Luke chapter 19. I rarely have been in a position where I could preach the same message, and it's very new to me. I like it, but I realize my messages are a lot like snowflakes. They're all completely different anyway, so we'll just go ahead and spend some time here this morning. Luke chapter 19. Beginning in verse number 41, now the scene here is the entrance of the Lord into Jerusalem. And the Bible says, when he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over it, saying, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes. You can hear the remorse in the Lord's voice as he spoke to the people who were the inhabitants of this city. For the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee and encompass thee round and keep thee in on every side. By the way, that's going on right now. and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. He went into the temple and began to cast out them that sold their inn and them that bought, saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. And he taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him and could not find what they might do, for all the people were very attentive to hear him. The Lord is entering Jerusalem at this point in Luke's gospel. We know what transpires beyond this. We are just a few hours or a day or so away from the cross. He is coming back into Jerusalem, the city of the king, the city where David had been as he grew up and reigned early in his reign. All of these things, it is the hub of activity. It is the capital. of this grand country, and Jesus now weeps over this city. There are two recorded places in the ministry of Christ where He weeps. One is here, and He weeps in John 11, 35 at the death or the burial of Lazarus. It is not often you find the anguish in the Son of God when He is upon this earth, sadness and sorrow. And here is an expression of sorrow, the weeping of tears as he sees Jerusalem as it is and in his mind understands what it could be or should be. Sometimes we look at things in life as we look back. And it's easy to weep as we look back in the course of our lives because everyone here this morning can find something that could have been different in the past. Sometimes that brings remorse to us. Sometimes we can look back and find things that should have been. There is always sadness in knowing that things are not what they could or should have been. Jesus here weeps over a city. He weeps over a missed opportunity that these folks had. Boy, if you were flipped back just a few pages, you'd be in the Old Testament. And if you were to go back in the Old Testament far enough, you'd find the very foundations of the nation that was to be called Israel. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, as God led them and miraculously provided for them, as He moved them from place to place and oftentimes moved them against enemies and people that sought to destroy them. And yet God gave them the ability to destroy their enemies and to take their land. And it seems as though everywhere God led them, there was opposition, but God gave them victory. Israel becomes a nation. Someone said it a moment ago. It's going on there, probably even while we're talking today. They're still fighting over that piece of dirt. And the reason has nothing to do with its desirability. If you've ever been to Israel, there's not a lot to desire there. It's barren land. But it's something that is desired because God has His eye on it. And God has a plan for it in the future. And God's going to use it. May I say to you, one of these days, if I can use this term in loose connection, Jerusalem will be the capital of this world one day. And the king will rule there. And things will be different then. But at this point, Jesus has come into the world. He has put upon Him the form of humanity, God in the flesh. And He has interacted and dealt with His own people. And they have rejected Him by and large. And so as He comes into Jerusalem, we find Him moved to tears. It was not tears over His own somehow destroyed ego. It was not tears that somehow He had wished they had. It was tears for them, not for Himself. He came into the world to give His life a ransom for many, did He not? He is a few days away from the fulfillment of that. He knows full well there is a cross probably built or being built at this moment for Him to be crucified on. He knows that the two thieves who will be crucified near Him are already in incarceration. Their sentences have already been decided. He is the third cross. And He knows all too well what the course of events will be. But He's not weeping for Himself. He's weeping for Jerusalem. And He says it could have been different. It should have been different. They had had ample opportunity, as I said before, The harp of David had played there and his songs had been sung by the people in that region, in that area. The kings of Israel had reigned there and brought grandeur and greatness. The temple had been constructed there in all of its greatness. All of those things had transpired because God had a plan. He picked that city of Jerusalem. It is still today the most contested city in the history of mankind. Is it not ironic that we're reading from a passage that reflects what is going on in the streets of Jerusalem today? It's not yours, it's ours. That's always been the fight. And the truth of the matter is it doesn't belong to the Jews and it doesn't belong to the Arabs. It belongs to God and God says, that's my city and I'll do what needs to be done in that city. But it's not the city, the geography or anything that deals with that city I want to talk about this morning because I believe the Savior here weeps over what we would have to consider the sadness of a lost opportunity. He says there, if thou hadst known, if thou hadst known. Do you ever have any of those moments in your life? Do you have some of those memories today that you