Gospel—Dean Rule
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Tomorrow at the end of the meeting that will finish at about 2:30.
There's a scheduled hike.
Going up, I understand some 25 miles or so up the road toward the peak of Lassen.
And.
The desires to go and have a happy time together, to enjoy being outside.
So there's also another desire, probably not thought about very much, but that's that everyone who's on that hike come back.
April 20th of this year at the end of Breaking of Bread, 1 Lord's Day.
A sister, Martha or Relive, came up and said.
I'm concerned.
Well, why? Says my son Pedro. Next Saturday goes on a school field trip with this class.
He's never been away from home. Peters, about 15 years old.
Never been away from home? They're going to be gone for a couple of days to the jungle near the town of Nanegalito.
It's a town. The area is going down the western slopes of the Andes Mountains. This area is within two or three miles of the equator in an area that's a cloud forest. Basically what happens is the moist air comes across, sometimes evaporating often over the Pacific Ocean and coming across the flat land, sometimes falling as rain and coming back up. And then it it hits here with the altitude starts to rise.
An area that's most afternoons foggy.
Most days it rains, probably gets in the neighborhood of 200 inches of rain a year, 3 downs vegetation, she said. He's never been on something like that before and we're concerned.
To be honest, didn't think much about it during the week.
He wasn't there. I kind of forgot why the following Lords day what had happened, but then realized yes, he'd been on a field trip.
In preparation for the field trip, they needed to get together all the things that you would carry along on a trip like that. The sleeping bag, a compass, a Lantern, all of those sort of things.
6:30 at night Monday I called home to tell my wife that I just finished an appointment at something that I had been at and that I would be right home.
10 or 12 People were at this meeting that I was in.
And my wife said Pedro's lost.
And I sort of did a double take on the phone. What do you mean? She said. Well, he was supposed to be home this morning.
Most of the students came home.
Pedro didn't come home. Martha's here in the kitchen. Can you get home as quickly as possible?
I didn't stop to say goodbye to anyone.
I In the culture in which we live, it's a very rude thing to not say goodbye to each person individually that's there. But there was something more important than being rude. There was someone who we know knew very well who was lost.
Tonight, there's one very important question that I would like to ask you. Not the person next to you, but you.
Are you saved? Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior? Or are you lost?
Well I got in the van we have and went home as no I didn't get in the van, I'm sorry I wasn't driving. Went down to the street and got the first taxi I could find and got home as quickly as I could possibly get home. Went into the living room and there in the living room.
Along with our daughters with Martha and my wife talking.
And when you walked up and you could see Martha, you could see, here's a mother that said, well, with some fear and trepidation, I'm going to let my son go on this field trip. And here she is now, 3 days, 2 1/2 days after saying goodbye.
00:05:07
She has just come from the school.
The whole crew of the group of students, which was said to be about 100, I think it was probably a little more than that. The whole group of students had come.
Back.
With the exception of 12 students.
12 students didn't make it back.
I'd like you to stop and think for just a minute.
If you had been one of those 12 students.
If it was your mother and your father, they're waiting, wondering if they would ever see you alive again.
I'm not talking about the person next to, I'm talking about you. You.
Because when it comes down to it, you're the one who has to make a decision before the Lord Jesus Christ. Someone has to obey what He's asked you to obey tonight, to repent and believe if it came down and it was just you.
Among the 12 and your parents were there waiting.
What thoughts would be going through the mind of your parents at that time? Would your parents be able to say, I know for certain that if something happens to my son or my daughter that they're going to be with the Lord Jesus Christ? Or would it be a position in which they'd say, oh, I hope they find him?
More than that, I hope he or she is ready.
Well, we were standing there talking for a little bit of time.
And.
Word came through.
By a telephone call because the school or a family member have gone to the school, had our phone number, word came through that eight of the 12 students who were lost.
Had been found.
Perhaps you've been at a time in your life and you kept saying no, or someday, tomorrow later, and you've seen one friend after another who's been your companion. Say yes, Lord Jesus, I repent, I believe. Save me.
Oh, Martha had hope. Her hope started to go up, she said. Well, maybe Pedro is among the among the eight.
So we waited and prayed together, going to read you a verse in a minute. The verse that came to Mike, my mind, my heart at that point in time.
When the call came through, within 15 or 20 minutes, they said the 8 have arrived.
Pedro is not among them. Pedro's not in the group that's arrived back at school because there had been a group that had gone back to find out, including.
