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Let's take our Bibles now and
turn to the Gospel of Mark, please. Ladies, that was beautiful. That
made me want to just surrender my life again. Your church, you
ministered to us. You said, well, you've been a
blessing to us, but you ministered to Mary and to me and to the
other missionaries. Not only you fed us to death
and showered us with gifts and all so many wonderful things
and kept us and all of that, but you minister, your spirit
ministers to us and you blessed us and we thank God for you. And you know each other just
like a big happy family here. That's great. I was talking to
Brother Basinger, and I said, you know, you've gotten in here,
and you've really just fallen right in place. And I said, you
know, you know the pastor real well. I said, by the way, what
color is the pastor's eyes? He said, well, Brother Ray, I
don't know, because when the pastor prays, he closes his eyes,
and when he preaches, I close mine, he said. Now, if you believe the moon
is made out of cheese, you probably believe that too, you know. Be
praying and asking God what he had you to do. It ain't good
that nobody's going to beat you up if you don't give a cent.
Nobody's going to beat you up. Nobody but God's going to know
whether you give or not. And that's what's good about
it, and that's what makes people want to give. Because this is between
me and God. And if God puts this in your
heart, then He's going to help you to do it. Sometimes people
say, well, I've figured out everything I can do. The gas is this much,
the electric is this much. But I believe, and the tithe
is this much, and tithe is not the faith promise. I've never
given God my tithe. You know why? Because it's already
His. The tithe is the Lord's. If I
keep the tithe, I'm just keeping God's money. But what I do beyond
that in the offering category is what I choose to do. I don't
have to do that, but you're never, ever out to give God. And you
say, well, the tithe is this much, and the gas is this much,
and the groceries are this much. I believe I could do this much.
And that is exactly what you ought to do. Figure out what
you can do, and then you plan on doing that. And then go beyond
that. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians
8, they gave beyond their power. They gave what they couldn't
give. They gave beyond their ability to give. And you don't
just put any amount down. I don't have a faith for 500
a week. I know somebody who does. But my faith grows. Mary and
I give a faith promise in our church every year, and we try
to increase. But, you know, God gives you
faith, and that faith grows every year. And so you let God put
that in your heart, and go beyond what you think you can do, and
then say, Lord, now this is what you've led me to do, and then
watch God supply. Keep a diary. See how God brings
the money in. And it's wonderful that God knows
and God will lead you. And I believe the goals will
be met and the missionaries will stay out on the field serving
our Lord. Mark chapter 5, and we read several
verses tonight. Follow along closely with me,
if you will. Mark chapter 5, beginning with verse 1. And they
came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country
of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the
ship, immediately they met him out of the tombs, a man with
an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs, and
no man could bind him, no, not with chains, because that he
had been hawked and bound with feathers and chains. And the
chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the feathers broken
in pieces. Neither could any man tame him.
And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the
tombs, crying, cutting himself with stones. And when he saw
Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, and cried with a loud voice,
and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the
Most High God? I adjure thee by God. that thou
torment me not. And he said unto him, Come out
of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked, What is thy name?
And he answered, Saying, My name is Legion, for we are many. And
he besought him much that he would not send them away out
of the country. Now there was nigh unto the mountain
a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him,
saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.
