Gospel—Sam Ludvicek
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So most in here have heard the gospel many times, and there are some that are younger.
And have heard it maybe since they were in the crib and their mother sang them hymns and they were brought to Sunday school and singing Sunday school songs.
So what do I say to you?
If you have not yet trusted in the Lord Jesus as your Savior and you've heard it again and again, what can I say to you if you haven't done that?
Why, if you're a young person in this room, a child?
I was about 11 when I trusted in the Lord as my Savior. I could have told you how to be saved and I was not saved. How is that possible?
Well, I didn't understand some things, but I grew up in a Christian home where my earliest memories were of my mother singing hymns. It was a safe place to be. It was comfortable. Everybody around me were Christians.
And they didn't have the bad things in their lives like many people do who abuse alcohol or drugs and other kinds of things. So it was a comfortable place to be. There didn't seem to be danger.
But there was danger.
Because what is the danger if I don't trust in Christ as my Savior? Then I can enter a lost eternity and end up in hell.
I didn't get that right away, but one night on the way home from gospel meeting.
In Iowa City was about 22 miles to my house. I was acting up for something in the station wagon and when I got home I got a spanky.
And my parents were pretty good at when they would discipline us. They would send us to our room and then.
They would come talk with us.
Help us understand how we misbehave. This time my father came in with tears in his eyes.
And he spoke to me about what I'd done. I don't remember what it was. And he said to me, son, tears in his eyes, your mother and I don't know that you know the Savior. And if you died in your sins, you'd enter a lost eternity with blackness and darkness forever.
And he left the room.
That night as I went to tried to go to sleep, it came in to my heart and mind and my soul that I was in danger.
That if indeed I died.
I would die in my sins and I would go into a lost eternity because I had not trusted in Christ as my Savior.
I knew.
It shook me.
Now, I had a couple of shakings up before, and I'll tell you about those in a moment, but I want to read a verse if I can read through the water on my page.
Isaiah, chapter one.
And verse 18.
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
Though they be red like Crimson, they shall be as wool white.
Now, I had heard that verse. I'd heard many others.
And here I was in my room alone, and I was shook because I knew if I did die, I would go until lost eternity. Now, there were two other things that happened that scared me. And maybe that's sometimes what kids that grow up in religious homes or Christian homes, they need something to scare them a little bit and make them think because you can play and you can be involved in all kinds of activities and you don't stop to think about things sometimes.
I had an experience.
Where I'd forgotten that my parents said they wouldn't be home.
And I got home from wherever I was at and nobody was there.
And I was looking on the farm for my dad or my mom or my grandmother, and none of them were there. My brother and sisters, no one was there. And all of a sudden I began to think, the Lords come and I've been left behind.
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And I thought to myself, well.
Brother Carl McCoy is saved. I'll call him on the phone and if he's still here then I'll know the Lord hasn't come. So I called on the phone and when he answered I hung up.
Well, it happened again sometime. Another event took place.
And nobody was home.
So I called Carl McCoy. He didn't answer. Now I'm really scared. So I thought, well, wait a minute, I'll call my Uncle Howard.
So my uncle Howard, I called him.
And he answered, so the Lord hadn't come, so that scared me. Now we chuckle about that, but I here I am.
A young boy that around 10-11 years old. Are there some of you that are that age 9/10 8:12.
Yeah.
And if I would have died, I was old enough to be accountable for my actions.
I had heard the gospel many times and I had not trusted in the Lord as my Savior.
Now I talked about this with some friends as we sat and ate and I said and I talked about it in the meeting a little bit. I struggled with understanding some of the message of the gospel. What does it mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?
What I struggle with the idea, Well, I believe there's a God. And people do. They believe there's a God. Many people do.
Most people aren't atheists, even people who say they're atheists, a lot of them, if you poke a stick a little bit there, you can find out they're mad at God. They're, they're not really atheists, but they know God exists, but they're not going headed towards heaven. They're they're headed towards a lost eternity because they're still in their sins. Their sins are still on them. They're not forgiven. They have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible says.
That the demons, the devils believe.
They know God exists. He's their enemy.
They know. So believing that He exists, Scripture says you must believe that He is and that He's a rewarder of those who seek Him. Well, that's the beginning. I knew that much. I knew that God existed. I knew that He was a rewarder of those who seek Him. I knew a lot more than that. I knew that Jesus had died on the cross and that He loved me. So why didn't I trust Him as my Savior?
