I'm going to send you down to post 11 after you've gotten to that place. Let me just make a brief expression of my gratitude to the session of this church and to John for the privilege of getting to be here for almost a whole week of fellowship with the people of this church and the community here. I've been out to Carolina Church on one occasion before back when President Kerry met here soon after I bleeds a building of this new church. About some years ago, I do see out in the congregation people from other places besides right around here, Carthage, Philadelphia, other places, people I've known for some years. So, I'm really surprised there's a look out to see as many people as I do that I know. I really expected to see most faces that I really was not familiar with. One of the blessings of getting to go around holding meetings as I'm able to do is the blessing of getting to meet so many brothers and sisters in Christ this side of heaven. I've met a lot of Christians in the course of my 35 years of traveling around holding meetings. People that I would have met, but I would have met them in heaven, but getting to move around like I do right now, I get to meet them here. And I'll meet some of you and get to know some of you this week that I never would have known till we got to heaven, and that will be good enough, but this is wonderful. I'm looking forward to these days together. I'll be counting on your prayers. Nobody knows that is on the one who speaks to you. The absolute inadequacy on my part to mean anything to this community or this congregation that's vital and effective. God has to do it through Jesus Christ. And I'll be a channel of some sort of communication for him effectively in proportion to your prayers on my behalf. So, I want you to pray for me. Now I'll direct your attention back to verse 11 and chapter 5, and we'll read on down to the end of the chapter. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men that what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not committing ourselves to you again, but giving you calls to be proud of us so that you may be able to answer those who pride themselves on a man's position and not on his heart. So, if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us because we are convinced that one is bad for all, therefore all have died, and he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him, who for their six bad and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view, even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The Old has passed away, the Holy New has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We deceit you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. For our sake, He made Him to be sinned, who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Now, in the fifth chapter, Paul deals with three things. The first part of it deals with death. The middle party deals with judgment, and the last party deals with salvation. Now, those are three tremendous subjects for one chapter. Now, the first that I want to single out and lift up for us in this very first service comes out of the third section. The first section has to do with death and He's talking about the death of a believer, and we'll be coming back here a little later on this week. Then the middle section deals with the judgment, and particularly as it applies to believers. And once again, we'll be looking at this truth a little later on during the week. But tonight, I want to move into that third section that deals particularly with salvation as it is experienced by Christians, and I want to take just one verse out of the many tremendous verses in the concluding part of this chapter. Now, if you were standing behind me and looking over my shoulder, and you could see my Bible as it is right now, your eye would be immediately drawn to the verse I want to talk about. All you have to do is just look over my shoulder to see that that verse is a tremendous importance to the one that owns this Bible. I have that highlighted in yellow all the way through. I've got a red circle drawn around the number 17. I have certain lines, certain words that it underscored. I have two big errors pointing to it, one from the bottom and one from the top. I have particular lines drawn on the side of it. I have a date written out to the side of it. And if you were looking over my shoulder, your eye would be immediately drawn to this page. And if you were to just open my Bible and you had the information that I would be preaching from a verse off of one of these two pages, nearly every one of you would be able to pick the one you say, well, it's got to be that one. That's the one that seems to be the most important to him. Well, I do want to use that verse tonight. And I don't want to use it just because I've got it so marked up and highlighted. I have it marked up and highlighted because it's a protein tremendous verse. I have it highlighted and marked up because it's worthy of introducing a series of meetings calculated to introduce Jesus Christ as it really is. I want to use this verse first of all because I believe here we have what may be the biggest boldest claim for Jesus Christ made in the Bible. This may be the biggest boldest claim for Christ to be found in the scriptures and there are a lot of them there. Now, the Bible doesn't say this is the biggest boldest. I'm just saying that it appears to me this may be that boldest proclamation claimed for Jesus Christ to be found in scripture. Now, I know the least now what to use this is I think this verse