Good morning. Can you hear me okay? I usually don't even need a microphone, but if you would, if you have your Bible, your iPad, your cell phone, whatever you're using this morning with modern technology. I'm using my laptop because modern technology has failed us and we couldn't print out the testimony that I usually read from. And one of the reasons I read my testimony when I go to different churches and things is because how many people, if I use the name Elmer Fudd, know what I am speaking of? Raise your hands. Okay. Elmer Fudd was the guy that chased the rabbit, okay, all over the place. And I have a bad habit when I preach. of chasing rabbits, okay? I went preaching currently at Hancock County Jail. I am the senior volunteer chaplain. Through the book of Nehemiah, I just hit chapter six after 11 and a half months. So, it'll give you an idea. I can chase rabbits. So, I don't want to do that with you today, because you won't see Bill for three weeks. So, if you would, open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 11. Deuteronomy chapter 11. And I want to read three verses to you today. Deuteronomy chapter 11, verse 26, 27, and 28. And I will be reading from the King James Version. It says, Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I have commanded you this day. And a curse if you will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I have commanded you this day, and go after other gods which you have not known." Let's take a moment to pray. Heavenly Father, I just thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to share my testimony here with these people today, Lord. I just ask that you will bless this time that we gather together, and it will glorify you in Christ's name. Amen. It may seem strange to begin a testimony with such a verse, but I am convinced that this verse itself, these verses, led to my true conversion. Some background, first of all. My sister and I were raised in New England by a single mom, my father having died at the age of six. We were what I call nominal Catholics. What's a nominal Catholic? A nominal Catholic, as my mother described it, was we went to church twice a year. We went on Christmas and on Easter. And why did we go on Christmas and Easter? Because the neighbors would think we were heathen if we didn't go those two times a year. Anything more than that meant you were a real Catholic. But hey, you could get away with just going twice a year. Well, that lasted until I got to the age of 12, and then I was taller than my mom, and I didn't have to go to church no more. It was a typical middle-class neighborhood. We appeared as normal as every other kids in the neighborhood. And at age 17, my senior year of high school, I joined the Army. I intended to go in the Army for two years. I signed up on a program in 1974 for a two-year program so I could get money to go to college. But what I found was a career. I found I was good at, well, I wasn't so good at taking orders, but I was really good at giving orders. In an effort to shut up a fellow Army recruiter, slash Bible thumper, in September of 1980, I still remember this guy's name, I don't remember a whole lot of people from the Army, but Jeff Cropley, I will never forget. I started going to a local Baptist church and heard tell of hell as a place of eternal damnation. It was the first time I'd ever heard that story. Now remember, I'd gone to Catholic church as a kid for many years, but I'd never heard of hell. I mean, I've heard of hell, but I never knew it was a place of eternal damnation. The preacher also said, all I needed to do was get up out of that pew, come on forward, kneel down, say this little prayer, and I could get out of hell. Well, heck, I'm smarter than the average idiot. Above average idiots, well, they beat me most of the time. But hey, I'm smarter than the average idiot, so I went forward. I'd have paid the guy $200 if it was get out of hell. I mean, it just made sense. I didn't have to do anything else. But I was going forward because I didn't want to be eternally damned. Soon I found myself serving on their bus ministry because in the Army I had a bus license. In the state of Massachusetts where I was stationed as an Army recruiter, guess what? They said, oh, you can drive a bus locally. We'll just sign your paperwork because you got one in the Army. They had me doing other various activities. I went to the pastor and said, hey, all this stuff I'm doing for the church, maybe I should think about going into ministry someday. Oh yeah, you're still new. Don't worry about it right now. We'll talk about it somewhere down the road. Well, somewhere down the road, about maybe eight or nine months later, I eventually moved away. My marriage fell apart. I stopped going to church. And I became fully backslidden, or so I was told. But I have to ask a question. Was I really backslidden? I wanted the benefits of getting out of hell, but I didn't want any of the oversight. For you young folks sitting up here, that's a fancy way of saying, just like today, too many people end up being deceived because the truth is Jesus cannot be your Savior if he's also not Lord of your life. Truth be told, I went forward that day back in October 1980, but I was never saved. Truth be told, there's a lot of people that go forward to altar calls because some preacher tells them, if you just come forward, if you kneel down, if you say this little prayer, you'll get out of hell. And they're never saved. And I'm not saying that doesn't apply to everybody, but it sure applied to me. I didn't want Christ as Lord in my life. I liked the life I had. But that life included a divorce, included running away from God. And you would think that God would say, okay, that's what you're going to do. I've had enough of you. And seemingly at the bottom of a valley there, God still had mercy upon me. He didn't give up on me. Although I didn't give him any credit at the time. Three years later, within three years actually, I had