What was holding me back? I was having too much fun playing, being with my friends, whatever, I don't know, all that was going on.
I understood a lot of it up here.
You know, a lot of times they say that it needs to. Our belief needs to go from here to our heart.
You know, I had a pacemaker installed not too long ago and I found something out I never knew because I was researching on the Internet. Do you know that there are memory cells in your heart, brain cells in your heart, synaptic pathways in your heart?
I never knew that. And that's a recent discovery that there's actually memory stored in your heart. So that explains some of the stories of people who've had heart transplants who have these strange dreams and stuff and seem to have memories that aren't their own. Interesting.
Well, what's going up here needs to get down in here. And you think about it when you use the word trust.
As we talked in the meeting before, that's different than just believing about something, trusting, as our brother was saying, it's like when you sit in a chair, you put your full weight in it.
This isn't trusting, putting my toe on it or going like this. That's exploring. That's not trusting. But trusting is a whole nother thing. So let's let's turn to Ephesians chapter one.
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This really helped me as a young person understanding.
And once I had trusted in the Lord as my Savior.
I wanted to be able to tell others and explain to them better than I understood, maybe help them get past some of the things that I was had struggled with. But if you turn down to.
Verse 12.
That we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ. There's that Word in whom ye also trusted. After that she heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that she believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, trust.
Trust so if you hear the message of the gospel.
That Jesus died on the cross. He died for the sins of the world, and he did that in propitiation.
And that he offers you salvation, that he stood in your place for your sins, and that you can have your sins forgiven. And you believe that it's true. He's still asking you something.
He's alive now, I knew that too. And he's at the right hand of the Father and he's pleading, he's talking at the table back here we were talking about how there's a still small voice, how God speaks with a still small voice. Maybe in a dark night, maybe on a lonely Rd. maybe in your bed at night, maybe in the lonely moments that you go through, you hear that still small voice where God is saying.
Come to me, we have that verse in Matthew. Come unto me all the labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
You know, how is it that so many young people, very, very young people in this country and in the West, are committing suicide? How can you lose so much hope that you think that it's going to be easier just to die?
How is that possible? Yet it is happening where the wreckage of this world and the the effects of this culture on people's lives is such that they get to a place where they want to give up and they want to end their lives not knowing if they pass from this life into the next without trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, they're going to jump from the pan, the frying pan into the fire.
That expression is true.
To think that it's all going to be over and I'll be at peace. Know you all.
So a young person who reaches that point turned to Christ.
He will not let you down. Now, maybe there's a problem. You see somebody who claims to be a Christian who's a hypocrite. Maybe you have a friend who pretends to be all perfect and everything, but you know better.
They're not.
Maybe that's keeping you back. That can happen.
And I've had people tell me that, well, there's so many hypocrites. That's phoniness. And it might be a real Christian being phony. Shame on you.
You might be hurting somebody. You might be actually by your behavior, keeping somebody from being saved. Shame on you. You need to repent.
Well, if you're lost and you haven't trusted in Christ as your Savior, you need to do it now. You don't know if you're going to live tomorrow.
I have a good friend out West and maybe some of you heard about it, Matt.
Des Moines. What's his last name?
Richards Hagen, I I see his name and I can't pronounce it, but Matt, I love Matt. I got to know him a few years ago out at the camp, that Morningstar camp. And the guy is loves the Lord. He loves to talk to people about Christ and he's just on fire.
He got in an accident, a head on collision with a truck, and that truck was going 105 miles an hour, so he was going 50 or 60. You add that together.
100 and 55160 miles an hour into a brick wall, same thing, but he's not dead.
The other man or the other person, I don't even know if it was a man or woman, the other person in the other vehicle is dead. So that moment in time, eternity for one, moved on. I hope they knew the Lord as their savior.
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But someones life ended that night.
I told brother Matt.
I said to him.
The devil wanted to kill you and God said no.
He doesn't know what he just did. The devil made a big mistake because he just said a man who's already on fire on more on fire.
I said, Matt, God's going to bring you forward to be one of Greater David's mighty men.
'Cause it won't set you back and it's a miracle. Step after step is recovery. But that night.
If he had died, he was prepared.
The other person wanted to eternity, I know not where, but if they were lost and not trusted in Christ, they went into hell.
And every mom and dad in this place.
If they think one of their children don't yet know the Lord as their Savior, they think about that and it scares them and they pray about that. And I guarantee you there's moms and dads holding hands by their bed at night, sometimes crying because they think one of their children doesn't yet know Christ as their Savior. And to think that a little baby you held in your arms.