could think back over the course of your life and say, wow, had I just known what could have been different? If I had just realized, if I had just thought, we've all got those regrets and very often they revolve around sometimes things we actually did know, we just weren't paying much attention. And in this case, Jerusalem had every reason to know what was going on. Nothing is more meticulously laid out in Scripture than the coming of the Lord. His death, His burial, His resurrection, all of those things are given through the prophets of old, sometimes as many as seven and eight hundred years prior to this moment. The prophets of old, moved by the Spirit of God, had given them the time, the place, all of those things were there. The details were there. The Scripture says when He came unto His own, they knew He was coming. They were waiting for the Messiah. He came unto His own. and his own received him not. And so as he enters Jerusalem for the last time, he weeps over the city. A missed opportunity. Did you ever miss an opportunity in the course of your life? I'd love to go back to Sunday school so I could get my anniversary date right this morning. I don't know where I lost five years. I'm hoping they were not the five best years of our marriage. I would hate to have forgotten those, but somehow in my mind, things weren't working right. Missed opportunities. missed opportunities. There's always people wanting to give you advice, there's always people wanting to help you direct, and there's always people that will naysay whatever it might be if you've got plans. There is no plan, there's no desire or nothing that we designed to do that doesn't have someone to step up and say, now wait just a minute. But that was not the instance here. The situation was these people knew their prophecies. These people knew that Messiahs would come. The Samaritan woman yonder in the northern regions, the backside of Israel, if you will. She, as an outsider, knew that the Messiah was coming. But Jesus now looks at this city and sees not just what it is, but what it could have been. And He has moved to sadness. And He expresses the sadness over the lost opportunity. Can you imagine what it would have been if they had indeed bowed down as they had done in a triumphal entry just for fanfare and show? But if from the heart they had fallen down and worshipped Him as the Son of God, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. But that was not to happen. They had had the opportunity. They had missed it. The essence of life is choices. You are who you are this morning, not just because of genetic material. You are who you are because of choices that you have made. Life is not about the smart and the ignorant. Life is not about the strong and the weak. Because every time you choose one of those characteristics, you will find folks on the extreme opposite end of that who have been more successful or lived a better life. Strong people are not always people who enjoy the best life. Sometimes a weak guy makes right decisions, and God honors that. You look at Hollywood, and we're tended to look at that and see what goes on there and say, oh wow, if I could live like that. And yet, Hollywood, California has been recognized by psychiatrists and psychologists as the most unhappy place on the planet Earth. millions and billions of dollars, and yet the most miserable people in the world live there. They drive expensive cars, they live in grand homes, but they cry themselves to sleep every night with a glass in one hand and pills in the other, trying somehow just to make it through another day. Missed opportunity. What Jerusalem could have been. I'm sure you've missed opportunities. The essence in life is the ability to make good decisions or seize opportunities. You either can make great decisions or you can make terrible decisions. You can make godly decisions. You can make selfish decisions. You can be foolish or you can consider yourself lucky. But all of those have to do with making the right decisions. Life is about choices. We live in a world today that is eaten up with it's just not fair. Let me help you with that. You're an idiot. You assume that someone got fair treatment and you didn't. I'll tell you what happened. Somebody seized the opportunity. Somebody seized the day. And because of that, life became a little better. Somebody stayed in bed and it's not going so well. Now, the sad thing is when you get to a certain point and look back and realize what could have been. what should have been if you had taken advantage of those opportunities. Would never ask for a show of hands but I'll guarantee you every one of us probably could and should raise their hands to consider the fact that my life could have been different and I can think of at least one choice if I'd made I'd go back right now and change it and make it. Hopefully it's not the person you married or the children you had but some choice that you'd love to go back in time and alter because you know it would have a great effect in your life. Jesus looks at an entire city, people who had messed up a choice that had been given to them. Our lives are shaped by the choices that we make. I had a fellow one time that told me he wasted his education and he spent two terms, he told me, in the eighth grade and then he told me it was Wilson's and Roosevelt's. That's a little old and some of you have to think a little while but he was referring to presidential terms instead of just years in school. Some of us wasted our education. Some of us went and we concentrated on the important things in life like fun and games and girls or boys and all of those things and we realized far too late that we should have gotten an education. We wasted that opportunity. Every one of us this morning would have at least one, and I say that kindly, one regret, one place where we could say, boy, if I could just go back and make