Pedro's father won. They had gone back to the area an hour and a 15 minutes, an hour and a half away, had found eight students that had come in one little clearing where someone had planted some corn.
Now there were four that were left 6:30 at night on the equator.
Year round it's getting dark. Daylight day length basically doesn't change.
There's a verse I'd like to read in Psalm.
Chapter 34, Verse 4.
I thought the Lord and he heard me.
And delivered me from all my fears.
Verse 6.
This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.
The Angel of the Lord and campeth round about them.
That fear him and delivereth them.
I'd like to read that last verse again. The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. Here we were standing, three people, each of us knowing the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, and with one thing of comfort.
Pedro feared the Lord. We were sure of that, because we had seen not only from the words of his lips, but from his life, a young man who knew, absolutely knew with certainty where he was going to spend eternity.
Do you fear the Lord? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And what is the fear of the Lord?
00:10:04
Are you going to take one step tonight? Do one thing on your own? The fear of the Lord means to walk. Afraid of doing anything without the Lord Jesus, but having total confidence in Him. And so here we were. We were thinking, well, let's count the days Pedro was out. We didn't know it at that point in time, but he had spent basically all night Saturday night out.
And in this area, it it gets sunny in the morning. Usually in the afternoon the fog rolls in and it's starts to rain.
And then in the evening, because of the altitude, because of being a highland jungle area, and during the night, the temperature may drop down to 12 in Fahrenheit of 54565860 degrees, maybe higher than that, but depending upon what the winds are. So he spent Saturday night out in those conditions. There was no word from the teacher.
He had spent Sunday night out in those conditions, and now here it was.
Monday night fall, and he's still out.
Not very pleasant conditions. And so when you begin to think about it, if you went and had to sleep out Mount Lassen with it raining every afternoon and the temperature of the nights dropping, what condition would you be in after 2 1/2 days?
Not very good. And so when we started to think through it, naturally speaking, it didn't look very good. The the ones that came back said, well, his name is is Pedro. His last name is Roman. And because it's a military school, they call them by their last name, Roman. They said, when did you last see Roman? They said, well, we last saw him Sunday afternoon. We haven't seen him for 24 hours.
What was our comfort?
Our comfort was two things. Knowing absolutely, with peace in our hearts, that Pedro Roman was ready. If the Lord Jesus were to have come in that moment, he was ready. Are you ready?
Are you ready? The question I'm not asking the person sitting next to you, I'm asking you, Are you ready? And the second thing is this, the Angel of the Lord, well, no one there could do anything to take care of him through that night. And you don't go traipsing off in the dense vegetation if you don't know it very well because of of all the potential things that are there, not being able to see, to slide, not knowing where to go because it was spread out now over a large area because they had been wandering around.
I'll explain a little more in a few minutes with the Lord's help. They've been wandering around, but the only thing we could claim and we got right there on our knees or prayed, perhaps standing up, I don't remember. And said, Lord, you've promised in your word that the Angel of the Lord will camp around about those that fear him and deliver them. Pedro fears you. We just pray that you'll deliver Pedro.
We've talked about prayer a lot this week. We've heard about it. I haven't talked about it, but others have talked about it many, many times.
You know, when the time comes, people in a time of distress, they pray. But what about the times where there doesn't seem to be much of A distress throughout the week? I have to confess that not one time did I pray for safety for Pedro on that trip. I forgot about it, prayed about him and started the list of them people in that family, but never prayed about him specifically.
For his need in that week. But there was this promise.
Well, what happened?
I was in total inability.
To do anything to help.
On two crutches, having had an operation not much before.
Inability to be able to help and anything that could be done physically.
The only thing I could do was pray there were others that could help. Physically, I couldn't.
And so I have a just a little thing for those of you who know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior to think about.
The thing that kept running through my mind in the next 24 hours was.
All I can do is pray, but perhaps the thing that should have been running through my mind is the most important thing.
That can be done is pray. And so we pray and then we started to think, well, prayer, prayer takes action. So I can't do anything. So I'm going to get on the phone. There's a brother named.
And the military, he spent 10 or 12 years of those 20 years.
In the jungle and actually the eastern jungle of the country, someone is very familiar with maneuvering and that sort of territory and so.
00:15:09
679346 His telephone number was dialed immediately in Gallo. Pedro's lost.
He went on a field trip with his school. He's lost.
Will you come help look for him? Well, what are the details? And so I went through some of the details I've given you. We didn't know very much at that point in time. Went through some of the details I've given you and he said I'm going to need someone. I'd be very happy to go look. He said, can you call my boss to say that?