been remarried. I had custody of my two daughters. I had a great job. I was living the American dream. Had I returned to fellowship with God? No way. I thought things were going so great because of all the things I had done. It was all about me. It wasn't about God. It was all about me. It's alright, everybody in the room should be going, stupid boy. Because it's true. I continued living that worldly life for 16 years. I mean, I was a good guy. Until we try to define good against the terms of biblical standards. At least I thought I was a good guy until my world came crashing down in 1988. No, I'm sorry, 1998. You see, I was caught up in a sinful life of sexual idolatry. I believe that God had had enough of my disobedience and decided to give me what I've called a Jonah experience. You know the story, right? What happened with Jonah? Any of you guys remember what happened with Jonah? What did he do? What happened with Jonah? He got swallowed up by a fish. He got swallowed up by a fish. Well, why did he get swallowed up by a fish? He didn't go to do what God wanted him to do, right? God said, I have a mission for you, and he went, I don't want to deal with you, God. I'm going to go do my own thing. Well, for 16 years, that's what I did. I knew God was tugging at my heartstrings, if you will. God was calling on me. God was pulling at my heart, saying, you need to do the right thing. And I kept turning my back to God. And God finally said, enough is enough. He gave me my whale. My whale was prison. My whale wasn't three days. My whale was seven and a half years. It took seven and a half, it didn't take seven and a half years, but it was seven and a half years And in that time, I was able to figure out the plain truth of His commands. Remember our opening scripture, Deuteronomy 11, 24-26? Well, just like Israel, God made it a simple choice for me to obey Him and be blessed, or disobey Him and be cursed. Third day of my incarceration, Tom Phipps, the chaplain of the jail, prison, came walking by. He says, young man, can I get you anything? And he had a little cart, and all he had was Bibles on it. I says, I'll take one of those books. And you've got to pretend for a second that this is a thick Bible. And he was three feet away because he wasn't allowed to get any closer. There was a line. And he had to throw it through the thing. And my thumb opened to that verse right there. And that's the first thing I read. I put before you this day. Now I know the choice seems obvious, but we must remember he calls us to pick up our cross daily and follow him. So it's not going to be any lip service obedience. You can't put one over on God. I tried for 16 years and failed miserably. I read that verse and cried. unashamedly cried because I was so ashamed. Along with that Bible, he gave me a copy of Jonathan Edwards, Sinners at the Hands of an Angry God. How many of you have read that? If you haven't read it, you need to read it. I want to read you just a little portion, if you wouldn't mind. It says, another thing implied, this is a sermon that he read. I actually stood, the First Congregational Church in Longmeadow, Massachusetts is the second place, the first place he ever preached the sermon down in, I guess it's South Enfield, Connecticut was the name of the place then. But in Longmeadow, Mass, I stood at the pulpit he preached this from. You don't even want to know what that church is now. But I stood at the pulpit, put my hands where he preached this sermon from. Listen to what he said. Another thing implied is that they are liable to fall of themselves without being thrown down by the hand of another, as he that stands or walks on slippery ground need nothing but his own weight to throw him down. that the reason why they are not fallen already and don't fall now is only that God's appointed time is not yet come. For it is said that when that due time or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. Then when then they shall be left to fall as they are inclined by their own weight. God won't hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go. And then at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction as he that stands in such a slippery declining ground on the edge of a pit that he can't stand alone. When he is let go immediately falls and is lost. The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is this, of an angry God. And this is the line, the sentence that just went. There is nothing, nothing that keeps wicked men. And I knew I was one of those. At any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God. I realized the only reason I was alive was the mere pleasure of God. Grace, in huge, huge letters, it went, I mean, my head almost, you know, one of them cartoons, boom. It just hit me. Why? After everything I had done, why me, Lord? Why? Someday I get to ask Him that. I knew the choice I must make. First, I had to get right with God. And second, I could no longer settle for Him to just be my Savior. I needed Him to be Lord of my life as well. So I prayed and asked for forgiveness of my foolish sinful ways. I prayed and asked Christ to be Lord of my life, to direct my path daily. And I prayed and asked God to use me as He saw fit. Unlike many who wasted their time in incarceration, I used the time to study God's Word, earning a certificate in New Testament studies, completing much of the requirements for a master's degree in theology. I was privileged to teach Bible studies, and when we lost our chaplain, to preach each Sunday for over two years. I say that not to boast, but to acknowledge what God's grace can do to change a man. He used me. Why? Again, why? Why, God? I mean, I constantly want to ask Him, why? I hope this doesn't come out the wrong way or rude, but it's almost like the answer is, shut up and just do what I'm telling you. That's all I need you to do. Sometimes I don't think we need to question God. We just need to do what He says. I hope that makes sense. A couple years