this decision. Jesus looks at a city, a city that was in the eye of God as far back as the book of Exodus. As far back as the late chapters in Genesis for his people, he had looked at a city and he said, this is the place where I'm going to put my name. This is the place where I'm going to plant my people. There is no more notoriety given to possessing and ownership of land. The title deed to the nation of Israel is in the oldest book on this planet. It belongs to them. You say, well, I know they've been run out and run in and run around all the time they've been there. And that has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that they didn't recognize their opportunities. But Jesus looks and sees what could have been. And he talks about this wasted opportunity. We make our choice of vocation. We make our choice of our spouse. Hopefully this morning that was a good choice for you. but we have those choices in life, those opportunities. I want to talk to you this morning about the sadness of a missed opportunity. That's what Jesus is weeping at. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus. He weeps over Jerusalem. His tears over Jerusalem are not the tears of a wounded God, not the cause of a vicious attack, no slander of his character. None of those ever brought a tear to his eyes. He weeps for Jerusalem. because it could have been different and it should have been different. And he sees that in his move to tears. I want to talk to you this morning for a little while, if I can, about the essence of a missed opportunity. What it means. I say again, anyone here, everyone here would say, if I could just go back, I'd change this. if I just had this choice to make. We all have them. So that unites us this morning. This is something we all know well is true. But my concern is not how to get you back to the past to fix those past mistakes. My concern this morning is to help you realize that very often while we focus on the mistakes of yesterday and years ago, we're very busy making mistakes today we'll regret 10 years from now. Somebody said, what do you do when you ruin your life 10 years ago? I'll tell you what you do. You live it to the fullest today or you'll lose today. Preacher, I messed my life up 14 years ago. I married the wrong man. I married the wrong woman. I got the wrong job. I did this. Hey, you're losing today by focusing on a failure. Jesus looked at a city and said it didn't have to be this way. It shouldn't have been this way. His tears are wept. What does it mean to lose an opportunity? Folks, and this is the scientific community, they tell you that the essence of a lost opportunity exists in four areas. Number one, the failure to recognize the importance of that opportunity. The failure to recognize the importance of that opportunity. Number two, the failure to commit in time. Number three, the failure to rally sometimes needed assistance. And number four, the failure to continue until completion. Now, that's what the world says. I believe it to be true when it comes to decisions and choices. But I want to bring that into the spiritual realm, if I might, and talk this morning at opportunities you and I have in serving the Lord, in walking with the Lord. Listen, aren't you glad you're saved? I can't think of anybody in the world I would want to trade places with today because God has been so good. I'm thankful I'm not having to pursue millions of dollars or homes or places. I'm glad I don't have to go to certain cities and enjoy. I'm glad that God can give you happiness and elation in life just by walking with Him and knowing who He is. I opened my eyes this morning and my first thoughts and my first conversation was with the God that made this universe. He let me know this morning everything would be alright. I struggled and I said, yeah, but Lord, what if? And he said, I can take care of it. I got you covered. There was a peace that settled in and a joy that comes in knowing that God's got it mapped out and my failures don't have to dog me through the course of my life. But I submit to you that if you allow those failures and regrets to dog you the rest of your life, that's all your life's ever going to be is looking in the rear view mirror. The truth of the matter is there are some choices that need to be made. The big example of missed opportunity in the scripture is in the gospel of John chapter 20. Jesus has been crucified and has risen three days later. And he comes to present himself. He shows up at a prayer meeting one night where the disciples are gathered. Now I can't imagine what that would be like right after you went to the funeral. to be together and it's in the evening. Okay, everybody knows the ghost stories and everything goes on in the evening, it's a scary time. And they're all together and Jesus is, the Bible said he just appears in the midst. I think you should knock or something if you're gonna do that, you know, maybe speak from outside the room, it's me, he just shows up. You understand now where their hearts and minds were. But there was one who's missing. Thomas. Thomas, as far as I know, matter of fact, I'm sure we have no other evidence that he ever missed more than one service. He was a faithful disciple, was he not? He was one of the 12, right? The Lord had the confidence in him and trusted him as he trusted, and as far as we know, he only missed one evening service. and forever he is known as Doubting Thomas. I wonder if we were to give you a name, depending on how many services you missed, what we might call you. Thomas, as far as I know, would make any Baptist pastor happy to have him as part of his church. I'd love to have people that only missed one service. Thomas missed one, and forever he carries the stigma. of being doubted. You say, why? That seems unfair. Well, it wasn't just the fact that he wasn't there, it was the fact that he missed an opportunity. And those