Would grow up to an age and then pass away and go into hell is a terrible thought. So they pray and they pray earnestly. Those who prayed back in this room prayed earnestly tonight that if there's anyone in this room, stranger or child growing up in a home, that they would trust in Christ as their Savior tonight and not let it go any longer.
Because the fact is, if you live in America, it's hard not to have heard the gospel, at least sometimes.
So what do we know if you've learned and you've been to Sunday school and even memorized verses, you know?
That anyone at any time can turn and trust in Christ, no matter how bad a Sinner they are.
Somebody once asked me, he said. You mean Hitler could have gotten saved? Yeah.
But that coward took the easy way out and killed himself because he didn't believe there was a God he'd have to meet.
Guess what happened? He woke up in hell.
But he could have repented while he was yet alive. He could have. And when he stands before I, Almighty God on judgment Day, he's going to be showing that.
Even you, Hitler, having done all the wicked things you've done, if you would have reached out and trusted in Christ, you too could have been saved. But he did not, and he would not, and he will not.
I was sharing a story. I was with a friend of mine at the fairgrounds one day and they had a little booth there where they were sharing gospel tracks and they were talking to people and they had a little thing where if you could give an answer, they gave some prizes away.
And I was there talking with him, and there was a gentleman who came by, and I said to this man, why don't you stop over here? And it's pretty interesting what they have. All you have to do is answer a question, and if you get it right, there's a prize. I don't want that. I don't want that. This is why it's free. What? Yeah. What else you got to do? You're walking here looking at everything. Why don't you just stop by and look? He said no, no, no.
And I said, really tell me why. And it startled me, he said.
Because I might hear something I don't want to hear.
Wow.
That's like willful ignorance. I might hear something I don't want to hear.
I, I have to say that this kind of blew me away hearing that, but it did teach me something that there are people who willfully don't want to go anywhere near that. We were talking earlier about those.
Who? In John's gospel, they didn't receive him. They didn't know who he was. They didn't want to know.
Now think about this.
You remember the story The Nicodemus?
How he meets with Jesus at night because he's a little bit cowardly.
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What does he say? The words that come out of his mouth. He says he's a Pharisee. He says we know you're a man, come from God. The Pharisees knew that.
But they told the people he was from the devil. Now they didn't believe he was a Messiah. I'm not saying that Nicodemus was wondering, but he says we know you're from God.
But he didn't come their way. He didn't come through them. He didn't come through their power structure. He wasn't part of the elite of that day. He was a nobody. So they didn't want him. Yet they knew nobody can do what he did and not be from God. But they lied to the people and they said he's from the devil. That's willfulness in the face of truth.
My mother used to say light received bringeth more light. Light denied bringeth night.
And if you push against it, the darkness will increase. The thing about it is, when you're young, maybe you're a teenager now and you're still not safe. What are you waiting for?
What are you waiting for? Really, I don't know what to say to you. What are you waiting for?
Brother Bob said earlier you don't have to pray, you can believe and most people who pray quote UN quote to receive Christ are saved before they bring them prayer. But go ahead.
Says in scripture, in Romans, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How hard is it to say Lord Jesus?
Save me from my sins. How hard is that? And to believe it, you know it's the truth.
Do it, don't wait, and then when you do it, go tell your mom and dad.
They'll probably dance, they'll be so excited. Go tell them.
Well, it took me a while before I told my mom and dad, but I finally did. And then.
I asked to be baptized. Didn't save me, but I knew that that was the biblical thing to do. But my mom and dad were very happy.
When I told him that I had trusted in the Lord Jesus as my Savior.
It's so simple.
So direct God didn't make it difficult.
You remember the story of Nahum? I was told to go dip in the water because he had leprosy and he didn't want to go dip in that river. Over in the Jewish land. We got rivers here. What did his servant say? His servant said if he if he had told you to go some do great escapade, go conquer something, climb a mountain, you would have done that. Why not just go do this simple thing?
Faith. Trust that he's telling you the truth. Well, he did, and he was healed from his leprosy.
God doesn't ask for that, in fact, he says.
That nothing, no great escapade can save anybody. No mighty deed can save anybody. There's not going to be one person in heaven going look at me. I'm here because of what I did. The rest of you fools had to be saved without doing anything. There's no such thing.
Every single person there is going to say I'm saved by the grace and mercy of God. I got here by the blood of Christ.
That famous old preacher John R Rice was being challenged by somebody once about what if you're wrong? What if you're wrong about the way you preach?