And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirit
went out and entered into the swine, and the herd ran violently
down a steep place into the sea. They were about two thousand,
and they were choked in the sea. And they that fed the swine fled
and told it in the city and in the country. And they went out
to see what it was that was done. And they come to Jesus and see
him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion sitting
and clothed in his right mind. And they were afraid. And they
that saw it told how befell to him that was possessed with the
devil, and also concerned of the swine, and they began to
pray him to depart out of their coasts. A missionary, according
to Webster, is a person sent on a mission, an emissary, one
sent out in advance to further a cause, an emissary, one who
many times will leave his family in his home and go to people
of another culture and another country perhaps and dwell among
them. Jesus was an emissary, an emissary
from heaven. His cause was to give hope to
the hopeless and life to the dead and comfort to the suffering
and joy to the sad and healing to the brokenhearted and eternal
life to those who are destined for eternal death. He healed
the brokenhearted He set the captive free. He made the lame
to walk again, and He caused the blind to see. In the beginning
was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word
was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not
anything made that was made. In the beginning was the Word,
verse 14, and the Word was made flesh. The Word put on a human
body. The Word put on skin so He could
see Him. And Jesus, an emissary that had
come all the way from heaven. Jesus was a child evangelist
and missionary when he gathered the children around him and he
blessed them. He was a missionary to the sick
when he visited Peter's wife's mother. He was a missionary to
the deaf when he healed the deaf and the dumb man. He was a missionary
to the bereaved and the grieving at the tomb of Lazarus. He was
a missionary to the poor when he saved the beggar and a missionary
to the rich when he witnessed to the rich young ruler. And
from our Lord Jesus Christ, our supreme example in missionary
work, we learn to evangelize, to evangelize the young when
they're tender. Eighty percent of all the people
in the world who are saved were saved before they were fourteen
years old. And that ought to tell us something
about children, and vacation Bible school, and camps, and
the young, and our children, and our work with children. We
learn to evangelize children when they're young. We learn
that no class is to be neglected, the rich or the poor. And from
Jesus Christ We learn to have special ministries to the afflicted,
to the blind and the deaf and the lame. We learn from Jesus
that nothing is impossible with God, that no heart is ever to
be too hard or considered too hard to reach. And that brings
us to our text, that one of the greatest conversions in the Bible
from this missionary from heaven, by this missionary from heaven,
Jesus Christ. Here was a man who was completely
dominated by Satan and evil. He was made the way he was by
the demon powers he allowed to possess him. He was demon possessed. Most people in their heart of
hearts don't really want to believe that. They want to believe in
angels, and the world loves angels. And they like to believe about
all the beautiful pictures and stories of angels and all of
that. But just as real, and they fall
or rise together, is the demon power, the spiritual beings that
were angels at one time who rebelled against God. And in their heart
of hearts, they really don't want to believe in demons, but
they love to believe in angels. There are thousands of demon-possessed
people in our lifetime today. You meet them probably every
day. Last week, You read the story of a man in Alabama who
killed his mother and probably about eight other people. We
read stories like that, that man was demon-possessed, or the
two young men who killed all the students at Columbine in
Kentucky. Some students were gathered at
a flagpole and they were praying, and a man came in with a gun
and shot right into the midst of them. Those people, people
who do such things like that, are demon-possessed people who
are allowing Satan and evil to possess them. under the domination
of Satan to do these things. People don't recognize that,
but that's what it is. Now, let us consider this demon-possessed
man. Consider the country. Look at
verse 1. They came over. It was a country
of the Gadarenes. What kind of a country was the
country of the Gadarenes? It was a secular-minded country.
The pig business was illegal to the Jews. They weren't supposed
to have anything to do with pigs and pork, and these Jews loved
their money more than they loved their religion, like a lot of
people in our country today. They loved money more than men.
Look at verse 16, if you will. And they besought, told how befell
to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning
the swine. And the swine and the pigs was
their greatest concern. I Timothy 6 and verse 10, for
the love of money is the root of all evil. Do you remember
a day when America was not so secularized? You know, God may
be dealing with us, and we may have to suffer along with everybody,
Russia fell economically from within. And money has been a
god in America. Materialism has been a god. And
God might just put his hand on it, on our God in this country. I'm praying, of course, that
things will level out, because I think about our missionaries.