opportunities don't come often. You say, well yeah, but preacher you understand that the next week Thomas was there. I know, I realize it. I got the story down. The next week Jesus comes again and Thomas touches him and feels the nail prints and bows at his feet and finds his way back to repentance and the Lord doesn't hold it against him other than the fact that he's always called Doubting Thomas. You can get things right that have gotten, you've gotten wrong. But the truth of the matter is, I don't think the disciples held it over his head. I don't find anywhere in scripture where they, you know, Peter, James and doubting Thomas. I don't think they attached that title to him other than perhaps playfully. But you got to realize Thomas never forgot it. Thomas never forgot the night he missed it. Thomas regretted it all the days. Don't you hate hearing things secondhand when you could have been there? I remember being in Cincinnati years ago. I grew up in the Dayton area, and my father loved the Cincinnati Reds, and so we would go down and watch the Cincinnati Reds play as often as they could, and that's where a lot of my childhood memories are. I remember one night, we were there. My father was tired, but we had gone anyway. Two teams were playing. I didn't even know who they were. Cincinnati was obviously one of them. But we were there, and it was one of those games where they were one run ahead, and then it was tied, and then they were one run ahead, and then it was tied, and then it was tied, and then it was tied, and then it was tied, and they were one run ahead, and then it was tied. One of those games, just really exciting. My father said, we got to go. We got to go. Cincinnati was ahead one run. I think it was maybe the eighth or the seventh inning, and it looked pretty much like they were going to hold on. So we walked out, walked out to the car, got in the car, and started up I-75 towards Dayton and turned on WLW, which is the Cincinnati radio station. Just as we turned it on, you heard Marty Brenneman going, it's going, it's going, it's out of here. Cincinnati loses. Yeah, we lost the game. Somehow you think if I'd have been there, they'd have won. If we'd have stayed, dad, if we'd have just been out there in the section screaming and yelling our heads off. Regrets. Regrets. Missed opportunities. My team didn't win. Failure to recognize the importance very often is what costs us those sad moments. Investments. Intel, all I have to say. IBM. Every one of those, they were around when we were young guys. You could have bought them for probably pennies of what they would be worth now and we didn't do it or we invested in something we knew was going to work and it didn't work out, but we missed that opportunity. Failure to recognize the importance. Secondly, failure to commit in time. I have bought stock six weeks too late. I watched it go up, and somebody said, that's a great stock. Yeah, I'm going to be careful. And I watched it, it came, and I thought, it is, and I bought it, and it went down. That's just failure to commit in time, failure to rally needed assistance, and a failure to stay the course. Those are the problems. Those are the costs. Thomas becomes the example of a missed opportunity. I want to ask you a question this morning. What opportunities have you missed in the course of your life? Everybody will give you advice. Everybody will say, do this or do that. I talked in the first hour this morning about back in the year 2000, the first time I ever preached this message was in Y2K. I was pastoring in Y2K and building was filling up and we needed a building. And so we were in negotiation to buy, we had already purchased the property, but to put a building up on the land where we had purchased. And a lot of my preacher friends were going to help me, and they were calling me saying, hey, don't dare borrow money. Don't build. It's Y2K. How many of you remember some of that? You'd be telling how old you are. Remember it was a disaster and impending doom was coming. It was over. I mean, people stayed up that night of January, the first night of January, the last of December, to see the world explode. Because computers were not programmed, they didn't have the ability to recognize, it was just, it was gone. And I had preachers that were well-intentioned, they said, don't borrow money in Y2K. And I said, well, I don't understand. They said, you don't understand computers, you don't understand the complexity of computers. which I still don't understand the complexity of computers. I just, at this point, really don't care. But they said, when the bank changes into Y2K, the computers don't recognize because we have never prepared for that contingency. And they said, you may, oh, listen, you may borrow $100,000 and it could turn into $100 million. We don't know what's going to happen. How many of you remember that? There was massive panic. And I said, you mean to tell me that I could borrow a million dollars and it could turn into I owe a hundred million? That's what I'm telling you. Don't go there, pastor. And I said, well, let me ask you a question. Is it possible that I could borrow a million and owe a dollar? Well, he said, well, yeah, because we don't know what's going to happen. I said, I'm in. If I could borrow a million and owe a dollar, I'll pay it off myself. You would say we laugh, but that sense of panic was there. And we didn't know what, and strangely enough, nothing was going to happen. Missing opportunities very often is caused because we're not willing to step out and take the risk. We are made fearful. We find ourselves in a place where we've got doubts and fears and all of those things are working against us. Let me ask you a question this morning. Take an examination of yourself and ask yourself this question, what present opportunities do we have in this day, in this time, in this COVID riddled falling apart society? Like