Gospel—Sam Ludvicek
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Pray, Father.
When the gospel is preached. When the gospel is spoken about.
We would have the hears ears open, the heart touched, the conscience touched.
And we know that we need help for both speaker and hearer alike. So in this moment, we trust the.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray.
You think I have beautiful feet?
No.
I can prove you wrong.
OK.
Isaiah chapter 52 and verse 7.
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth.
Good tidings that publish a piece that bring us good Tidings of good that publishes salvation.
So you're wrong.
The message of the Gospel.
Makes your feet beautiful if you bring it.
Last night before the Gospel and the prayer meeting.
There was an expression by some there that there might be some that don't yet know the Lord Jesus as their Savior.
I find it hard to preach the gospel just to preach the gospel. That sense that there might be one here that doesn't yet know the Lord Jesus as Savior puts an urgency in my heart and mind.
Now everybody here probably has heard the gospel in many ways, shapes and forms expressed through many of the stories and the words that are in this book and can quote the scriptures through my own story I was brought to meeting.
Nine months before I was born.
Three days after I was born, my mother and father crossed down power lines and telephone poles and trees to walk up the street to Jacob Bloomer's house, where there was a meeting in his home. Or the Saints sat down and remembered the Lord. So I heard the gospel from the lips of my father and my mother, from Jackie McCoy in Sunday school, from Carl McCoy from the pulpit, from Charles Lubichek, from the pulpit.
And many others that visited from Des Moines.
Many times.
And yet.
By the age of 11, I was not yet saved.
If somebody would have asked me how to get saved, I could have told them.
That's just.
Amazing. That's my fear is that there are others who might be here tonight.
Who have heard it all, have memorized the verses and in a formal way perhaps you could answer the question of how you could get saved how somebody can get saved. There's a heart surgeon that wrote a book called Beyond Death's Door and in this book he tells the story of how he had heard these near death experiences that people had how they see a tunnel and a light and they go towards it and they come back and some of them talk about how.
They didn't want to come back. They wanted to stay there. And he didn't think much of it. He bought into what science says, that it's just chemical reactions and you kind of see whatever, maybe religious beliefs that you have.
But one day he was working on a man who had a heart attack in the middle of the procedure, and they brought him back using the paddles and he came back and he came back screaming.
I see the flames. Don't let me go, don't let me die. Please don't let me die down. He goes again out and they bring him back again. He comes back screaming, saying he sees terrible things. Don't let me go, don't let them take me. Now this man who's a doctor is an agnostic, I guess you would call him at this point.
But he remembers Sunday school verses that he learned a long time ago.
And again, the third time this man comes screaming out, tell me how I can get saved, What can I do? And he just, the doctor says, well.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
00:05:03
If you call on the name of the Lord, you'll be saved. The guy goes down again, comes back, he's at peace.
Well, a few days later, he talks to the man.
In the hospital room. And he doesn't remember much of that. But there was a change in this guy. Now this doctor with all of his education says I better look at something again. I better look into something that's not the normal thing. Every time you hear about these near death experiences, they're not like that.
Well, that's what everybody in this room who knows the Lord Jesus is concerned about, if there was to be one in the family, a brother or sister, a child.
That doesn't yet know the Lord Jesus as their Savior. That they're so used to hearing these words that they're just going along. You go to meeting, you go to the events, you go to places, your parents take you to conferences and that you're just there. And you're in the mix of it all. And you learn the verses and you pick songs that are your favorites. And you do all that, but yet you're not yet saved.
Your sins have not yet been washed away.
Now in my own life, I've told the people before and I perhaps it's a common experience. If you have ever had an experience in your life where you thought the Lord had come, it's a scary thing if you aren't sure if you're saved.
I remember as a young boy coming home one time from school and there was nobody at the farm.
And I started thinking the Lord came and they're gone and I'm left behind now. This happened to me twice. The first time I'm frightened, I'm going in the house, I go outside and I'm really scared.
And I thought to myself, I know Carl McCoy saved, I'm going to call their house. So I called the house and I figured if either he or Jackie McCoy answered, I know that the Lord hadn't come yet. Well, one of them answered, it was Carl. And I hung up the phone.
And I went.
I still didn't trust the Lord. I just was relieved that the Lord hadn't come yet.
It's just, I just can't hardly believe it myself. Some time went by, many gospel meetings, when Albert Hayhoe would come. I was riveted. This guy's face shined with the love of Christ on it. I used to think when they talk about Moses coming down from the mountain, it must be like Albert Hayhoe's face. It shined. It was. And I was riveted by that. And there were those two and the stories that were told. But I was learning those things. They were getting down inside in my memory.
But it happened again. We were someplace and nobody was around. And again I'm thinking, the Lord's come and I, I'm, I'm, I'm done. This time I thought, my uncle Howard, who's in Pella, I know he's saved.