They were wanting to tell him that you needed to have faith, but you had to do works and mix it all together. Otherwise you had to work your way along with believing to get to heaven. So what if you're wrong? He says. Well, I'll tell you what.
If I am and I get sent to hell, I'll preach Christ there just like I'm here, till a hell spits me out. Thought that was a pretty good answer. He kept on preaching Christ, and he did till the day he died. That man led many many many souls to Christ through his preaching because he preached the faithful truth.
That salvation is by grace through faith. We read in one of the meetings how it's very clear that it's by grace through faith. Let's turn to that in Ephesians chapter 2.
Verse 8:00 and 9:00 For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast, not of works lest any man should boast. Sometimes people get caught up in that.
They think, you know what, I'm kind of bad.
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Maybe even a child will think that. And if somebody is so upset and thinking about suicide, they're thinking they're pretty bad or they've done things bad or they got involved in some things that are bad, well, maybe you think that.
And you think, well, you know what? I'll I'll get saved when I straighten things out a little bit.
So that would mean that if you could do some work.
To get straightened out a little bit and then maybe you'd get saved. You could boast about something that says here you can.
There's nothing you need to straighten out. God will straighten you out. How about that? How about Him doing what He knows how to do better than anybody?
Because one of the things that happens when you get saved is God changes your want to inside you know you have a want to.
They don't teach that in anatomy at any medical school, but you have a walk to inside and when God saves you, forgives your sins, and gives you a new birth, you have a new want to, a want to that wants to please the Lord. Doesn't mean you're perfect, but you have a new want to that didn't exist before.
So don't wait till you straighten some things out.
If you have gotten yourself into some stuff you shouldn't be involved in and maybe even.
You know, drugs and alcohol, other things too, can get people and their chains that can bind people. He's the one that can set you free from that. They're countless thousands, millions of stories around the world of people who have trusted in Christ have been set free from every imaginable thing under the sun.
That Jesus can do for you as well. So what can I say to you? I can reason with you. I can tell you that God loved you so much. He said He's only begotten Son to the cross. But you've heard that before.
So somehow, someway.
Because of the prayers. Because.
Because of the faith of moms and dads and others.
Reaching through.
Changing things behind the scenes.
God recognizing.
See if I can find this.
Marks Gospel.
Where the man is let down through the roof. Somebody help me out?
It's both in Luke and Mark.
Chapter 2. Mark Chapter 2.
And this is where I want to talk about moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles and others.
And again he entered into Capernaum after some days, and it was noise that he was in the house, and straightway many were gathered together in so much that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door. And he preached the word unto them, and they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy which was born of four, and when they could not come nigh unto him for the press.
They uncovered the roof where he was.
And when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of palsy lay. And he listened to this when Jesus saw their faith.
He said, under the sick of palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.
Isn't that interesting? The Lord doesn't say because of the sick man's faith.
He says because of their faith.
Your God is works.
Our wonders, the way he works things out.
But he loves us being involved. He doesn't need us to do any of this. But why would he say that unless he wanted us to notice that? You know those grandmas, those grandpas, those aunts and uncles that are praying earnestly for the young people, the children in their families, and others that love the children in the local fellowship?
God sees that.
I once, years ago in my 20s, was the announcer at a conference in Des Moines. We were in Des Moines my late 20s, and I said before a prayer meeting for the gospel, I said, you know some of you who have unsaved children and been praying for them, they're out in the world. Or maybe some children that have just gotten away from the Lord. God notices whether you pray for others.
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That was the biggest attendance to the prayer for the gospel he'd ever had.
Because people listened to that and said, you know what, I'm going to be there. God pays attention to that stuff. He just told me that he noticed the faith of the four and he forgave the man's sins.
Now the Pharisees and different ones, there question in their heart who can do this?
But in order to put on full display that he had authority to do that, he healed the guy. But he says because of their faith, God's paying attention to your faith, dear moms and dads, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters and families. He's paying attention to what you're saying and believing in your closet when you're praying and crying out.
You know how many grandmas and grandmas, grandmothers, grandfathers have prayed and long after they're gone?
One of those grandchildren they prayed for got saved. My uncle told me that my grandfather who died at 98.
Alzheimer's had taken away much of his mind, but he was still praying for his grand, his kids, his grandkids, his great grandkids by name, even though he didn't recognize them if they were in the room till the day he died.
And I know the Lord honored that.
My uncle said that he used to go into the room with him and he'd be depressed.