after already have a deep part of the biography of everybody in this building and everybody in this building has already lived long enough to come to experience the truth of this verse. Every person in this building ought to be able to put their finger down on that verse and be putting their finger on an experience out of their own lives. Now, if you went home tonight and got out of map of the United States and let your eye run over it, you'd see a lot of places that you've never been. You wouldn't question that they're there. For instance, you might see the state of Maine. Well, I've never been to Maine. I've never entertained any doubt about Maine being left there somewhere in the Northeast. I've met people who've been there. I've just never been there myself. When I look at the map of the United States, I see a lot of places that I've never really personally been, but then my eye will cross some place that just looking at the name of it will warm my heart and stir my memories and begin to bless me and that's because I have been there. And I can put my finger on that spot as I live right there. I can tell you some things about that. Now, there may be portions of scripture that do not match yet. The experience that you have or had had in life, and you would say, I believe that's true because it's in the Bible. But here's one place in the Bible you have to be able to put your finger in and say, look, I believe that's true not just because it's written in the Bible, but this has happened to me. Just looking at this verse ought to warm the heart and stir the soul of us. Everybody in this building because you're looking at something that's happened to you. This ought to be like a good friend stepping out of scripture to fast your hand and remind you of who you are and kept them done for you and what's been done in. That's why I'm going to use this verse at the very beginning. Now, this verse does describe the personal experience of the man who wrote this book, Saul at Tarsus now called Paul the Apostle. In this one sentence, he summarizes his life. I mean, the major aspect of his life is the most important thing in his life in one sentence here. And so he said, if any man be in Christ any one because the word man is generic there, it means any human being, if any human being be in Christ, he or she is a new creation. All things pass away, everything becomes new. Now, that's quite a proclamation and that's what we'll be talking about. Really, what we have here is the formula for a brand new life. There is the human being on the face of the earth to cannot have his or her life transformed provided to come into Jesus Christ. That's the proclamation here and this is a good news. It's a formula now. I only took one year of chemistry. I took it in college my first year. I remember the first time, or maybe it was the second time, I believe it was the first time I ever went to laboratory. They give us a laboratory in man. You know, it was about a very big size of this Bible I hold in my hand. And we were to perform the experiments. And I was dealing with, I believe it was the very first one. It must have been very simple because it was the beginning of the year. I didn't see what I was to have. I went to the window and I drew out the asset I was supposed to have in the minerals and the buns and burner and the test tube and a few things like that. And I brought it back to the place of sand and me. And then I opened that manual and put it down and I began to do what it said do. And down beneath it stated what the product would be that would be precipitated in the test tube. If I put these elements together and mix them and put heat under them, there are certain periods of time and a certain something was to be formed in that test tube. And I was ready to see this work. I've never performed an experiment like this before. So I put the elements in and then had a great disappointment because after I've done what the book said for me to do, I didn't get what the book said I'd get. Now I remember very well. I just did for a little bit. I'll never forget it. Now looking at that book and I said to myself, now I isn't just a fine thing. Here I am in the first year college. In my first day in laboratory with the book the college has given me and I found a mistake on the very first page almost. But then I thought, well, let me give it a benefit of the doubt. Maybe there's something here. I didn't do exactly the way I was supposed to. So I went back over it again. And the second time I didn't get what the book said I'd get. Now I knew that I'd found an error in the book. Then I read it over carefully again and I got to this list not ever gotten in sign. There was one little element I've forgotten what it was now. One little aspect of the performing of that experiment that I may not have done just exactly the way they said it. But it didn't look to me like it was important that they can be different. But I corrected that and that made all the difference. I got exactly what the book said. So now after that I often performed an experiment and I didn't get what the book said I'd get. But I always knew who was wrong and I always knew the book is right. And I always knew when I went back and corrected maybe a little tiny thing, but if I did it just like the book said I always got the project. Now friends, I said all of that to say this. There has never been a failure on the part of Jesus Christ in the history of eternity. There has never been one human life that ever came into him that didn't become for all eternity of brand