I know God is going to take care of them. But you remember when
America was not like it is. When values were up there. when
stores were closed on Sunday because people considered that
a holy day and a church day. You remember when we had statesmen
who were running our country rather than politicians. In our
national election, people would vote their pocketbook and their
money above their values and above even morals and morality. You remember a day when young
people used to ask, what can I do with my life? that will
make a difference in the lives of others, rather than what can
I do in my life that will help me to make the most money. Not
only was the country of the Gadarenes a secular-minded country, it
was a favored country. God's Son had passed this way. This emissary from heaven had
selected this place to come and to be a testimony. It was a favored
country, but they didn't care. America is a favored country.
You put your money out and you read on there, God we trust.
Every way you go to Washington and on the buildings you see
verses of scripture or sayings about God and trusting in God. Sometime ago in England, I retraced
the steps of the pilgrims, and I went to the little village
of Osterfield, where William Bradford, his mother and father
had died, 12 years old. He walked down to another little
village, and there's a fiery preacher down there. He didn't
follow the Church of England ritual, and that was illegal
at the time. People put to death for not doing that. But William
Bradford, 12 years old, walked down there. His two uncles, with
whom he lived, scolded him, and they said, you ruin our testimony. I mean, the Bradford family had
always gone to the Church of England, the old Church of England,
still in Austinville, that little tiny village there. William Bradford's
father is buried right there in front of the church. And they
scolded him. They said, you will lose everything.
You're a disgrace to this family. You'll ruin this family's name.
And then the reputation of the Bedford family, if you keep going
and connecting with those independents and those radicals, but it kept
going. And those people in that church
eventually became the pilgrims that got on the Mayflower and
came to America. They were imprisoned in Boston,
England. I've been there in the cells in the courtroom where
they were tried because of their faith. But they wanted to be
free. They wanted a place where they
could worship God without the authorities coming down on them
and not having to follow some ritualistic religion. So they
could take their Bible and get on the Mayflower. It's a long,
long story. And they came to America. In 1620 December, cold,
icy, horrible winter in New England, and there was nothing here but
Indians and wild terrain and rugged frozen land. They anchored
off the coast of New England. They went ashore. They found
a place to meet. William Bradford was in that
group, that scouting group, came back to the ship, and all the
people, all the families were looking over the edge for their
men to come back. William Bradford looked at the
edge of the ship. He was looking for one face,
and that was the face of his wife, Dorothy, but she wasn't
there. She had fallen off the ship and
had drowned during that time he'd been on shore, during those
few days. The Mayflower Pilgrims came to get freedom to worship
God. They came in December, and we love this little picture of
the pilgrims in their cute little black and white outfits, and
having dinner with Indians, and it's such a beautiful picture.
It wasn't exactly like that. They had to be rugged pioneers. They came in December, By February,
half of the men and women pilgrims had died. They were dead. They dreamed of a place of freedom. They dreamed of a land where
they could build churches and worship God. In just a few weeks,
half of them were in muddy graves off the coast of New England. Their dreams ended in a muddy
grave. But, of course, we know they
were the seeds of a great harvest. And what happened to William
Bradford? He became governor of Massachusetts. I drove back
into Austinville, pastor, 400 years after William Bradford,
when he was an old 12-year-old boy, and his uncle said, you've
got to stop meeting with these radicals down here. You'll ruin
our family. You'll disgrace our name. You'll
lose everything we've got, because what he was doing was illegal,
worshipping God like that. And I drove back into Austinville
400 years later. And I saw how he had disgraced
his family. Big sign said, Welcome to Austerville,
home of William Bradford. Went a little further, William
Bradford Street, Mayflower Inn on my left, and William Bradford
Cul-De-Sac, Pilgrim's Rise. And besides all of that, he had
America to his credit. And I tell you what, I go across
this country, Mary and I drive up and down these roads and other
missionaries, and we have to testify that this has been a
favored country. God has been this way. And God's
footprints are on our shore. Everywhere we go, we see the
footprints of God. You cannot to go anywhere in