I won't be there tomorrow, he said. I don't have boots here. Do you have boots I can use?
They said I'm going to need someone as a guide to find Pedro.
Well.
Tonight.
If you're to be found.
A lost sheep headed on the way to an eternity in the lake of fire. It has to be someone beside me and someone beside the person sitting next to you to guide you there. But God by his Spirit will work.
He desires to work. I can't do anything in your heart. I can't speak a word, nor can the person next to you, nor you without help from the Lord Jesus Christ. And so they off, they headed down the hill and he came in a taxi to come across town. Mario, the brother of Juan, the father of Pedro the father and the uncle actually of the young man, He came from the South end of town.
Martha the the mother said I've got to go.
I've got to go. So the three of them went off and Mario's pick up headed down to Nanegalito arrived there.
Somewhere around between 12:00 and 1:00 in the morning.
Nothing they could basically do at that time of night. Talking to Dalla later in the day, he said Marta kept saying Gallo Mario.
Is it 3:00 yet?
Said every 5 minutes. She was asking over a 2 hour period. Why? Because she was concerned about the life of her son. She realized that her son was now out, perhaps dead or dying. You heard about death last night and she had no, absolutely no idea in that jungle area, the mountain above and around her where he could be.
I'd like to read a verse in Isaiah.
Chapter 53.
Verse 6.
All we like sheep.
Have gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way.
And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity.
Of us all.
Doesn't say many. It says here that all we like sheep have gone astray.
We've turned everyone to his own way.
More reports began to filter in during the evening. What had happened? I won't read the verses because our time is going, but if you went to John 10, it talks about two kinds of shepherds. It talks about a shepherd who gave his life for the sheep, that's the Lord Jesus Christ. But it also talks about one who's a hireling, that when the wolf comes, the hireling runs.
What had the teacher done?
The teacher had made a promise with the school. I'm going to need so many people. Each student is going to have to pay so much money. With this money, we are going to pay the bus. I'm going to pay the people to go along with me. I'm going to make sure that everything is properly organized. And the school said, OK, fine, that's fine.
So off he goes. But Saturday when he leaves, he didn't take a single person with him. Not a single person. He went alone. He said, well, you know, I'm going to fill the wallet a little bit more if I don't have to take anyone one along and everything's going to be right. The higher length did it to fill his pocket. What did the teacher start to do on Saturday?
The students that were there and came back first said, well, we saw the teacher start to slip a bottle out of his bag and start to drink. And so by Saturday night, one teacher in a rather potentially dangerous area is going along.
00:20:12
With 100 students, 100 or plus students, by Saturday night he's probably half drunk.
Leaving him out there.
Ask the students well, what had happened, They said, well, the teniente, the Lieutenant said to us. When things got bad and we got up there, we were the first group and we were marking the trail for the others that the Lieutenant said, hey, it's every man for himself.
And he took off with his Lantern, and he ran away down the hill and left them outside.
Students. Twelve students. The others were already backed down, but he abandoned them.
If you are depending upon anything else but faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation, you are depending upon someone like that, Lieutenant.
Has the money in his pocket. He's done, he said. Keep moving. His message, His last message was to them. Keep moving because if you don't keep moving, exposure to the cold and the wet will kill you. Goodbye Sunday night. He kept him out Saturday night, bathing in the river, fully dressed after sliding across the mud in the field.
With punishment for everyone kept him out in the river.
The one time they gave him any food date was Sunday morning, a bowl of oatmeal. And so now he says on Saturday night to those that are there, keep moving. And they said, but Lieutenant, shouldn't we stay together? Said, no, keep moving.
All we, like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way. If you turn to your own way, if you listen to instructions like that, if they not listen to the Lieutenant because he gave him lousy, dangerous instructions.
Things might have been different, but they listened and they started to move. They went in their own way. They tried to retrace their steps, but by now it was too dark to see anything. And the few that would still be able to be in contact said let's stay here together as best we can.
The Lieutenant went down. They didn't even go with the students. He drove his own car Monday morning. He pulls out of there.
Doesn't bother to place a call to anyone. I say again, are you following a hireling, someone who may be a friend at school who says, forget what your parents are telling you, Forget what they're telling you in that place that you go to those Bible meetings? Forget it. Are you listening to those voices?
All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way.