before my expected release, I wrote approximately a dozen or so churches in Springfield, Mass area. My mother was getting older. My sister asked me to come back to that area to help take care of my mom. And so that's why I was planning on going. Only one pastor, Steve Graham of Pioneer Valley Baptist Church in Chicopee, Mass. Some of you have met Pastor Steve going down to Lake Shore. wrote back. Our letters were lengthy and full of theological questions and many answers. It was about that time I also read a small 57-page book by John MacArthur. Again, I highly recommend this book entitled, Why One Way? A little tiny booklet. MacArthur explains, or clearly explains, it's all about God. God's sovereignty, His grace, and nothing else. This in John 3, 16, which says, and this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Changed my theology in life forever. I wrote Pastor Steve about this discovery and eagerly awaited his reply. When it came, let's just say I was a little more than surprised by his opening line. And Thomas, you'd appreciate, you know Stephen, he has kind of a warped sense of humor like me. In big letters now, he writes on yellow legal paper, that's all he writes on. And in big, probably two-inch letters, he writes, dude, it's time to come out of the closet. I get this while I'm in prison with all these other guys. Dude, it's time to come out of the closet. Not the best thing to open in front of a bunch of fellow inmates. Well, as you can imagine, I'm like, yeah, okay. What he meant, of course, was the theological closet. What I didn't realize at the time, because I'd never heard the terms, I had never put a tag on it, was like Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, I'd embrace the doctrines of grace. Call it Calvinism, call it covenant theology, call it whatever you want. Left to my own initiative, I would always love the dark side because my deeds were evil. I needed Christ not only to save me from my sins, that's why I went to the altar call, but I needed him to be Lord of all things in my life. I needed that covenant with Christ. Here, you be in charge. Don't let me take control, because look what I do. After my release in 2006, I again was faced with many choices, as in our opening text. Has anybody here ever worked in prison ministry at all? All right, I'm chasing a rabbit. Here we go. I'll try not to be too long. Right now in the state of Mississippi, there are, if I remember right, the number is somewhere around 238,000 men and women incarcerated. There are about just under a half a million men and women on what they call papers. That means they're either on parole, probation, or on What do they call it? It's where a case has been filed and they're not on any kind of probation or parole but the case has been filed and the judge can reopen it if they get in any kind of trouble of any kind, even a speeding ticket. So there's, in Mississippi has three levels of what they call papers. So there's quite a bit of people out there. Mississippi has, again on paper, one of the lowest recidivism rates, meaning reoffending rates in the country, but that's because they also have the second highest length of incarceration of any state in the country. So people in Mississippi, when guys go into jail, There's a lot of guys that get into jail because they're there a long time and they get God, if you know what I mean. They start going to church because it's the only time they can get out of their cell blocks, for the most part. There's a lot of this, especially in the county jail system, there is nothing for these guys to do at all. Unless they don't have a GED, and most of the time there are four GED slots for every two to 400 inmates. Yeah. I was at a correctional facility that had held 1,800 men. They had five GED slots a year. That was it. The average age of the inmate there was 20 years, 7 months. It's designed for them to come back. It is a business incarceration in this country today. That's all it is. There is no such thing as correctional. In fact, I almost got thrown out of a facility because I asked an officer one time, his patch said correctional officer. I asked him when was the last time he helped correct an inmate. I asked the question. I wasn't being rude. I said, you're attached as correctional officer. When was the last time you helped an inmate to correct his life so he wouldn't come back? I was just being honest. So these men and women go into prison, they get God, but on the way out the door, their get God goes into file 13, right in the trash can. And they go right back to the life they were living. So when I got out, I had some choices to make. I could have filed 13 everything, or I could continue to obey God. So I decided that, you know, I was smart enough again. I may be an average idiot, but I wasn't quite that dumb. I remembered what it was like before, so I wanted to stick with God. So when I got out, I was thankful for what He had given me and what He had done for me, and I wasn't going to sit on the sidelines. idly by. So I started a prison ministry. Two guys, when I was walking out the door, the facility I was discharged from, yelled at me and asked me to write them. They had nobody. These were both guys who had no, I'd been with one of them for a little over two years, or just about two years, and the other guy for 11 months, and neither of them had ever received a letter. So they said to me, hey, and it was in September, they said, hey, Remember us. How about you write us?" I says, all right, I'll send you both a letter in a couple weeks. Sure you will. We doubt it. And so I wrote to those two gentlemen. That started Faithful Steward Ministries. And Faithful Steward Ministries, our theme is from 1 Corinthians 4, verses 1 and 2, and it says, let a man so account of us as ministers of Christ and stewards in the ministries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful." I knew that if I was going to be a steward of everything God had given me, I