America without knowing that God has been here. Now our secular
educational leaders and politicians are trying to erase every trace
of God from our history. But it's there. And I guess someday
they'll carve it off the buildings and take it off the money. But
we see the footprints of God. And Gadara was a favored country. God's footprints were on that
shore. And then, but Gadara was a fearful
country, a wild man was Roman Druid. Matthew describes them
as exceeding fierce. Read Matthew 8, 28. No man passed
by that way. He lived in the graveyard. Those
tombstones are two of those caves in the cliffs. The tombs are
still there. People detoured the graveyard. Look at verse 3 in chapter 5,
if you will. And who had his dwelling among
the tombs, and no man could bind him. No doubt would chains be
caused, even often bound with feathers and chains, and the
chains would be plucked asunder by him, and the feathers broken
in pieces. Neither could any man tame him. He lived in those
tombs, and the whole country was terrified. The torment of
little children's minds, I think, were the wild men roaming through
the cemetery who lived in the graveyard. I think women were
terrified lest they be out doing their errands. And this wild
man would come upon them. I think the worst fear of men
would be they would be out in the fields attending to their
work, when suddenly this wild man would come upon them in his
rage and his fury. The people of Gadara were afraid. It was a fearful country. When
neighbors visited their friends, I think they might have talked
about a lot of things, but I think the conversation always got back
around to this wild man. Have you seen him lately? Somebody
said they saw him the other day. The road to the sea was probably
beautiful, but not many people went sightseeing in those days.
There was a wild man loose. The farmers plowed their fields
with dread. A wild man was roaming. There
were not many picnics for little children in those days. A wild
man was in the country. The blacksmiths made chains and
the rope makers made ropes, but it was all useless. In verse
5, always night and day, he was in the mountains and the tombs
crying and cutting himself with stones. I think that many times
in Gadara, people would close their eyes at the tiring day's
work, but they couldn't sleep because out in the distant darkness,
they heard the devil-dominated cries of a wild man possessed
by Satan. The unhappy, suffering, wild
man was under complete control, body, soul, of Satan. In verse 5, he was cutting himself,
hurting himself. unreasonable to hurt yourself
like that. People are unreasonable today
toward themselves. They cut themselves today. They
cut themselves with drugs and tobacco and liquor. And they stab themselves with
the atheistic pen and atheistic literature, with pornography.
And they cut themselves and they hurt themselves and those they
love, no doubt, at a distance. People that put clothes on a
bush and they hoped somehow this man would see those clothes and
he'd go and he would put them on and maybe return to sanity. What a sight he must have been.
The Bible describes him as bleeding and naked and howling, but let
me mention the contact in verse 2 that met him a man. You know, there's some people
it's not good to meet. You ever met anybody that wasn't
good? You kind of wish, wish I'd never met that person. Probably
all of us could think of somebody like that. It was not, it's not
good to meet some people. In our associations, our contacts.
That's why we as parents, we try to guard our children sometimes
with going with certain people or groups because we know it's
not good for them to meet certain people It was not good for Lott
to meet the people of Sodom. It was not good for Samson to
meet Delilah with the men in my church in Illinois. And he
was in the oil business, and a man came and offered him a
deal. They're going to drill for oil over in Ohio. And it
was a 50-50 arrangement. You drill for oil, and we'll
split the money. And it was a great arrangement. And just the first
week or two, this man in my church brought in great big time checks
of $1,300, $1,400 back in 1963 and 4, which was a lot of money.
And I mean, $200,000 or $300,000 coming in a week. But then after
about a month, The time check stopped, and he
came and said, Brother Ray, he had bought a big house on the
edge of town. He had to sell the house, move back to his little
house again. He said it was a 50-50 arrangement
with that man. But he said, I didn't read the
small print. The small print was, I'll do the drilling, I'll
pay all the expenses, pay for all the equipment, and he would
not pay any of that. So, of course, he made no money
doing that, and he lost it all. It just wasn't good for him to
meet that man. Maybe we've all had experiences
like that. But it was glorious for this
man to meet this man. It was glorious for him to meet
Christ, because here was darkness meeting light. Here was pollution
meeting purity. Here was devilment meeting divinity.