new creation. I've had people tell me that it didn't work with him. I've had people say well I tried him but it didn't work. Well I don't know what Chinese but I'll tell you this. Nobody has ever come into Christ in the way we're going to be talking about tonight who hasn't become for all eternity of brand new human being. Part of a brand new human race in Jesus Christ. If any man be in Christ, not he may be a new creature. Not per Cassie will become a new creature. He will become a new creature. All things will fast away. These things will come. Now Clarence Barrow was the greatest trial lawyer of the past generation. Some of us remember when he was still functioning. Clarence Barrow was an agnostic. He didn't deny that there was a God. He didn't know for sure that there was one. He didn't much care. He was not a Christian. He didn't know God but he did know human being. Clarence Barrow was a great lawyer. One of the great trial lawyers of the past 50 or 60 years. He defended the worst criminals in this country. He delved into human nature like the criminal lawyers had the opportunity to do. At one time after years of practice with the worst human element. Clarence Barrow wrote his verdict on humanity. And I've told it, verbatim. Here's the way it goes. Man is mean, anti-renical, and selfish, and agressives, and a lot more. Now that's what he said. Now, it's not like he's just quoting a Bible, doesn't it? Because the Bible speaks like that a mankind. Paul himself writes like that about humanity in Romans 2, 1, 2 and 3. The Clarence Barrow finished his state like this. Man is mean, tyrannical, selfish, and agressive, and a lot more. And it is useless, he said, to try to change him. Clarence Barrow was defend. The worst criminal. But he didn't believe he did change him. Now, Paul fixed an entirely different point of view. Paul is speaking for God's great power of blessing in this world. And he says that any human being, any one of those men, the Clarence Barrow defended, that he thought could never be corrected. Jesus Christ didn't make these creatures out of them. So we're going to be looking at that now. Think of the bonus of this statement. This is the apostle Paul, setting forth the confidence he has in Christ. Paul said, look, here's the confidence I've got. Wherever I go and preach, now he's writing to the Corinthians, or an ungodly pagan city. But wherever Paul presented the gospel, he always did it in this confidence. I'll never look into eyes of the human being, whose life cannot be transformed for all eternity by Jesus Christ. As hell, he didn't need to know who they were. He didn't need to find out how deep they've gone in sin and how far they've gone from God before he made a statement like that. He just said, if any man I put it on it, because all men will come into Christ. All men don't come into Christ.
But any who do, any who do, any who come into Christ, without saying or making new creatures. That's the word of the Paul. When he went with Bolin, he didn't have to feel people out. He didn't have to find out if there were real wicked and real bad. He could step into any situation and make the proclamation. If anyone here who comes into Christ will have all things pass away under his blood and using his come to be in his written life and the spirit. Now, if that's so, and it is, then here's what it means. It means that the worst person in the world tonight while I'm talking to you can absolutely have their lives in these new and become new human beings for all eternity. I don't know whether the worst person is. I suppose somewhere on the planet Earth there is somebody who has gone farther from God and deeper in sins than anybody else. Where have that person be? Maybe in China. Maybe in Mississippi. It may be in a whole man. It may be a teenager. Maybe a woman. I don't know where would the person, well, if we could find the person, if we could finally identify the person who, among all the three and a half billion human beings has gone farther from God and deeper in sins than anybody else, and we could stand them right here. As Christians we could say with absolute consciousness to them, if you come into Christ Jesus, you'll be laid out brand new creature beginning tonight. All things will pass out of your life and new things will come. Now Paul was writing to the Corinthians, I say, this is the second letter. In his first letter he said something that they all, I'm sure, responded inwardly to you. You know, Christ was one of the most wicked cities in the world. It was in a moral degraded devotee city. Probably no city on the planet earth at that time was deeper than the battery of imeralities and then current wise. And Paul writes to them in the first letter to remind those Corinthians who they really are. That little congregation of believers in Christ, ma'am telling you, that testimony they must have had. Listen to what Paul says. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the immoral nor adulterers, nor adulterers, nor sexual pervert, nor thieves, nor greedy, nor drunkards, nor the vows, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you that you were watched, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in the spirit of our God. While that little community of Christians and cars had all kinds of people in it. People who had been at belt were sexual perverts, drunkards, greedy, wicked people out of all the degrading sins that pervert human race down so openly and so deeply. Paul said, you've got them all in your congregation. Look around you and see how you've been transformed and watched and cleansed and made godly. Now, Paul is writing this statement to people who they experienced. Not only would it be true that the worst person if we could find them, but we could also give this great hope to the best human being on planet Earth tonight. In terms of having lived their own lives just in their own strength and out of their own initiatives. If we could find the person in the worlds of these who, apart from Christ, had done the best job of running their lives and surely somewhere there's somebody like that, out of all the people who've never come into Christ, somewhere there must be somebody who's lived a higher life on noblers, kinder, pure life than anybody else. If we could find that one human being through outside of Christ has lived the finest life of human beings alive on the planet Earth today and have them here and should look at them. So that person too, we could say and ought to say, if you come into Christ, your life will be transformed, you'll be made a brand new creation, all things will pass away and all things become new. And you know why? It's because friends that we found the best human beings, the one who's done the best job of running their own lives in this world. We still have a person who in the presence of God would not be able to produce one hour out of his or her life that wasn't understanding. Because there's never been a human being whoever lived one hour out of all their lifetimes satisfying what God is required of man when he made him. God made man to live him with all our strength, all our minds, all our hearts, all our deeds, all our bodies. And to love others is much as we love ourselves, there is nobody in this building who's ever done that one day in your life. There is nobody in the world who ever has. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You see, all the friends, you can't forget any, for instance, we have always graded like maybe your shoes do. Yep. If you fab a lower 70. Above 70, you get these Cs, Bs and A's, minuses and sluts. Oh no. Now, once you've got Bnie said, the only one grade and no F plus, no F minus you say F, that's all. All right, and now, everyone, there are two boys who's just finished the year, got their report tied, they're on their way home. One of them has an average of 50 for the year. So he's got an F. The other one has an average of 25 for the year, so he's got an F. So they look at each other's card and the boy that made 50 and got F, didn't like what he saw and so he grabbed the cards for both of them and turned around, went back to see the teacher, got back to school and saw her and said, look, you didn't give me the right grade. Well, she said, I thought it did, he said it didn't. He said, yes, that's right. But said, you also gave me an F. Well, he said, that was right. Did you know what you did? He said, look, my friend here, Bill, he made 25. He said, I did twice as good as he did. He said, that's right. That's why I put 50 on yours and 25 on his. Now, but he said, he said, you gave me an F. Just like you gave him an F. Well, he said, that's right, I did. You did twice as good as he did. I've missed that. That's why you got 15. He got 25. But both of you are exactly alike in this. Neither one of you even came close. So we can be great. I said for you. I think that's the way it is among men. Listen. If there's anybody in this building tonight who's been patting yourself on your life and you really believe that your life has been so good and sweet that if you bad tonight, just because of the kind of life you've lived, God would never send you to hell. You don't know who you are.
You hadn't even gotten enough grace from God yet to know who you are. Every human being would once they see the truth about themselves prior to God being merciful to me for his center. If we had the best person here, we'd have to offer them the same hope. He's just as lost. Look, if we could put the worst person who's gone farther from God and deeper in sin right there and we put the person out of Christ who's been the best job of his life right here, one would be just as sure of hell as the other. It's right. This man has made 50. This man has made 25 or 10. But neither one of them ever reached the standard that Jesus Christ represents. And Christ is the express in each of the glory of God. And the Bible says we've all fallen short of that glory that God has required of us. Also, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. That means little people, doesn't it? Means the little people. Jesus talks so much about it. Remember how Jesus put it? So he said it is not the will of us. My father, which is in heaven, that one of these little ones has. So there's a little children to come under me and forbid them not for such as the kingdom of heaven. That's why the gospel is opened up to little boys and girls. Because if any human being, that means a little tiny barger. I was holding a speaking at a conference over in Alabama a few years ago. Elementary students were involved in the conference. High school students were there as counselors and we had a few college kids directing the music and carrying on far as a leadership. The littlest camper we had there was a little girl whose name I've forgotten. The youngest, the smallest little camper, she could not have been past the first grade, I'm sure. Probably six years old, if she couldn't have been any older than that. And she was the camp cutie. She was a cute pretty little dice thing and all and everybody's favorite. She was out of the mascot of the