it or not where we are politically and economically and every place else. Whether it's a good thing to you or a bad thing to you, it is obvious to everybody there are fundamental changes being made in our country that this country will never be the same again. Now, I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, I'm just saying it's changed and still in the process of changing. But I want to ask you a question, not just as an American, because that's secondary, but as a Christian. What opportunities are there that, like Thomas, you and I may miss because we're focused on other things? I don't know what kept Thomas home from church. You understand that? The Bible doesn't tell us he was sick, he had a kid that was, you know, had a test the next... I don't know what it was, but how many of you understand Thomas regretted the rest of his life not being there that one service? And might I add, can you imagine heaven? When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, and somebody walking down a street of gold one day says, that's Thomas. And like kids in school going, Daddy Thomas, Daddy Thomas, Daddy, is it that pretty much a foregone conclusion that he's gonna get razzed the rest of his life because that's what the Bible says, he doubted. Well, let me ask you the questions this morning. Why is it that you and I find so much room for doubt in our own lives? We're not risk takers. Can I tell you why we don't witness effectively? Because we're afraid. Can I tell you why we can't be in church faithfully? Because there are just so many other things that pull and drag us around. We are controlled by circumstances. We're not consistent at anything. It's interesting to ask a preacher or hear a preacher that says, well, you know, I don't know how the crowd will be with COVID and everything. Well, I understand people get sick and I understand that people are in danger. And I understand that not everybody's going to be in church, but having said those things, I just want you to know, you've heard of John the Baptist. I'm Rick the Baptist. Okay. I'm going to church. Okay? If I have to wear a mask or a paper bag over my head, I'm going to go to church. I just like being in church. You say, well, you think you have to... No, I don't think I have to go. I don't think I get closer to the Lord and get somehow rub the lamp, you know, and get my wishes. I just think I ought to be in church because I'm a Christian. I'd rather have somebody see me walking into church on a Sunday night than walking into the drug store. I want them to recognize that you say, well, I think you've got to be careful. I think you've got to be careful, but I think you've got to be committed to something in life, too. I was born an American, and I have every intention of dying an American. You say, well, say what you want to. My flag's still red, white, and blue. I still weep when they raise it up the flagpole and sing the national anthem. And you can say all you want to about my country. You can razz it all you want to. But listen, I'll pay for you to move anywhere else in the world you want to go if you will sign a document that will never allow you back into my country. And we'll both be happy. It's an amazing thing. They take a flight. We're going to leave. We're going to leave. Yeah, they leave and then they sneak back in. And you didn't even know they were back for a year. Oh yeah, I came back. Why? Because I was an idiot. It's a great country. It's a great country. What is it you and I are doing though? Or are we wasting an opportunity? Have you considered lately that you've got an opportunity to approach the task of salvation? Two kinds of people, maybe you're here this morning and this is new to you, and you're listening to this crazy, whacked out preacher, and I'm never going to come back to this church, and this is a waste of my time. I've heard all the excuses. I made a lot of them myself years ago. But the truth of the matter is, you're going to have to make some decisions that are going to affect you in eternity. Whether you come to this church or whether you go to any other church, you can become a Buddhist or you can become a nun. Well, maybe not everybody can become a nun, but you could become a nun or a nunette or whatever it is. You could do whatever you want to do religiously, but if you're going to get to heaven, you've got to go God's way. That's just the way that it works. What are you going to do with that opportunity? The Bible says, today is the day of salvation. Boast not thyself of tomorrow, thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. I've had funerals for people. The last thing they said to me was, I'll see you in a few days, or I'll see you Tuesday, or I'll be back on Friday, or I'll, listen, I've preached to funerals of people who said that. We don't know. You say, well, I believe you gotta get things right with the big man upstairs. That's kind of the way that the new generation approaches it. You know, I don't know, you gotta, you know, we wanna, okay, what are you doing about it? Well, here's what I think. We don't really care what you think. Okay, can I help you? It doesn't matter what I think. It's what he said that matters. And if he said, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. If he said that, you say, well, I don't know what the, it doesn't matter whether you know what the kingdom of God is. He said, except a man be born again, he can, the truth is, no matter what it is, you're not going unless you go his way. Well, I just don't, that's authoritarian. Yeah, it's authoritarian because he made it. He created it. He's kept it up. He's provided a way for us to go. He makes the rules. Well, I just don't think that's fair. And I think you're an idiot. So how's that? Okay. If I come in your home and you say, we've put in new carpet, we'd appreciate it if you'd take your shoes off. I probably will go, well, I