if you don’t give it to him he is going to shoot you right here.”
Well, Jose Rodriguez began to tremble. He said to the man, “I am too young to die. You tell that Ranger not to shoot. I robbed those banks but I have saved every bit of the money and not spent one cent of it. If he will go to the well outside the city and travel 40 paces north of that well he will find all of the money hidden under a rock. Just tell him not to shoot.”
The interpreter turned to the Ranger and he said to him, “Jose Rodriguez is a brave man. He is not afraid to die.” If only Jose Rodriguez had known English or the Ranger had known Spanish.
You know I’ve discovered that there are a lot of people who don’t know what they need to know, especially about the Christian life. I talk with people every week about their relationship with the Lord and somewhere in the conversation I usually ask this question, “Are you a Christian?” And they say to me, “Well, I think so or I hope so.” Sometimes they say, “Well, I believe in God.” Or they ask me, “What is a Christian?” And this indicates to me that there are an awful lot of people who really do not know what a Christian is.