It says in Proverbs chapter 14 verse 12, there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
The teacher gets back to the city. No telephone call. The parents arrive 8:30 in the morning on Monday, waiting for some sort of news. The bus is supposed to be there. They assume everything is OK. No bus. You assume, well, maybe in the area there, there are sometimes landslides and things, the fairly main road. So those will be cleared off. 9:30, 10/30, 11:30, noon, noon passes. The parents are beginning to be concerned.
Finally, a telephone call comes through in mid afternoon from someone who had gotten off.
Before they arrived at the school and gotten off in the north, farther north part of the city called the school and says, well, we're finally here, but we're coming. 12 students short.
The telephone calls go out to the parents of the 12 students.
Again, I ask you, if you had been among the 12 students, if the telephone call had come to your house, there would have been two questions that would have been going through the mind. I can tell you as a parent very quickly, the first question or the second question, and I can't say which order.
Well, the first question I think would be if he doesn't come back.
Where is he going to spend eternity? The other question is will they find him?
If the first can be answered with the Lord Jesus Christ, there's peace.
Yes, anguish, but a different kind of feeling from someone who has no answer.
And so the night went on. Now four students still missing.
00:25:03
We got things together. My wife got out a recipe to make an oral rehydration solution where you put sugar and salt and water and that sort of thing, sort of a Gatorade type of mix, because that's what a person should get if they've been out for a while and dehydrated.
We went and said, well, can you give us his oldest pair of tennis shoes?
Will take his oldest pair of tennis shoes down because if they're dogs, the dogs may be able to sniff that and and help find the trail and in those sort of things.
By this time, Juan had come back to the city to try to get more help. The father, the parents of the eight who had gone down with one, their sons were their sons were fine. Now they were in the home. They were recovering satisfactorily. So they went home.
Never saw anything more of those 88 parents.
The reason why Wally and Dolores have this time this week is so you might grow.
No, Physically, naturally. You're not their sons or daughters or nor am I.
Grandson here there who would be related? But even though their own sons and daughters have been found, they care about you. Tremendous effort goes into a time like this. Why? Because they don't want to see you left behind.
So tonight now turns into mourning. Paul Robert helped me because I couldn't drive to go try to see if some other people could come help. Car stalled out. But finally we got back. The last things were together, made some final arrangements and left early and just at at dawn in the morning and driving down. My wife was driving. I was sitting in the right seat and Juan was sitting behind us.
And I can tell you.
That there wasn't anyone thinking, oh what beautiful scenery it is along here.
Wonder how things are you go by the monument right where the equator is. Wonder how the might be interesting to stop in at the shops and say the things that are there. None of that.
All along the road.
Wet eyes because we were there with.
The feeling of what's happened to Pedro.
What's happened? Where is he? What are we going to find when we get there in the morning?
Periodically stopping and going back to reading this verse. If you need comfort in the situation, there's one place to find it. It's in the Word of God.
And and so that the the day went on or the time went on and we came to a place.
The first place I saw that was up the side where I thought I said, oh, let's stop and call his name.
And not very wise, but they pulled over to the side of the road and yelled down into this Canyon, Pedro absolutely, with the loudest voice we possibly could. And one was sort of standing back there.
Went down to the edge and called, but I didn't bother to ask. I thought we were already in the area and we were still a ways up from where he would be. So we got back in the van and went downhill. But I have a question for you tonight. Do you hear the Lord Jesus calling your name?
Not audibly like we would call out a name, but speaking to your heart saying Are you ready?
Will you respond to His love?
Well, we got down to the area and Juan said, well, here's the area that that that they left from. Here's the camp. So we pulled over there.
By this time one meets.
Marta, who had been there all night, Gallo and some others come up in a vehicle and they're bringing out a young man.
Now was down to three lost. But here's one of the three last name Sanchez. They're bringing out Sanchez. They called him that. It used his first name. So we found Sanchez. And so here they are. They bring him in half delirious, not making any sense. He is. He had had ants crawl inside his pants during the night and to get away from it, he just had his underwear on. He had taken those off.
He was scratched up.
Semi coherent, but not very coherent. He said he'd been in a hotel with a bed and those sort of things and so immediately out comes the bottle of oral rehydration solution and it's given to him and then they take him off in a Jeep up to the city.
00:30:03
Martha's running over and Martin Juan and they're hugging, they're crying, but they run over to Sanchez and say.
Did you see my Pedro? Did you see Roman?
Again, I'm going to say to you, and if I don't get anything else through tonight and I can't get it through, but the Spirit of God can, if you refuse the Lord Jesus, you're going to break, you've broken the heart of your parents because there's nothing worse, nothing worse than to stand by a casket and say, I see the body there. But where are the soul and the spirit? Well, she said, where's my Pedro? My Pedro? Have you seen him? And young man wasn't in any shape.