camp after her day or two. On Thursday night, the college boy who was directing the singing at camp fire. After a few songs had been sung. Now if anybody would like to give a testimony about what happened to you this week, this is a good time to do it. Now we were all sitting on logs around the fire. It's a big crowd of them. And I was sitting where I could see this little girl. I was sitting on a log, started an angle to the one she was sitting on. And I could see her sitting there and I saw her slide off that log because she wanted to testify and she got out of sight. Listen, she could be seen sitting down. She was so little when she got off that log she couldn't be seen because of the heads of the other. But everybody heard her voice. She wiped up that little voice and I can court her just like she said it. She said two nights ago, I told my counselor, I wanted to be a Christian. And that night she said, I got on my knees and I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart and make me a Christian. And oh, how he has changed my life. That's exactly what she said. And you know what I did? I laughed. I was ashamed of myself and then I did. I mean, I can't laugh out loud. I mean, I just, you know, it kicked on me. It really did. Now, I wouldn't laugh and cause the blessing of it. I wasn't, you know, given a holy laughter. I was given a funny laugh. It kicked on me, you know. Here's a little sweet, lovely little six-year-old girl. Say it. Oh, how he's changed my life. Now, that had been a 16-year-old girl who stood up and said two nights ago, I opened my life to Jesus Christ that he came in and I know how he's changed my life. I wouldn't laugh. Anybody who goes 16 years without Jesus Christ will have plenty of changes to make. Is that gonna be a 26-year-old mother who said two nights ago, I nailed an S Christ to take my life. And though how he's changed my life, I wouldn't laugh at that. Is that gonna be a 96-year-old woman? It said two nights ago that last I asked Christ to come into my life and I know how he's changed my life. So, if I wouldn't laugh at that, anybody that goes 16, 26, 96 years without Christ, my life changes. Is that a sweet little six-year-old girl? Yes. I had a right to be ashamed of myself. You know what I did? I remember the story. I heard Ojic said this in England, tale. So, he'd tell it in Danville, Virginia. Years ago, he was in his age, holding a revival meeting at the time. He said he was preaching in a rescue mission and it was homecoming night and they had about 12 men on the platform who would give their testimony selling how God and that mission had saved them and transformed their lives. One after another stood up. Well, with tell how his life had been enslaved by alcohol for years and then one night, he had come into that mission and come down to the altar in Christ's meeting and watched him clean and made him use. Another would tell how he was in the grips of gambling, another how he was in the grips of immorality and degradation, Marley. One after another, they told stories like this. Then when a King time for Jesus' list to come up, he said, friends, note what you heard tonight. You heard the catalog of all the major degrading, debarching sins that can make a human being capy and you've seen a capy set free stand before you tonight and you should look on his count and that sensitivity to arbitrary Jesus had made him free. Now, then, he said, listen to my testimony. And see if my testimony isn't greater than any of theirs. He said many years ago when I was just a lad, I got on my knees on a gypsy wagon outside of London and I asked the Jesus Christ to shortly before had saved my father to be my savior to you. And he said he's such a great, wonderful savior that he came into that little lad's heart and he saved me from ever getting into the grips of the sins he had to save these men out of. There I tell you the truth, friends, when a little child from that little heart and mind opens to love and trusted Jesus. I can sure it's true. All things pass away. Everything becomes new. The whole course and destiny. Listen, that little girl. First of all, she was a little six-year-old. She had a heart that needed the blood of Jesus and the creaking of the spirit too. But that little girl when she opened her heart to Christ, while the whole course of her life, she would be different if 16 now than she would have been if she'd gone there without Christ. She would be a different 26-year-old mother than she would have been if she'd gone there without Jesus. She would be a different kind of 96-year-old woman than she would have been if she'd gotten there without Jesus. And for nine billion years, she would be in a lot better place than she ever would have been if she'd have left this world without Jesus. Yesterday that died. That little girl told the truth. That same thing is about the older. I mean, can a human being best be offered if any human being turns into Christ? Now then, how is it that anybody coming into Christ has made a new creature? But I think the key to that is suggested in the last part of the 15th verse. And he died for all the those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake did do things. He died and he rose again. When a person comes into Christ in faith, all the benefits of his blood become theirs. All the benefits of his death on the cross are applicable to them and can be cleaned by them. And all the benefits of his resurrected reasoned life become theirs. The moment a person comes into Christ now, all the benefits of his death on