Here was Satan's suck meeting God's snow. Here was the foulness
of earth meeting the fragrance of heaven. Here were the tombs
of earth meeting the thrones of glory. Note the wrong conception
they had about Jesus. Look at verse 7 of chapter 5
of Mark. And he said, and he cried with
a loud voice and said, What have I done to thee, thou Jesus, thou
Son of the Most High God? I do thee by God that thou torment
me not. He was afraid of Jesus. Torment
me not. He considered Christ as a tormentor. That's the attitude of unsaved
people. Why, if I get saved, if I trust Christ, then it's
going to be torture. I'll never have any fun at all
again. That's always the attitude. All the natural men toward Jesus
Christ, they just don't understand. They think about Christianity
as a killjoy. Got to wear strange clothes,
and got to wear big shoes, and purple ties, and I don't purple,
Jan. You've got a purple tie. But,
you know, we might dress funny, we might dress weird. If we want
to do that, that's fine. But it's not because of our faith.
And they consider Christ is going to make them weird and torture
them. Paul said, Rejoice. And again,
I say, Rejoice. You know what I'm talking about.
Some people have the idea that to take Jesus Christ as Savior
is like signing your death warrant. And all of you could rise up
and testify with me, and that's not true. And we know that's
not true, how wonderful He is. That's spiritual ignorance. Some
people are spiritually ignorant. Like for two farmers when the
trains first started coming in to Kentucky. And they wanted
to ride the train. I mean, this was a phenomena.
And they packed themselves a lunch, and they bought tickets, and
two farmers got on the train, and they were going down the
track, enjoying the ride. First train ride ever. And one
took his lunch out, and, oh, he took a banana and filled it,
and he took a bite of that banana. And about the time he took a
bite of it, it sped into a pitch-dark tunnel. And he said, John, have
you eaten your banana yet? He said, no, why? Don't eat it.
I took a bite of mine and it made me blind as a bat. That's
ignorance. And some people are just as ignorant
toward Jesus Christ. Let me ask you, what is a man
profited if he knows all about rocks, but he doesn't know about
the rock of ages? Or if he knows about astronomy,
but doesn't know Jesus, the bright and morning star? If he knows
the ages of rocks, but doesn't know Jesus Christ, the rock of
ages? Think about the command. In verse 8, follow in your Bible
with me, please. For he said unto him, Come out
of the man, thou unclean spirit, Christ who is addressing these
demons in this man. And he answered, What is thy
name? And he answered, My name is Legion, for we are many. A legion, a Roman legion, was
6,826 soldiers in a legion. Is it possible that this many
demons possess this man? Well, obviously it must be. And verse 13, and you know the
story, Christ could have sent them right to hell. You ever
have demons come and tempt you? You ever have demons come and
whisper evil things to your ear? I'll tell you what to do, that
will be a good thing. Just pray a little prayer. Lord
Jesus, go ahead and send that demon to hell now. Don't let
him wait till a thousand years. And they don't like that. And
they know what their fate is going to be. And the demons,
they said, let us, let's go into, Jesus, let us go into the pigs
rather than being cast into hell. And Jesus Christ, and you know
the story, He gave these demons the leave to do that. And all the demons went into
the pigs, and the pigs, 2,000 of them, ran down into the sea,
and they all drowned. All these devils inhabiting these
pigs. Must have been a sight. I mean,
a stampede of pigs, 2,000 of them, going over the cliff. Think of the dust they were kicking
up. And, you know, I've done research. I've checked on the
Internet. I've checked every way I could.