Give an answer. This is 8:30 in the morning. Now the search goes on. Finally a helicopter comes to search but the helicopter couldn't see down below. So the helicopter starts doing. But I thought well this is high but with the wind currents and the clouds and everything else.
But finally about 11:00 in the morning.
We see the helicopter come in and land. And then what could I do during the day? Just one thing. Debbie was driving all over, taking people here, taking people there, going into town, offering people a reward for coming out and helping looking. I was just sitting there beside the road praying. That was all I could do. Perhaps the person next to you is questions as to where you're headed, and they're sitting next to you praying now.
Well, we were praying for Pedro, but in comes the next young man.
I have been talking to his parents. His father had driven all night after getting the word from a city that's Guayaquil, that's 10 or 11 hours away from there. Driven all night. There are the parents are standing is just leaning against the fence thing. You know what's happened to my son. All of a sudden the helicopter lands.
And we go off.
Say, well, they've got someone.
It was as if 97 of the sheep were found.
98 of the sheep were found with Sanchez. 99 of the sheep were found because it turned out that it was his son. 11:00 in the morning and if we could read excuse me in Luke chapter 15.
I'm sorry about talking so long on a story, but.
Has a lesson? Listen to the Lord Jesus here in Luke chapter 15 and verse three. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you having in 100 sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the 90 and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost?
Until he find it.
If you were a baseball batter and you were batting 990%.
900 Ninety 99% but you had a batting average of 990.
You could play on any team you wanted to play on because no one has batted much more than 400 in the major leagues in all the history. But here you could say, well, 99 out of 100. That's not a bad average.
You think that's what we thought sitting there? You think that's what his parents said? Well, you know, they found all the others. It's not too bad.
It's between 150 and 200 people in this room.
If the Lord Jesus were to come in this moment and there was one person left and it was you.
That would start an eternity of being alone. Do you understand what the word means to be alone?
I'm sorry, but it's a horrible thing, and you and I do not understand what it's like to be alone. Yes, separated from people for hours. Perhaps someone here has been in a place isolated for a day. Separated from people. We're not talking about hours or days. We're talking about eternity. Alone. Alone. The most alone that anyone has ever been in all the history of mankind.
Up to this point, was the Lord Jesus Christ.
Three hours, 3 hours, someone who had had unhindered communion with his Father up to that point in time. It wasn't that his communion was broken, as it were, between father and son, but in that time, the especial relationship that was going on was a righteous, holy God and the one perfect sacrifice that we heard about on Lord's Day, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that the thing that happened between those.
00:35:01
Two, it wasn't a father punishing a son. It's a perfect son. How could the father punish the son? A lot of songs that say that now, but it's not what the Bible says.
But it's a righteous and holy God who might, who had to punish my sins that were born, that were taken on by the Lord Jesus Christ, and your sins, if you'll accept him, he couldn't be left.
Situation was one like that, that he couldn't be left and the Lord Jesus doesn't want to leave you as one alone. But if you say no to the Lord Jesus alone for all eternity is how you will be in the lake of fire.
You know, one of Satan's many lies, and he's only a liar. He's only a liar because even what he might tell that is the truth is the truth with a lie mixed in, a truth to make the lie more palatable. And one of his lies is this. His lie says, and I hope no one here believes it. My friends are going to be there. This is not the kind of group that normally would say that.
Yeah.
Friends might be there if you say no to the Lord Jesus Christ, but you'll never see them again. The last face you'll see for all eternity is the face and the hands of the One.
Who died so that you could be saved? Are you ready? What does it say here? Go after that which is lost until he find it. Well, it's now 11:00 in the morning. The clouds are starting to come in. The helicopter flies away.
Some of the people have been searching now for many hours and they they try one more time. One is sitting there. We start to talk, we pray again as we prayed many times together throughout the morning. The answer to 1 is that Juan, why don't you go help look.
That all people have been saying, we just sit here. No, it's the one. Why don't you go help look.
A father said, oh, thank you, said people have been telling me to sit here, said I want to go look. He said, I can't sit here any longer. I want to go look. I want to go help try to find my son. Martha had been up all night and so she was taken over to a house that was nearby to try to get some rest. Some of the others that have been looking longer came in and.
And the hours passed and I'm sitting there just at a place where the road turns up to go up the mountain.
This main road goes by, people come by and say, well, what's the news on the students? I say.
