Don't Hate the Player Hate the Game

I used to hear this statement from the fellows I worked with. Three guys over the space of three years. I worked with each one at different times for at least six months or a year or more. They all had something in common. They were all playboys, and yet they all feared Hell in one degree or another.
One was an ex-gangbanger that watched his buddy get shot in front of him at a party. He knew a little about God from attending Bible school and enjoyed hearing about the Bible. I loved him like a brother. He memorized my number and would call me through the years when he wanted to talk. He was a hard worker, but moved from place to place, because he knew his days were numbered- so the Spirit of fear told him. His main vice is that he just had to walk in town and as if he had a charm women fell into his arms. I seen it just eating lunch with him and the next thing we knew we had someones phone number which I luckily threw away. Good guy, but he was bound by spirits that would’t let him go.
The guy before him was one of our brethren. His old friends kept contact with him. Finally he could not resist. He fell away in a cloud of dark music, drugs, and a lying spirit. He also was smooth and a very likeable guy. He just couldn’t break the chains that bound him. He has spent a lot of time in prison, giving him time to reconsider, but those chains are heavy.
The other fellow was a good friend. He would do the sign of the cross when passing a Catholic Church. He was scared of the “inferno”, but that didn’t stop him from filling his trunk with bad magazines, and enjoying an evil eye. He also liked to look at foreign magazines depicting a lot of gore. You would see him with a classy girl friend, but when I would drop him off at his house a neighbor lady was waving him to her apartment to "pass the time", and he would look at me and head off to the slaughter until his girlfriend found out and he started fearing for his life.
Three extremely likeable guys. We can’t help but love them. How do we view them. Can we see even though they made the choices they are bound tight. In these situations I pray that the chains be loosened so they can escape. Two of them in prison- One of them running scared. They taught me a lesson “Don’t hate the player, Hate the Game".- More will be said latter…..