I think, as far as I can find out, this is the first time,
first occurrence in history of devil ham. I think it is. Look at verse 14, if you will,
and note the chatter in verse 14. And they that fed the swine
fled and told it in the city. They told it. And in the country. And they went out to see what
it was that was done. They told it. The chatter. Mark said they told it in the
city and in the country. Matthew says they told everything. Nothing goes so fast as a rumor. You've heard it. The rooming
house blew up and the rumors were flying. It goes fast. Tongues were wagging. Lips were
moving. Folks had lost their hugs. And
Jesus was the cause of it all. No fault of the poor man, now
sitting and clothed and in his right mind. But that's the way
criticism is. It never considers the good but
the bad. When Caesar was on his way to
the Senate chamber, somebody slipped him a note. And on that
note was written the words, There is but one mind in all these
men, and is bent against you, if thou be'st not immortal. Look about you and later his
body was found dead in the senate chamber with 23 dagger wounds
in it. There was but one mind in Galilee
and it was bent against Jesus Christ. James said in James chapter
3 verse 8, By the tongue can no man tame an unruly evil full
of deadly poison that would bless we God even the Father and that
would curse we men which are made after the cemetery of God
are the same mouth proceeded forth blessing and cursing my
brethren these things or not to be. The tongue. Most of our
trouble is because of our tongue. You ever said something and you
wish you could get the words and put them right back in, but
you can't do that? So many of our problems come from right
here. A man died, and the preacher
said to his little son, what were your father's last words?
And he said, the little boy said, Pa didn't have no last words. Ma was with him right to the
end. Now, men are some of the biggest
gossips of all. Okay, ladies, you can say amen
if you want to. You ever been to Hardee's on a typical Sunday? This group, almost every Hardee's
in America, they're discussing all this stuff. No wonder James
said, if any man among you seem to be religious, but browneth
not his tongue, he deceiveth his own heart. That man's religion
is vain. But notice a change in verse
15. Look at these words. Sitting,
clothed, Right mind. What a change it was. Body, soul,
and spirit. Sitting. Not running wildly,
but cured. Clothed. No longer naked, but
dressed. Calm. Not crazy. What a change. And it was a change that people
could see. And that's the way it ought to
be. And thank God for a pastor who says, let Christ come in
your heart and then let Christ rule your life. and affect your
whole life, how you look, and what you say, and what you do,
and where you go. It was a change they could see.
People said, well, it doesn't matter about the outside, it
just matters on what's on the inside. But if it's on the inside,
it's going to come out on the outside. The clenched fist was
now an open palm, and the eyes of fury were now eyes of faith,
and the fettered man was now a free man. And it was a change
that everybody could see. Somebody wrote, and you might
remember the great old song about that scripture, from home and
friends, the evil spirit drove him. Among the tombs he dwelled
in misery. He cut himself, his demon power
possessed him. Then Jesus came and set the captive
free. So men today have found the Savior
able. They could not conquer passion,
lust, and sin. That broken heart shall let them
sad and lonely. Then Jesus came and dwelt himself
within. What a change. There's a change
that chemistry can make. There's a change that water in
the desert can bring. There are changes in nature,
in education, in communication, in travel, in technology. But
there is not any change like the change in a human heart that
Jesus Christ can make. All these other things can't
change a person like that. Look at verse 15, if you will,
again. And they come to Jesus and see
him that was possessed with the devil, and he'll have the legion
sitting and clothed in his right mind, and they were afraid. I heard Dr. Harold Seidler say
that Some years back, he said, there's a woman who came forward
in Tabernacle Baptist Church in Greenville and was wonderfully
saved. And next Sunday she was singing in the choir. And one
of the members of the church said, Dr. Sikler, he was telling
this, don't you know that that woman who came forward last Sunday
and is singing in the choir is the worst harlot in Greenville,
South Carolina, and she's singing in the choir. Dr. Sightler said,
after he told the story, he said, that was 25 years ago, and the
worst harlot in Greenville, South Carolina is still singing in
the choir. The change that Jesus can make! But look at verse 17, the complaint. Look at it. Verse 17, "...they
besought him that he would depart." You know, I think So sad to see
this man howling and naked and running and everybody's afraid
and all of that. I think the saddest verse in
this chapter is verse 17. They besought him, Jesus, that
he would leave, that he would depart. Saddest verse. So what
did he do? Verse 18 says, if you look at
it, verse 18, and when he was come to the ship, they said,
Go on, Christ, we don't want you here. They asked him, to
leave, and he left. You better be careful how you
ask Jesus Christ to leave. You better be careful how you
sit in a pew and the Holy Spirit of God says, I want you to move,
I want you to do something, I want you to give something, I'll give
you life. And you say, go on Christ, not now. I don't want
you here in my life now. He left, and as far as I can
tell, he never came back. Job 21, verse 14, we read, Therefore
they say unto God, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge
of our ways. Better be careful how you turn
him away, or how you silence his voice. He may leave, and
he may never come back in that way again. They asked him to
leave, and he did. And men today are asking Jesus
Christ to leave. And they say, Go on, Christ.