All but one, All but one have been found. Pedro Roman still lost.
A man comes by.
He's selling a tray full of beans.
Said to the man. We're offering a reward. If you find Pedro, the reward is 1,000,000 sucrates. A million sucrers is a little over $250.
He said oh handed his tray of beans to someone else.
And he said I'll go look, I know the area.
Hannah's tray of beans to someone else and he went with one and with a couple of the students and they started to look. I have a question for you who know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and for my own heart.
What pays better?
Selling beans.
Are finding lost shape.
You know, we sell beans in one way or another to get through this earth.
But you know what this world will tell you? One of the great lies of this world is the bumper sticker that you see sometimes on the back of a car. The bumper sticker says he who dies with the most toys wins.
In the United States, a country that, compared with almost any other place in the world, continues in an economic expansion that has really surprised many people for how long it's gone on in the lie to you is who you Who dies with the most beans wins?
You heard that, Not those words.
But what's the thing? I just saw a statistic coming on the plane the other day.
They asked what the goals were to North America and United States young people.
98% said ahead of having a good marriage, ahead of this and ahead of that, 98% said I want to make a lot of money. 98% said I want to die with the most beans. This man had a reward that he saw was better. He gave his beans to someone else and he said I'll go look.
00:40:23
Just a message, perhaps, to our own hearts. A lost sheep. You and I are surrounded by them every day.
Those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior, what's worth more? A pan of beans.
Or lost soul.
And so they they went on.
They went up and looked.
Sitting there, Debbie comes back with some of the different searchers that were tired and said, you know, they haven't eaten now since yesterday basically, except for a few things that we had taken along. So I'm going to take him into town and get them something to eat. Would you like to go along?
Honestly, I didn't have hunger.
So said no, someone needs to stay here for any news. I'm going to stay here. So I sat and through the day.
You know, again, every time I thought about that young man, thought he's back there somewhere, I can't do anything. And that's the hopelessness that I feel in the part of any of us who are here tonight. We can't do anything, but we can pray.
Are you ready? Are you ready for the Lord Jesus Christ to come? Are you ready for death?
John chapter 14 verse 3. Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life.
We knew that there was one who holds life in his hand, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's the one that we had to turn to during the day. But here's one. Marta is saying, hey, everyone else has been found. But our Pedro, we said that Juan and Marta, this is hard. I know, we know it's very hard. We can't understand it. We're not his own parents. We love him, but not like you love him. But we said, you know.
There's something unusual that's happened today.
99 sheep have been found, but perhaps they were all lost.
Perhaps everyone of those other sheep was on their way to a lost eternity. 1 sheep. One young man is still lost, but we know he's lost in the jungle, that he's saved. He's on his way to heaven.
Juan was really a mixed up man. Dan knows him quite well, has talked to him for many, many hours.
One a few years ago got into Tao.
An Eastern religion that's a mixture of a whole bunch of things, and it's a religion of don'ts. Yeah, they open the Bible. But if you don't do this and you don't do that, you don't eat this and you don't do something else, and you try to live the best you can.
And one is a miserable man.
An absolute miserable, unhappy man. But what was his response?
He broke down and he said to his wife.
I'm the responsible one for this.
Said I have to feel that God is speaking to me and during that day he didn't pray to some Eastern idol.
There was as death as the piece of metal.
Or foam that you're sitting on that couldn't do anything for him, he prayed.
To the true God in heaven. He knew that when it came down to it, that was the only one who could answer the prayer.
Psalm Chapter.
Verse 14.
Offer unto God Thanksgiving.
Not to men. Offer unto God Thanksgiving, and pay the vows under the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. He called on the living God. We were calling on the living God. What happened? 12:00 passes. 1:00 passes.
2:00 passes. 3:00 passes.
The clouds are now very dark. It's four hours since the 99th sheep has been found.
4:00 comes.
Five hours.
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Starts to rain.
So here we are, sitting in the van, they brought some food back. It was pouring down, raining, and I looked at Gallo and Galo looked at me and.
The question now was.
Should we go downriver?
Because of these dead, his body is going to be washed downriver, and if it goes down and goes into the rivers that are down below, it's going to.
Literally the rivers in that area down below are piranha filled and they would view it as just one more tasty meal coming through.
And so the question of bones washing down and eventually perhaps out into the Pacific Ocean.
Never to be found.
Late in the day, people have looked all over. It seems like they've combed the hillsides. No sign of Pedro.
Again, I say if it had been you instead of Pedro in that position, where, where would you be headed?