hope I don't have holes in my socks. and we're just vain, but I'm gonna have to take my shoes off, because it's your house. I'm not gonna come up with some eloquent explanation of why I need to keep my shoes on, or the truth of the matter is, it's your place. It's God's place. He said, you wanna come to my place, here's what it takes. He said, I just don't think that's fair. Let me tell you about fair. He said, here's how much it's costing you to get to heaven, and I'm gonna pay for it for you. And you're complaining about that? You want to get to heaven? It's going to take the blood of a completely innocent and righteous person. But I got you covered. And you're going to balk at that? You're going to say, I don't like that authoritarian, you know, American God. Well, then you can run around with the devil because he's always had your best interest at heart. Ask the guy laying in the gutter with heroin through his body and needle marks up and down his arm. Ask him how his God takes care of him. Ask him how much better his life is two years into heroin. Such a wonderful opportunity to serve whichever God you want. But you better seize the opportunity. God said, you want to come, you come my way. The opportunity of salvation, the opportunity of serving. The opportunity of serving. I'm thankful that people get saved and I'm thankful they can leave their old life behind. And boy, couldn't we just spend the whole morning, we could go from person to person here. We used to call them popcorn testimonies. And you would be thrilled to see where people came from and what God did in their lives. How God saved them and where they were and what was going on in their life. I've seen those druggies with tracks up and down their arms come to Christ. I've seen them go on and live a life and have a family and stand and weep and talk about the day God changed their life forever and give him praise and rejoice at what God had done. He reached down into the pit and he pulled them out and rescued them just in time. I could give you illustrations of hundreds of people I've known in the course of my life. You could trust Christ as your salvation. But having said that, if He is my God and I'm saved, why wouldn't I want to serve that God? Why wouldn't I want to give Him my all? I love my country. Okay? I love it today. Is that fair enough? America is not the America I grew up in. It's changing. But I love this country. I love this country today enough to die for it. I'd give my life. You say, why? Because I'm just committed. There's an opportunity here that nobody else has in the rest of the world. They flood our borders. My wife and I have a son who's a border agent down on the southern border. It is an absolute disaster there. But you know why they come? Because they want something better. And they're willing to take the risk to try and have the opportunity. I'm not saying we should or shouldn't let them in. I'm not saying that all that's going on is okay. This nation has become a train wreck. I think there has to be a path. I think there has to be a plan. I think there has to be rules and regulations. I'm not opposed to that. But I'm saying we've thrown everything out the window. But my point this morning is understanding why they come. This nation has got so much more. that they're willing to take that risk. We've been given so much more in Christ. Why wouldn't we want to serve Him? I know that the status is just, well, let's keep it quiet and let's just don't tell people you're a Christian. That's an unpopular topic. I had somebody tell me that. Well, I got news for you. I could name two or three topics that are found on the news 24 hours a day that would make you blush. And they have no problem talking about them on the airwaves. I just want you to know, if my love for Jesus Christ and my testimony of what He's done for me offends you, tough apples with two peas. If I have to sit back and listen to all your perverted ideas and all your perverted ideas, this isn't fair and that isn't fair, if I have to sit back and listen, then you can at least listen to me, don't you think it's fair country? I love to tell the story of a Savior that loves enough to change and alter and fix lives. I love a Savior that can take you down a pathway. I have 14 grandchildren. And all 14 of them this morning are in church because they love God. My family are not religious wackos. They love God. And God's blessed them. And God's taken care of them. And Grandpa rejoices that God's been so good to him in the course of this life. You say, how does that happen? I just made some choices years ago. We sing a song that says, I have decided to follow Jesus. I decided while I was in high school to just let the Lord have it. I went to a public high school, very few Christians around me. I just decided that I had an opportunity to serve the Lord and that's what I was going to do. You say, boy, think about it. You messed up. Yeah, I messed out on a lot of stuff. Never taking drugs, never drank a drop of alcohol in my life. I mean, I'm just dying. I'm dying on the vine. I'm just pitiful, my existence. Not. I'd love for you to find somebody God's been better to than he has to this old boy right here. God has blessed me and blessed. Sometime today, I'll get a video from a little gal talking to Papa Mimi, telling us she went to church singing a song. I'll watch that. Listen. Opportunities. We either regret them or we take them. And the sadness is over a missed opportunity. I want to serve the Lord. I want to do as much as I can for Him. I want to sacrifice for the Lord. I want to sacrifice for the Lord. The American dream is I want to get all I can get. I want to get it all. I want to have it all. I've got to get more. I've got to gain more. And I understand that. There's nothing wrong with that. And I hope, listen, if the Lord gives you an opportunity, get a new car, get a new car. Praise the Lord. Get a new house. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not sinful to have the blessings of God. It is sinful to demand those blessings in order to continue to serve faithfully the God that's given them to you. I have nothing that I deserve. Nothing that I deserve. I'm not rich. But everything I have, God gave me and I didn't deserve any of it. You say, why? Because one day way back there a long time ago, a preacher preached and said, if you'll trust Christ as your savior, he'll save you. And I said, well, that's an opportunity. I don't have to go to hell. I get to go to heaven. That's an opportunity. It's not a bad deal. I said, I'm in. I trusted Christ as my savior. I have no regrets that that ever happened in my life. I am thankful today that that happened. I'm thankful for what he did in my life. There was a day back as a teenager when God tapped me on the shoulder and said, I want you to serve me full time. And I come from a military family. That was kind of the thought that I had. And God said, I want you. And I said, okay, Lord, if you want me to serve you, that's what I'll do. And I told my folks, God's called me to preach. And I walked an aisle in the church and said, God's called me to preach. And I couldn't even spell preach, but I knew that's what God wanted me to do. And now, 46 years after the fact, my wife will attest to, married her just before I graduated from Bible college. God's been so good to us. It's so good to us. You say, well, you've got a million. No, it has nothing to do with money. You'd laugh if you knew how much I had in the bank. It has nothing to do with money. It has to come from joy of every day knowing that God's blessed you and given you this and given you that. We set out last night on the deck, and I said, that's a cardinal. You hear that cardinal? There's a robin over there. You say, what is that? That's the blessings of God. that nothing else in life detracts from the ability to sit down and just enjoy whatever God's made and know He's taking care of you. A choice, a decision. Don't squander the opportunity. Thomas carried the stigma the rest of his life and on in till today because he doubted, because he wasn't where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there. May I ask you a question this morning? What does life mean to you? Is it just about getting and gaining and having? Everybody I know that had and got and gained died and left it all behind. They didn't take anything with them. Oh, they got a bigger stone out on the grave, but it still says dead. The great equalizers, the graveyard. Oh, he had millions of dollars. He gave to charity. He did this and did that. He was a philanthropist and he did, died. Just like the bum down here. That's all the same thing. Life's about opportunities. If you're here this morning and you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, you're going to miss an opportunity you will regret for all of eternity. He said, I can't believe in a God who would send people to hell. I can't believe in an idiot who would refuse God's generous offer of forgiveness so you could come to His heaven and live there forever. I can't imagine somebody being so insane as to snub their nose at a God that loved you so much that after mankind had sinned and faltered in the garden and cursed the name of the holy God that made the planet you're walking on would say, He's cruel and you're smart. Let me help you with this, pal. We're all in a sinking ship, and God's got some lifeboats. You get in, you'll be okay. You can be big and tough all you want to, but you'll be sucking seawater pretty quick, because the ship's going down. You ever trusted Christ as your Savior? Don't miss the opportunity. Did you ever sit down and say, God, I want to do something with my life that will please you? I'm going to live in your heaven someday. No sickness, no sadness, no sorrow, no death. I'm going to live there one day because of what you did for me. There's something I could do here to help out. There's something I could do here to maybe help somebody else find what you've shown me and given me. There's something I can do here to bring honor, to tell people how great and good you are. service. I can't imagine why we would want to serve a God the opportunity to make a sacrifice. Somehow to say, Lord, okay, this is going to take some of my time, or this is going to make me look like an idiot because of the world's way they look at things, or it's going to cost me some cash or whatever it might be, but Lord, I want to do something that will honor you because when the end comes, it's all left behind anyway. I can't remember all the details of the story. It's written here in my Bible. I'm not going to take the time, but George Mueller started an orphanage years ago in Bristol, England. It's on the west coast of England. I've been there to watch all of it's still there. The facilities are still there. And George Mueller started that because he felt sorry for those indigent people. there around about him in the land, suffering from plague and smallpox and all the alcohol. England was a mess 150 years ago. And he built an orphanage for kids. And I can't remember, so I'm just gonna ad-lib it, but when he died, he was worth well less than $200. That was his estate. You say, what a life. Yeah, what a life. But he was responsible for bringing well over 300,000 people to Jesus Christ. paid for the college education of well over 100,000 indigent children in the course of his lifetime. You say, well, you tell me what matters, all right? Is it how much money they're going to bury in your pockets when they put you in the casket? Or is it the people that will walk by your casket and say, thank God they lived? Thank God that they were here, because my life is different as a result of that. Seize the day, carpe diem. What's your Christian life about? Can we just break it down into this in these