the cross become theirs. Their sins are forgiven. It's all passed away. All those old things that would rise up to damns them in the judgment are now passed away. The blood of Christ now watches the very moment that a person comes into Christ. The whole record is light-cleaned. The blood of Jesus takes all our sins away, hides them forever from the eyes of God. That's a tremendous thing. The very moment a person embraces Jesus their new creature in the sense that their sins are now forgiven and gone forever buried under the blood of Jesus from the very sight of God. So that God now can deal with us as a father, not as he would otherwise have to deal with us as a judge. I talked to a young lady seven years ago who I knew he had become a Christian a few months before. I knew her life before she became a Christian. She had at least one child who I don't think she even knew the father was. She had been a loose girl and had not lived with all the kind of life she should have. And then by God's grace had become a Christian. She was talking to me one day. She said, Mr. Patterson, when I get married, I'm not going to wear a white gown, wedding gown. I knew what she was talking about. So I said, well, now, oh, why not? Well, I knew what she meant, but anyway, I was going to lead her out. She said, well, the fight of that wedding gown means something but I've lost and I'll never have again. So I realized I was talking to a young Christian who really didn't know what had happened to her. So I said, look, didn't you become a Christian about three months ago? Yes, she said, I did. I said, are you sure about that? Or yes, she said, I did. I said, do you know, did you know that in the Bible, there's a statement that goes something like this? Come, let us reason together. So your sins be a scarlet, so be white as snow. Whether you read like crimson, the be as wool, you said, no, I don't know. That was in there. When I said, did you know that in the Bible, there's a statement that goes like this, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin? She said, I've heard that. Then I said, did you know, in the last book of the Bible, a picture of the saved in heaven is given. A great crowd of people dressed in white roads. And a question is raised. Who are these all dressed in white roads? And the answer is given, these are those who have washed their roads white in the blood of the Lamb. She said about it just a minute, and then she smiled and she said, I will wear a white robe. She just hadn't realized the blessing she really had. Then this heart for her to really comprehend that that life she had lived was now gone. That belonged to another person. The moment she came into Christ, she was no longer a child of rest under condemnation. She was God's daughter. And she was wrapped in the road to Jesus' righteousness. Friends, that's great. If you're sitting here tonight, still wrapped up just in your own condemnation. You've never come to Christ. All you've got on your life is the old, your guilt for your own sins. All there's a blessed relief for you tonight. Jesus is madty and I'm present. Understood the blood your sins will pass away if you come into him. But not only that, we come under the dominion of His risen spirit. Christ has risen from the dead. And to come into Christ means that we come into His Lordship. It means that I yield my life up to these days. I'm going to follow Christ. Friends, there's no way in the world to follow Jesus and not live in your life. No way in the world I have Christ as your administrator over your life and not begin to have different attitudes and different habits and different ways in your life is just going to be different. It's supernaturally natural. When you come into Christ by faith, the blood of Jesus washes your sins away. When you come into Christ by faith, the Holy Spirit comes in from the risen Christ. And now, you acknowledge Christ as the only king in Lord over your life. You thank God for your life, for your children, for your mothers, your fathers, your friends, your boss, your employer, your employees. You're thankful for all these relationships. But none of them are Lord and king. Only Christ is. So you're going to live your life and now on under His Word. You think about Him. You think to please Him. Considering Him, you're seeing your partner in control in all the affairs of your life. How you work, how you study, how you play. All you can't do anything but different. We got a young fellow at Spring Camp many years ago. He was one of the most physically biggest birds I guess we ever had there while I was in. Yes, that's it. He had an easily tackled on her football team. Or at Malabama. He was there for four years and he had to listen to me preach about six times a week. Kids at Spring Camp. Back in those days, we went to church morning and about in the United States of America. I think too much. I really think we overdidied. But this was back in the days when we were over doing it. And this boy had heard the gospel in his physical years. It heard over and over again. But he had never penetrated. He'd never heard anything really. He heard my voice but he never heard anything that said. I didn't go home one week the end and on Saturday night, we held services of Sunday night services up in the auditorium of a rural school building. And after the service was over, I came out and he was standing if they get to the stairs. This was on the second floor right at the head of the stairs. And I could see something was wrong. He just got in the end for Malabama. There