We were sitting there and Mario, his uncle, who he's very close to, because Mario knows the Lord Jesus is his savior. And in some ways there was a relationship with them that he didn't have with his own father because they didn't share the most important thing in common, Mario sitting there.
Debbie sitting there. I'm sitting there.
And we're talking about going and looking for a body.
Not a very pleasant conversation. And I'm sort of saying, well, you know, I'd gone through the time during the day, sitting there praying and finally said, Lord, you know exactly where he is and you know exactly where those who are looking for him are.
The only way I'll ever be found is if you bring the two together.
Well, let's go back and let's find out what happened to Juan. If I can go on a few minutes, I'm sorry, going overtime, but one.
Went up the mountain and they had some disagreements to where to go. And finally one of the students said let's go right back on the right in the path they were on. Go right back on the path they were on. And so they followed this path. They could see tracks for a while. They came to an area where they looked across a Canyon about 1/3 of a mile across.
And one said, you know, my son is not going to be in very good shape if we find him and so.
He said I, he said. But maybe he can reach a leaf and shake the leaf.
And so he yelled out in Spanish, waving leaf, move a leaf and shouted across there and looked at a plant that looks like a banana tree but it's a heliconia. So went back and looked at it and he saw a leaf starting to move on that plant.
And.
Someone said, well, maybe it's just the wind, He said. No, you know, if it's the wind, the wind will only blow one leaf.
I mean, it'll blow all the leaves, he said. This is just one leaf. And so they said, well, let's, let's see. Stop. Relief the leaf. Stop.
They went to another man and I talked to him independently, the man who'd been selling the beans.
And with one not right there, I said, well what happened? He said, well one said move the leaf and the leaf started to move. Then he shouted out stop the leaf.
And at least stopped and they said I wasn't sure. So he said I did it. I said move the lead and yelled across the Canyon and the leaf started to move, stop the leaf. The leaf stopped, set off maybe Pateros under that. And so a few, a couple of them went down across a very difficult terrain and came up to where this was near a Ridge.
No sign of Pedro.
What could have moved it?
I can't tell you exactly, I'm just going to quote the verse again. The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.
And Delivereth them, they went across to where that leaf was. The others went on a sort of the Ridge and met up with them. They didn't see him. When they realized where it was, they realized that to move the leaf, he would have had to reach up to an altitude of about where the top of the crutch is. No way to reach that. But they went there and they went over the edge. And what did they find? They found it looked like someone had slid all the way down.
A distance of several 100 yards toward a river. And so that at that point they followed that trail. You guided them to where this trail was and they followed it down the hill.
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He promised to deliver, and if you'll believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, he'll deliver you from a situation worse than Pedro tonight.
Something move that leaf. I think I know who it was behind that.
But that got into where this trail was and, and they came down to a river and the river, I mean, the, the, the path stopped and it was just kind of an opening through the, the, the branches in the jungle and, and below there was a thing of rocks.
And so they started to follow. They looked. There was something else that guided them.
They looked and Juan said, look, there's blood. And they started to follow drops of blood.
And he said that blood must be the blood of my son.
I was disturbed earlier in the day when I'd seen some of the rescue police that came. They'd come out with a deer. They'd not just been looking.
What are you doing this for?
You shouldn't be hunting deer and say that to him, but in my my heart, I said, well, you know, you got your priorities all mixed up.
But I'd like you to think about two things.
There was a tree put up on Calvary.
The leaves have been stripped off of it, the branches have been stripped off of it, and my Savior and the Savior of many here was nailed to that tree almost 2000 years ago. If you want to have direction, go back to that tree.
This plant, sort of like a tree at the bottom, started them. They went on down. What happened on that tree?
The Lord Jesus Christ shed His precious blood. The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. They followed that path of blood and one said later he said this. This became more and more difficult because it said it started out as drops and the drops got bigger and bigger and bigger until the final drops it was.
Whoever was doing it had to have been coughing up blood because the blood was mixed with spittle.
Often what happens when a person is.
On their way to die. So here they're going along and we're sitting on the other side of the Ridge, two ridges over, I think.
Although I've never been in there as I couldn't go in, we're saying, well, what's happened?
But they start to follow this in one that you know.
I mean the cry, and I think we heard it earlier this week if I remember correctly, the cry of David with his son.
Absalom, my son, my son desperation thinking that at the end of this they would find his son dead.
So they followed the trail. He's now out. It's Tuesday afternoon, three nights out, three days exposure. No idea of whether he had food or anything like that.