had to be faithful to God, and I wanted to pass that on. So those guys had asked. I said I would. I had to be faithful, so I wrote them. Faithful steward ministries grew. Within a year we were writing to somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 inmates a month, and that got to be overwhelming. So we stopped writing direct correspondence to inmates just arbitrarily. We went and started publishing a quarterly newsletter. which ended up in 39 states and about 14 foreign countries. And we did that, published that up until 2013. And then all the stuff that happened with Lakeshore and jail ministry full-time down there just got so overwhelming, we stopped that. But God has given us His Word, the Bible, and we as stewards and administrators, caretakers and overseers. We are seen by others as ministers and stewards of Christ. We must be faithful to His calling and will for our lives. We cannot sum up our beliefs, as many do today, in what I call Burger King theology. Folks, if folks want it their way, that may be fine for a fast food joint, but not for Almighty Sovereign God of the universe. Who am I to dictate to Him what He should do for me? I actually have permission, by the way, in case anybody's wondering, from Burger King Enterprises to use that term, Burger King Theology. I wrote them. I published a paper about six years ago with their logo with the hat. It was published in a few national magazines. It was an article. So being obedient, by putting him first and forward at all things, I've been greatly blessed. I met, married a wonderful, faithful woman, who when I told her I was considering moving down to Mississippi to build a church back in 2011, now reminding, I was gonna say remember, but she's not here, we had just, and I mean just finished remodeling our house that we had, our first house that we had bought together. In fact, I tell everybody as a joke, I built her a $23,000 closet. If anybody knows what a Cape Cod-style house is up in New England, it's a little square house with an upstairs. Well, Nida wanted a walk-in closet, so I put a full dormer on the back of this thing and gave her a walk-in closet with a full master suite upstairs. And the material and a couple, I had Pastor Steve and his son-in-law help me do it, so it was $23,000. We had just finished the remodeling and I said, hey, honey, how would you like to move to Mississippi? And she goes, and leave my mansion? I said, well, I think that's what God's calling us. Her response was, whatever God would have us do. I've had steady employment, many opportunities to share my faith and ministry work, all because of him. I grew up as a kid listening to WSM. It's the only radio station. My grandmother gave me one of those old-fashioned type tube radios, the round-top radios, AM only. In Western Massachusetts, the only thing you could pick up was Saturday night, you could pick up WSM out of Nashville. And I grew up listening to Southern Gospel on WSM. So some of you may know who the Gaither Vocal Band is. I listened to the cathedrals and stuff like that as a kid. That's music that I grew up with. So the Gaither Vocal Band has a song. And one of the verses goes, "...greatly blessed, highly favored, imperfect, forgiven child of God, standing upright on God's good earth, count my blessings, great things He has done, fighting the good fight with blessed assurance that the battle is already won." Anyway, back to why we're here. Truly, I thought I was done building churches. after finishing up at Lakeshore. We thought we were settled on the Gulf Coast. My daughter and grandchildren had moved down from Missouri. I was the senior chaplain at the county jail waiting to be appointed full-time chaplain. But God had other ideas, and he had this persistent guy named Pastor Wynn keep asking me when I was moving up to Jackson. Easily, easily I could have reverted to the pig-headed old self and ignored everything else and everyone else and just charged forward unabated. But when we see speed bumps, roadblocks, many times, I don't know about you, but many times I got this thing, oh, that's just the devil trying to put something in my way. Sometimes I have to remember God puts them there too. I'm going to throw another old one at you. How many remember Flip Wilson? Remember Flip Wilson theology? The devil made me do it? That don't work. This is the case here. I could have simply carried on at the jail and waited for a title to come. NIDA would still be volunteering at the Mercy House Distribution Center, but to one end, would God have been glorified in it all? We believe that God has called us up here to help in this work. One thing we try to ask each other and ask God each and every day is, what would Jesus have me do? Remember them little bracelets? What would Jesus do? I hope this doesn't offend anybody, but I hated those things. Don't get me wrong. It was a group of high school kids in Minnesota. The concept was perfect, and then adults got involved. And they ran wild with it, and they made this big commercial enterprise out of what a group of high school kids were just trying to say, we want to follow God. But you know what? What would Jesus do? I don't know. I'm not God. I never will be. I'm never going to be Jesus. The question is, what would He have me do? And every day, Nida and I try to get up and ask that question. What would He have us do today? So today, we want to ask you to continue to keep us in prayer as we make the move from the Gulf Coast up here. We would ask that He bless this congregation. as we fellowship together with you. Does anybody have any questions? None? You guys are easy. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the opportunity to share this morning. I just ask, Lord, that if anybody does have something on their heart, that they would just bring it to my attention, Lord. And I just ask that you will continue to bless this church, continue to see it grow as we fellowship together in your Son's precious name. Amen.