last few moments? If you're here and you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, why? Why? Well, I think you'd be an idiot. Okay, well, I'm an idiot, okay? I'm happy, doing well, going to get a good meal today, been married 41 years. You know, if that's being an idiot, five more, I know. Somehow we have to figure out where those five are. If that's being an idiot, okay, go for it. But truth of the matter is, if he's that great a God, what's wrong with serving him? People will stand up and say, man, I love that guy, because he acted in a movie. I love that guy, because he was not being who he really is. I love that guy. Oh, he looks great, because they put four hours worth of makeup on him. I love that guy, because his muscles, they're all fake. It's plastic rubber to make him look good. I love that. And you'll stand there and fawn over somebody like that. Let me ask you a question. There is a God who said, let there be. And there it was. There's a God that said, I demand perfection. And there it was. And there it was. And there it was. You look out into the vastness of the heavens and the scientists. Boy, I love the scientists. COVID brought to you by science. Let's be fair. Is that not the truth? Trust the science. That's how we got here. How about trust God? He's the one that's gonna get us out. They look out there and they say, well, that's a million gazillion, two billion, 25, whatever it is, they just keep adding aliens to it. You say, how far is that? Oh, it's just, how long would it take to get there? Oh, you couldn't. Well, why would I care about it? If I can never go to Disney World, don't tell me about it. It's out there. It's big. And every month, they come out with a new estimation. Oh, it's twice as big as we thought. It's five times as big as we thought. I read an article this week. It was 12 pages long on the fact that this just shook my world up. The neutrons and the electrons, they really don't move around the nucleus. I'm thinking I've seen the pictures. The scientists say, we're not even sure they move at all, but that puts too many questions in, so we don't ask them. Now that's brilliance! And you make fun of me for believing a Bible, when I've tried everything He said there, and everything I've tried I've found to be absolutely true, and you say, we're going to trust the science? They don't even know whether the atoms are... what, they don't even know what they're made of. It's a guesstimate. I'm glad they finally told us that. I wish they'd have told me that when I was in ninth grade science class. I could have dropped the class. All they needed to do is go in and say, you're smart as I am, neither one of us know, got an A. I'm good. What's wrong with trusting Him? Listen, God sent you a book. It's called The Answer Book. It doesn't have to be altered. Doesn't have to be changed. Doesn't have to be updated. You know what I find when I go into a hospital and somebody's breathing their last breaths? They want that book. You know what our guys find out when they go into the prisons and they're the guys there behind bars that'll never have another free day the rest of their life? You know what they want? They want that book. You know what I find when a wife and a husband come in and they're ready to kill each other and if somebody doesn't do... You know what they want? They want that book! You tell me why you don't want that book to work in your life. And let me tell you what an opportunity you're missing. The sadness of a missed opportunity. Don't go there. Trust Him. Try Him. And find Him to be true. Would you bow your heads this morning just for a few moments? I appreciate your toleration and listening to somebody just go on and on and on. But I'm sorry, I know what happened in my life. And I know what has been the result of what happened in my life. And I recommend to you Jesus Christ. Not just as some distant being, but as a friend. Listen, somebody penned those words years ago. What a friend we have in Jesus. Can I tell you why? Because they found he wasn't just a God off in the cosmos somewhere. He was a friend that was ever there. He was a guide and a help. If you don't know Him as your Lord and Savior, I'm not asking you to become religious today. I'm not asking you to join a church for crying out loud. I'm telling you, give Him a chance to show you how wonderful He can be. The best friend I've ever had in the course of my life has been Jesus Christ. I recommend Him highly. You say, preacher, I've got some problems. And I understand people have problems. Life generates problems. Can I tell you where you've got questions and where you've got problems, He's got answers. He's got answers if you'll give Him an opportunity. I'm thankful I serve a God who can transform a wasted life into a life that has meaning. I'm thankful that I know a God that can take a life that has no direction and give it pinpoint accuracy on the road to happiness. I'm thankful I serve a God that He can take someone who cannot forgive themselves for the things they've done, and the things they've been a part of, and the regrets that seem to be higher than the depths of the ocean. I'm glad I serve a God and can recommend to you a God today that can wipe all those tears and sadness away. I recommend Him highly. Opportunity. Right now, where you're sitting in your pew, You can trust Christ right there. I don't know whether you're saved or not. I have the advantage, I suppose, of not knowing a whole lot of people, so I'm not picking favorites or attacking anybody. I don't know who you are. But I know this this morning, if you can identify with what I've said about this life and its veil of tears and unhappiness. I can recommend to you a Savior who can change it in a heartbeat, make it worthwhile, give it meaning, pick up the pieces and put it back together, put happiness and joy where there was sadness and sorrow. I recommend Him highly.