were tears in his eyes and he had a distraught look on his face. And he said, Mr. Parrish, now I got to talk to you right now. So we went in a classroom. Now I've never seen that boy cry. I've seen him put on the football field, mad on the football field, and everything else. But I've never seen him show any signs of weakness like that. And I tell you, we sat down at that seat and he just began to blebber like a little three or four-year-old kid. I knew something bad was wrong. He told me, he said, Mr. Patterson. He said, you saw me standing right there at the head of the stairs. He said, if I'd have slipped right there and fallen down those stairs and broken my neck, I'd never stop there lying with straights of hell. Never heard he talk like that before. He never can only die me ever use the word hell with a different way. Now I knew something about that. And then he said to me, he said, you just don't know what I've done. And what he meant, well, I thought he meant something terribly done this weekend. But it turned out he meant, you know, I don't know what it was. And I never did pricking too much and he never did tell me. But he was under, I'm telling you, he was under conviction. I knew God was working in his heart. And so I told him, I knew I had his ear for the first time. So I told him, I said, look, let me tell you something. There really isn't anything I can do for you. I'm just a sinner who's been saved by that Jesus Christ. And even if I could get down inside, if I could just climb down in there, where you are, the two of us together, couldn't straighten out what's wrong. But I said, now listen to me because I'm going to tell you about another person who can't get down inside of you. He'll listen to me if he wanted. And he can begin to straighten out whatever it is. And then he sat there and listened to me as I simply told him, about how Jesus's bad for his sins, that rose from the dead and was present. In such a form that he'd be coming to his heart. If he was there in the body, he couldn't come into your heart, but he was there in the spirit. And if he would open himself up to Jesus, Jesus would come right down into his heart and deal with his life. After we talked a little bit, he said, he wanted to do it. So we got on our knees and he prayed a short prayer. This is all he said, but it was enough, wasn't it? He said, Lord Jesus, I've made a mess out of my life. Now, kind of thinking, you're old, young person, you're 17 years old, long enough to make a mess out of your life. You know it is. He said, Lord Jesus, I've made a mess out of my life. I'm asking you now to come in and straighten me up. I tell you folks, he did. About a week later, he got up and championed nobody's prompted him to do it. I don't think anybody knew what is going on. And he just said, I want to space something to see him by. He said, everybody here knows me. And he knows I've been cheating my way through school here. Now, I'm just standing to admit it and to say, those days are gone forever. I tell you, when you get your lines up, the Christiest beginning, you begin to be honest. You begin to be cured. You begin to be disciplined. Your life begins to turn in a godly direction. We grow in it. We don't become perfect at once, but now our lives have a different course. If you're in Christ Jesus, that's the way it is. With any man being in Christ, that's the crux of it. How does a man come into Christ? Since I'm going to summarize it, can't go into it. And this may sound surprising, but the Bible tells us how you get into Christ if you're there. Those of us tonight who can honestly say, what a wonderful things in my life has been raw since Jesus came into my heart. Those of us here tonight who are in Christ Jesus, here's the way we got in. It started before you ever began. The Bible tells us that God was at work on this, on your salvation, long before you were ever born. We were chosen in Him, before the foundation of the world.
That's where it began. When a Paul writes to the Thessalonians said, not only did he choose you in, but he called you through the gospel. It were in Christ and I just because somebody talked to you about Jesus. Parents did, teachers did, preachers did. The gospel came through you. It came not only to your physical ear, but God's spirit made it speak to your heart. This is what we call a spiritual calling. God made the gospel come alive in you and you realize your sin and you recognize Christ and you realize the desire to have him rule over your life. And so, thirdly, you came into Him by faith. We were chosen in Him, we were called into Him and then we came into Him by faith. How do you come into Christ? Two steps. Three steps. Two steps to it. The first step of faith is repentance. I recognize when I'm a sinner. I realize that Christ is a Savior. I repudiate running my whole life any longer and I turn to Christ for mercy and for help. That's repentance. Now, has that ever happened in your life? Has there ever been any sort of a spiritual experience in your life that could be described like this? That you recognize that you were a sinner. You realize that Christ was the only Savior. And you renounce the running of your own life and turn to Christ for mercy. To turn your life to Him. And when it means receiving Him, not just turning to a not just crying out for mercy, but pasting Him, receiving Him as the ones who paid for your sin and as the ones who was alive from now on to be the master and king and lord and authority over your life. Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me.