Because Alzheimer's can do that to you, affect you, where you get depression. And he said to him, Dad, you know, you shouldn't be depressed. You know, the Lord is your savior and that and he wouldn't say much. And my uncle had gotten saved by Mennonite. So he was part of the Mennonite group.
And they have some beliefs, obviously, that differ, so he said. I know what I'll do.
I'll start to debate with him about this. So he didn't even recognize him, that he's his son, but he'd start saying something to disagree with him on and away he'd go. The Word of God came back and he'd be laying it out there and his eyes would light up and joy would return in him because he knew the Lord and the Lord helped him with that.
When he died, he entered an eternity and went into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ after having lived.
A long life praying and winning souls to Christ and praying earnestly for His children, His grandchildren, his great grandchildren, and neighbors and friends and people all around. And I dare say that there are many who can say, maybe even in this room. I was prayed into the Kingdom by people who prayed and loved me.
You know, Brother Todd left here and justice. Before he left, he told me how that Mister Jennings from Saint Louis, who's with the Lord now, faithfully witnessed to him, was very firm with him. He said he had long hair, hippie like, and he was living the lifestyle. It wasn't right and he wasn't saved, but he'd been raised in a Christian home, so he was a teenager.
But he said, you know some of the things he said to me, like he'd always tell me when I come to his house for dinner, you need to cut your hair.
And he said I was a little bit insulted by that, but you know what? Not really, because I knew he loved me.
That man loved him into the Kingdom, was faithful in the Gospel, but loved him in the Kingdom. He knew he cared.
Bear.
Romans chapter 3 and verse 10. These are all going to be familiar, so we're just going to review this.
From God.
Point of view. Here's what he says. As it is written, there is none. Righteous. No, not one.
So as human beings come into this world and live their lives, God doesn't see anyone of them as righteous.
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In Proverbs.
He says about those who don't know him. He says the plowing of the wicked is sin. Something is innocuous as your neighbor's farmer plowing his field who doesn't know Christ, God says it's sin.
How do you win with that? You can't.
God makes it clear what condition we're in without Him, and He is the answer.
Romans, chapter 5, verse 12.
Wherefore is by one man centered, entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men.
For all have sinned.
I LED a man to Christ that I worked with. He trusted in Christ as his Savior. When we were shingling his roof, I worked with him. We got to be good friends.
He's with the Lord now. He came to me one day and he says I've been witnessing to my mother.
And she says she doesn't sin.
What do I say to her?
She had a misunderstanding what sin was. But he says she's I don't sin, I don't, I'm fine. I belong to the church. I've been baptized. So we talked about that and he finally was able to get through to her somewhat.
Romans, chapter 6.
Verse 23.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Our Lord now sometimes when I do Sunday school because of the its children and of course everybody can hear the gospel.
I will take I've done it with a candy bar. I've done it with a $20 bill.
That verse I quoted earlier in Matthew, Come unto me all your labor, and heavy laden, and I will give you rest, and I will say to them.
I'm going to quote this a little differently, so listen carefully.
Come unto me.
All ye that have need of some money and I'll give you some and I hold that $20 bill out if it's candy bar. And then that's what I do and I'll hold it out and then I'll repeat it and I'll repeat it and I'll repeat it. You know who usually comes finally?
The young, one of the youngest people in the audience, except you become as little children.
That's the one who trusts me that I'm telling the truth, the little one.
I was with some friends. I was visiting a man who was a Christian. He was a veteran and he was at one of these.
I don't know, I guess flea market kind of things and it was a bad day and nobody was around, hardly. There were people walking through, just walking through. Nobody was buying anything and they had marked down their prices and the people, vendors were complaining and all of that.
Says, you know, if you mark things down too low, people will become suspicious.
And they think, well, it must be junk.
And they were arguing about that. I'm going to prove something to you. So I went to the cashier place there and I got a whole bunch of $1.00 bills, big fistful. And I stood in the middle of aisle and I said free money, Who wants some? Here's free money, here's free money. And people would go around me like, what are you nuts?
One of the vendors had a little girl.
About 50 feet down the way she was watching me and finally she came up to me.
And she took it.
Interesting, isn't it? A young child, She trusted me. That's what happened. Because these people are going, this guy's up to something. Nobody gives money away. That's there's a trick. There's got to be something wrong here.
But the young person, the young child says, well, I believe him, I believe him, and they come and take it. Well, how do you receive a gift?