So I called him and I figured if he answered or my Aunt Alice answered one of them, I'd be OK. And sure enough, Uncle Howard answered. I hung up the phone again. This I'm I'm OK. I still didn't trust the Lord as my savior. Is there anybody here like that? Have you just gone along? Have you learned the things? Have you memorized the verses and enjoy the hymns? And you think everything is OK? Well, it's not.
That's scary. It's scary to me that there might be somebody that was like me.
Because I wasn't safe.
I wasn't safe at all.
But something happened after a gospel meeting on Sunday night, and like boys will do, I was acting up in some way. Uh, my father needed to use the Willow switch in the belt many times as I grew up because I misbehaved.
But on the way home this one night, I did something and I knew I was going to get it.
And uh, I my father's habit was to discipline us and then send us to our room.
And then come in and talk with us after we had a chance to stop sobbing and calm down a little bit.
And he would and he, he would come in and do you understand why? Yes, Daddy and I won't do it anymore and I do it again the next day or something. But.
But this time it was different. I'm eleven years old.
And my father comes in and he's talking to me, and we love you, son. But he said your mother and I don't know that you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior and son, if you died tonight, you would enter a lost eternity.
00:10:15
Now, that was on the follow up of a Sunday night gospel meeting preached by, I don't remember Charles Libichek or Carl McCoy or somebody at the meeting room. He then walked out and left me there with the light switch off and I lay there in the dark. That's when everything came flooding into my heart. All the verses, all of the songs, all of the gospel meetings that I'd heard. It just hit me. I'm not saved. I don't know. Jesus is my Savior. I know about him.
And I, I must say that there were times I thought I was OK because I, I believe that there's a Jesus, you know, I believe the stories. My mother and father wouldn't lie to me.
But something that somebody had said kind of hit home there too, that the idea of believing on the Lord Jesus.
Is not just believing that he exists. You know, the Bible tells us that the devils believe and they tremble.
That's just believing about something.
You know, when there's an election coming, like there is now, there's probably going to be two candidates only there will be some other third party people out there someplace, but it looks like, uh, we're gonna have two candidates.
But if you went out on the street right now and just went out and asked somebody, anybody, if you just asked them, do you believe that there's such a person as Barack Obama, you believe that they exist, they would look at you like, are you kidding me? Are you Amish or something? And you don't know what's going on in the country.
They would look at you askance.
If you ask them.
If there was such a person as Mitt Romney.
The same thing. Do you not have a television or a radio or a newspaper? Where have you been hiding? Of course there's a Mitt Romney. But ask them another question. Who do you trust?
Now you'll suddenly find out somebody's conservative Republican, somebody's Democrat. You'll start the line divides very quickly. Who do you trust? Now, there may be people that say I don't trust any of them, but you would start finding out there would be P Oh, I, I'm gonna vote for the Obama guy. I, I trust him. I'm gonna vote for the Mitt Romney guy. I trust him. That's the difference in believing that somebody exists and that somebody actually is real and trusting in that person.
Because the whole gospel message, the truth of it, the story of it, everything that we talk about, everything that we preach about.
Brings you down to one place. A man who is God, who died on the cross and shed his blood, and who was raised to the right hand of the Father, is alive at this moment, saying trust me now, trust me, trust in me, trust in me.
So we need to believe that the story is true. We need to believe that why the story is true and what took place and how it took place, who he is, that he is the man.
He is the God who is the man. He is the man who is God. That he shed his blood, that he was crucified, that he was buried, that he rose again the third day, and that that blood that was shed is offered.
To us is payment to pay the price for all of our sins. We need to understand that. But then he says, trust me, trust in me, I will do what I've told you I will do. And in the gospel message, he's saying I will take away your sins. I will wash them away, I will cleanse you, I will make you whole. All of the promises and all the things that we have. He says I will do those things. Take me at my word. I'm offering you full and free salvation. It's a gift.
Take it from my hand in every way possible, He has explained those things to us, and we have the illustrations in the Old Testament in the New that this offer is being made and that we can do nothing for it. So there I am, a little boy in the dark in my room, and I'm familiar with all the gospel stories and that. And I knew in that moment that if I die, I would enter a lost eternity. And it was there that I.
00:15:05
Called on the name of the Lord to save me, to wash my sins away.
I didn't want to be lost. I didn't want to. I wanted to be saved. I wanted to have them take that free gift and then it as simply as I knew how. As a little boy, afraid but yet knowing who to run to, I trusted in the Lord Jesus as my Savior.
You know, that's the thing that I want to ask tonight.
Young person or anybody?
Ask yourself this question. It may make you nervous what I'm talking about. Maybe you are a little afraid that you're not safe. But if you did die tonight, where would you spend eternity? Where would it be?
You know if your mother and father, who know the Lord Jesus as their savior were to die.
And you were to die. You would never see them again.
You know, when I had the privilege of preaching the gospel at my father's funeral.