Now, as that isn't part of your experience, God granted it becomes your experience tonight. Friends, I didn't ask you when this happened because that's in unimportant. You're coming to know Christ made happen so early in your life that you can't identify the time. I please God for conversions like that. I please God for a little human lives as the Holy Spirit works in so wonderfully and early that they learn to live and trust Jesus as early as they learn to trust and love their parents. As they first begin to hear of them long before they can run away back in the period they could even remember about their hearts were responding to Christ. And as long, listen, there are some people who tell the truth when they say, as long as I can remember, I have lived in trusted Jesus. Don't let anybody put that back. The Holy Spirit rest can work even works in Jeremiah in the room of his mother. I please God for that. People like that have to give their testimonies because they think you have to be knocked down as you've been deep in sin and fifty years of age or yet not a testimony to give. God bless the people who can stand up and say, look, God so wonderfully worked in this center's life. Let him open my heart to believe in trusting as I first heard it. And I can't even remember when it began, but I know that I do repent of my sins. I do repudiate the sin for some of my own deeds. I do recognize that a person, Jesus, I'm wicked and awful. And I just trusted him and I'm seeking to follow him. There are some of us here that can remember the time and the day. Well, you know, when it happened to us, when it last we did in a self-conscious way, repudiate the running of our own lives any longer and we turned to Christ to put our trust in him. But if you aren't sure that this has happened, then tonight, dear friends, by God's grace may this happen in your life. Jesus is an army.
You come in with him by committing your life and the healthcare is keeping and under his control.
This is a grace that God gives you to recognize on my side. Jesus is the one I really need. I have no sense that I've ever really turned to him by the grace of God the night. The beginning tonight, I'm going to recognize myself as a Christian disciple because I'm going to turn to Christ tonight and as best I know how I'll give myself to him. Now, I'm going to ask you to do it tonight. Right now, not asking to join any church that ought to come if you're not already a member. I'm not asking to be bad guys though. You must be bad guys to obey Jesus but not to be saved. If you've never been bad guys, you'll need to do that. But I'm not talking about being bad guys. I'm not talking about joining the church. I'm talking about the United States with Christ. That's our salvation. Christ is an army of two or three of us together in my name. He said, I'm there. He's right here. And now in your heart, that's the only place you can be saved. So you can't be saved in front of a church, through the back of a church, through those places that you're going to do with salvation. And the heart may believe to write to him. That's the reason I'm not going to ask you to go anywhere. I'm not going to ask you to come anywhere. I'm not going to ask you to stand up. You can be saved as quickly sitting down. I'm not going to ask you to kneel down. You can be saved as quickly sitting down. It's your heart that counts. I don't care where your body is or what position it's in. It's your heart that counts. Now, we're going to bow before him and just a few moments. And if you aren't conscious of the fact that you've ever and repentance and trust, turn your life over to Jesus. I'm asking you to do it tonight. You're not making promises. You're too weak to do that. You're just coming to him. And you're turning your weeks into life over to him as best you know how to do it. Determined by his grace now to start following him, receiving his forgiveness, taking up your way following him. Let's go before him right now.
As we bow before him, let no be the spirit of God has to work in your heart that you're ready right now. You want to. Right now address yourself to him like this. If you are, you just say to him, that prayer is something like this.
Oh, God, do mercy for the next sinner and save me for Jesus' sake.
I recognize and confess my sin, old God.
By your grace I renounce and appear to you and confirm my sense of ways to you for mercy.
Have the best I know how tonight. Oh, God, I will see your son, Jesus Christ, as in the Lord over my life and beginning tonight. By your grace I will trust him and follow him from here home. Thank you, oh, blessed Lord, for saving me. Thank you for taking me. After you and your name, oh, man.