If I'm offering to give you a candy bar or a $20 bill or something, how do you receive it? You believe that I'm being honest and you come up to me and you take it out of my hand. So Lord Jesus is saying to you, here's the gift of eternal life.
It's salvation, it's already paid for. All you have to do is take it from my hand.
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John's Gospel chapter one.
We read this earlier today.
Verse 12 but as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even that to them that believe on his name. We mentioned how that the name of Jesus Jehovah saves. If you believe that Jesus is who he claims to be and you know that God exists and you believe that God is a reward of those who digitally seek diligently seek him. What's the next thing a living savior at the.
Hand of God is inviting you to trust Him today.
And He will do what He said. That's the point. He will forgive your sins. He will come into your life. He will change it. He will dwell with you. He will fill you with His Spirit. He will give you an eternity with Him. He will cast your sins behind his back into the sea of forgetfulness. He will say to you, You're my child.
He will tell you that you're going to come home with me one day because I'm preparing a place for you. All of that, you get it all.
You don't even have to say the right words because in your heart, when you believe.
Turn with me to Romans chapter 10.
Romans, chapter 10.
Verses 9:00 and 10:00 and also verse 13.
He says, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart, that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believe it's under righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Then verse 13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Somebody once asked me, what if you're a mute?
Well.
When you're trying to remember the tune to a song or something, don't you say something up here.
Don't you mouth out the words up here when you rehearse things? Don't you have conversations with yourself that nobody else can hear up here? Aren't you speaking up here? I said. You have a mouth in your brain because you talk to yourself all the time, and so do mute.
Said, you know, confessing Christ.
One of my favorite stories in the gospel is the the about the two thieves on the cross.
And we're going to end with this because it really declares how there's nothing you can do.
Two thieves on the cross punished. Jesus is innocent. These guys are guilty.
And early on in the evening, as all three of them are hanging on the cross, it says the crowd began to mock him.
And it says the thieves did too.
How in the world you're nailed there, just like he is, and you're mocking them. You claim to be this guy. Let's see if Elias will come and save him and all these things. They're mocking him, but something happens.
You know, everybody knew these things, knew everybody knew all this stuff that have been noise about Drew, so they knew about this.
Crazy miracle man Jesus and stirring up trouble.
They'd heard about the miracles and how he could feed thousands and all that stuff, but watching him right next to you on the cross and the things you say had an effect on this one man.
And what do we find? We find that one of the thieves starting to mock him again, and the second thief says.
No, in modern vernacular, shut up.
Don't say that we deserve what we're getting.
That man has done nothing wrong. We deserve it and he turns to the Lord. He didn't know quote UN quote the sinners prayer. He didn't know how to fill out a card to decide for Christ or anything like that. He just turns to him and he says first Lord, he bowed the knee. How could he? He's hanging there.
Between heaven and earth nailed he come bow the knee. But he did in here. You know you got a knee in here when your heart vows before God. You can do that on a sick bed. You can do that as you lay dying. I'm convinced there are many people who get saved in comas and at the end of their life when they can't talk. I just found something out last week.
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They've got a person in a coma who cannot even blink their eye or respond to outward stimuli. They implanted the chip in the brain, and that person is talking through a computer to the outside world. There are many people who have been in that kind of a condition who later have come out and said, I heard everything. I heard what you were saying. I tried to talk, but I couldn't. I'm convinced that in those last dark hours that death encroaches around people.
Gives you hope. If you have relatives, you're not sure how they died. That is that concroaches around them and it pushes in. They remember the gospel you gave them. They remember what you faithfully said to them. And as it comes in, they're there alone before God, about to enter lost eternity. They can't speak, they can't do anything but inside.
They can bow the knee and they can trust in Christ in those last seconds and moments. We're going to see people like that there.
In glory, he says, Lord, he bowels the knee in here. Remember Me when thou cometh into thy Kingdom. And the immediate response is today thou shalt be with me in Paradise.
Than he was and we'll see that guy, the other thief.
One day with lost, he turned. He had the same opportunity. Was he baptized? No. Did he do any good walks? No. But you know what he did? He trusted in the one who could do something about all that. And if you're a young kid, girl, boy, teenager in this room tonight and you haven't trusted in Christ.
Don't wait till tomorrow. You might not live that long. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, no, you might not.
And how sad it would be to think.
That you went into a lost eternity.
Don't wait. Don't put it off.
Call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ask him to save you.
Believe him, because that's what trust is. You're believing that he means what he says. You're believing that it's the truth.