I told farmers and people I knew that knew my dad and had heard the gospel from him that we didn't know they were saved. I said, you know, I know that I will one day see my father again, but if you were a friend of my father and you don't know his Savior, you will never see him again.
And you only have blackness and darkness to look forward to yourself. My Father at this very moment is in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
And he's having a grand old time right at this moment. And the tears you see on my face are because I miss him, not because I'm sorry about where he is. But there's nothing like that you can say to somebody who hasn't yet trusted in the Lord Jesus as their Savior, have not yet received that gift. Sometimes when I do a Sunday school gospel, I will have a big thing of candy or something or dollar bills. I've done that. And I will quote that verse in Matthew 1128.
Come unto me all your labor and a heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
And then I'll say something like, Now I'm going to quote it a little differently, but you pay attention.
Come unto me, all ye that have need of money, and I will give you some.
Or come unto me all you would like some candy, and I will give you some.
And it always happens this way. Nobody does anything at first.
And then I will repeat it and there's people kind of smiling and the kids are looking at each other. So I'm looking back at mom and dad and they're kind of wondering, well, is this what is he talking about? But usually the one of the youngest will come and we'll take from my hand whatever it is. And then there's a flood.
Then they will come. Now usually I tell them there's a time for this and when the time is over, that's it. Or I may have only so many in there. And then that last person and the next child looks at me like.
And I often wonder if the Lord is using that now after it's over, I'll say anybody that wants candy, come up here and get some. I don't want anybody crying, but I would want the Lord to use that moment. You know, what if this was me in the gospel?
And you have very little children, but hopefully they will remember it.
But how easy it is for them to come up and just take that simple thing from your hand. It's a gift. You didn't have to do anything for it. I offered it freely. You didn't pay for it. You didn't work for it. You're just here and I offered it to you. I was with a Christian friend of mine who was up in Tampa, FL at a flea market, and he's a disabled guy and he makes a little money selling things and collectibles and stuff to do with the veterans. He's a veteran.
And I went up with him one day and it was going on and on. There wasn't much selling and all up and down this row there were little booths and other people. And he hadn't, he knew of them. And we visited a little bit and I started talking a little bit about the gospel and about grace and what it meant. And I asked somebody if they knew what grace was. And anyway, I said, you know, if you mark things down too cheaply, sometimes people then take it must be junk. It's not worth anything and I won't buy it. And I said you need to have a fair price on things. But I said, I'll tell you what.
There's something in human nature, though.
That even if you offer something free, they're skeptical. And I said, I'll, I'll tell you what, if you stood out here in the aisle and offered free money, I guarantee you that most people wouldn't take it. No, no, no, no, no. I went over to an ATM machine and I got about $41.00 bills. And I stood in the aisle and everybody that walked by, I said free money, here, here, have a dollar, take some money. It's free. And people just looked at me and walked around and parted the ways.
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But a little girl watching me from one of the booths down the way watch this and everybody going around and I, I'm the people are chuckling that know what I'm doing and they're go, I can't believe it. You're offering free and they can see it. I've got dollar bills in my hand. I don't know if people thought it was counterfeit or what they thought, but there's something in human nature that just doesn't this, that's just something's wrong. This little girl comes edging her way up. I'll take one, Sir.
And she got a dollar bill.
Whatever is in the way, it's not worth it. Whatever the reason, the Lord Jesus is simply, quietly, tenderly calling and saying, please come and trust me today and I will wash away your sins. I will come into your heart. I will take up a dwelling place. He tells us both the Father and He will dwell with us. This word tells us we will have this wonderful fellowship with the Lord Jesus and with the Father, and the Spirit of God finds it all together.
He doesn't say your life's going to be a bed of roses the rest of your life. Oh, he doesn't say that at all. But he says whatever comes, I will go with you. It's a wonderful thing.
You know, this life is a blink and when you're young and you're a kid, you think it's a long time. And I'll tell you what, I still remember going to school and the school year seemed the longest time there was and summer went by like that. Well, as you get older, your life starts going by like your summers do when you're going to school.
Why this life is a blank even if you live to be 100 years old?
Even if you live to be 120 years old, it's still a blank. Eternity is a long time, but if you will come today.
I want to invite you to come right now.
And when I close my eyes and pray, why don't you just simply tell the Lord Jesus what's in your heart? Tell him, yes, I know you died for me. Tell Him yes, I know you paid a price for my sins. Tell him yes, I know you love me. Tell Him that you want to take His free gift of salvation. Tell him you want him to come into your heart and be your Savior. Believe it, it's the truth.
Father.
There are many who are praying even now.
There are hearts of parents praying for their children. There are others who are praying that there would be blessing in this time. And if there is only one girl or one boy here.
We ask that you would bring them in even now, that they would simply in their hearts receive that simple gift and believe on the Lord Jesus Trustee to come into their hearts and do what you said you would do. We invite them to come and buy Thy Spirit. Bring them in. Lord Jesus, in thy name we pray, Amen.