And there was another group that was coming in from the other side, right near where the drops of blood ended.
They got a shout.
We found Roman.
Shouted across the area very close to where that was. They had been guided by a leaf.
And buy some drops of blood and they're close by Was Juan Roman.
Found. What condition was he found in?
Someone went up, the first ones that had come from the other side in another direction and they met up with him and the ones that shouted put their hand on his wrist, took his pulse. 15 year old young man, good shape. His pulse was 22.
Wet from exposure, delirious, semi conscious.
But found.
But one is there in a you know, initially, can I believe it? And he goes and finds out, yes, it is his son. His son is basically incoherent. They took his shoes off to get the wet part off and they said that the pores in his skin were sunken.
He tried to move when the first ones found him a few yards, but he couldn't do it. He collapsed.
And So what did they do? They put them on their shoulders and carried him. Can we go back to just for a few minutes, to a minute or two to Luke, chapter 15?
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Luke chapter 15 and verse five. And when he hath found it, he layeth, and on his shoulders rejoicing.
And when he cometh home, he calleth together as friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, That likewise joy shall be in heaven over one Sinner than that repenteth more than 90 and nine just persons that need, which need no repentance.
We were sitting there in the back of the van, talking in the rain.
Starting to eat the rice and stuff that Debbie had brought and up comes a vehicle.
Someone pops out and says we found Roman.
OK, let me finish my rice and.
And when we're done eating, we'll come and find out. Absolutely not.
The bag that was on my lap, you know the two crutches. I grabbed the two crutches. The bag that was on my lap went flying. There was rice over all the back end of the.
The vehicle where I was sitting, the only thing you want to see is did they really find him? And you know tonight if you would accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior if you receive him, as many as received him to them gave you the power to become the sons of God.
Forget the refreshments, forget anything else. We'll rejoice together because the lost sheep has been found. Are you a lost sheep tonight? It could be found tonight before it's too late. Everything else disappears and insignificance. And that point in time say, well, OK, now let's let's run up. And you know, a block and a half up the highway was the house where Marta was went in and Debbie ran over and said they found. They found.
Pedro.
So she comes out, gets in the van, and she starts to clean up the rice. She's like, she couldn't believe that if this has happened, I said no, you get out on the road. They're going to be going by with an ambulance in in just a few minutes because the city had sent an ambulance out. They're going to be going by in an ambulance and your son's going to be there. So she goes over and Juan and Martyr, just the two of them, are sitting in the back of the van rejoicing, but shaken too, because Pedro is not in very good shape.
Well.
Soon as we could get to a phone, they go roaring off to the hospital. As soon as we could get to the phone, we start calling the family and saying he's been found.
Could someone go out to that telephone tonight and be able to call home to your parents and say your son, your daughter who was lost, has been found?
You think that would cause rejoicing at home? Well, nothing like the rejoicing that there would be in heaven, but it would cause rejoicing at home. I'm going to read you. It'll translate it from the account that his father that Juan and Pedro typed out.
What had happened to him? He had gone out fallen.
Lost in the night, slid down the mountain, something he does can't explain it, but he said he slid down and he stopped instead of going over into the rocks. Lost consciousness, woke up, went down. And every time he tried to move, he was just more, less and less of energy. But here's what it says. Insulated, it says.
The last two paragraphs of what he wrote, he said last Friday night.
This is now the Friday. After this Monday they released me from the hospital and my parents took me contented to the house where I returned to sleep in my bed. I want to.
Give the no my infinite thanks to God.
That knew how to take care of me, to preserve my life.
And the companions of my platoon.
In this moment I remember, and this was written a week later or so when he sat down to type it out, he was out of the hospital. I remember that falling from the mountain.
And when I began to try to go back up, the same I saw with my eyes.
The telephone of my house.
And upon seeing and I took it, and I called the house where my father answered.
And I told them to come see me.
And I heard him say that he was already on the road. They put down the telephone.
Close my eyes and the telephone disappeared.
And I continued in the direction of trying to go up the mountain.
We could just read one last verse.
And shalt believe in thine heart, that God hath raised him from the dead. Thou shalt be saved.
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For with the heart.
Men believeth unto righteousness.
And with the mouth, confession is made.
Unto salvation.
Have you ever confessed the Lord as your Savior? Don't leave us in doubt. Confess Him tonight before it's too late.
And for those of us who know the Lord Jesus as our Savior who is calling out to you tonight, come and find me.
The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. Could we pray?