We don't want you. We don't want you meddling with
us. You'll torment us. You'll wreck everything. We don't
want you around. They prefer their sins to the
salvation of Christ, to the Savior, and the grunt of swine to the
goodness of God. Of course, the man that was wonderfully
saved, he got it all, and they missed it all. Christ has landed
on your coast. Right here tonight, on this Friday
night, go forth to meet him like this man did, the wild man did.
The Bible says he ran to Jesus. And what did he get? He got peace. Over in Armenia, came forward
in his service. Never been in the church. I don't
know if any church or not, but certainly not that church. He
came in, I was preaching, wonderfully saved. And she went out, and
she said, I have such peace. He got peace, and he got closeness
with God, and he got a saved family, and a saved life. And if you read verse 19, you
see, he got a special call from God, from Christ. Jesus can lift
your troubled life. He can cure your fears and your
doubts. He can give you assurance. I told you this week about Mr.
Shoemake and how wonderful it was that this man directed me
to Christ. I had a man in Australia who
was an atheist, his mother-in-law. I preached for nine months in
Australia, gave an invitation to every single service. Nobody
came for nine months. We organized a church. I knew
I had a couple of people who would come, and I knew they would
come, and we'd have three or four to start our church with,
but a lot of people had been coming. And when I opened the
door for membership, there were 28 people who came forward. 28
of those people have been there all that time, and I went to
their... to join this new church. I went to their house on Monday,
and I said, really wonderful that you want to join our new
church. I said, now the only thing about it is you have to
be saved. And every one of them, without
any exception, said that's what we want to do. I led them all
to Christ, baptized 28th March, the old dry and dusty baptismal
of the Baptist church there in town, not been wet for months
and years, filled up with water, and they were astounded. Where'd
you get all these people? They just couldn't understand
it. But I had led them to Jesus Christ, and one of them was George
Meikle, his mother-in-law, who had been saved, one of those
saved, said, you'll never get him saved. He's an atheist. But
I went over that night, that Monday night, led him to Christ.
He became one of our trustees. He said later on, I used to fight
him, now I fight for him. That's a change that Jesus can
make. That's a change He's made in your life and mine and so
many other people He wants to make that change. Tonight Christ
has landed on our coast. Run to meet Him with your sins
or your suffering or your life, your heartache, your weakness.
Do it now. Only one life, as they were singing.
Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will
last. Let's pray. Our Father, we pray
that You would have Your way with us. Help us to run to meet
You. Maybe somebody here tonight needs
to run to meet You and say, Lord, I don't know what's going to
happen, but here's my life. I want you to take and use it,
and I want your plan, not mine, but yours for me. Maybe somebody's
burdened down with great burdens, and they need to come and lay
these burdens on these steps before your altar and say, Lord,
here they are. I've carried these things long
enough. Maybe you need to come and say, well, I just need to
dedicate myself to you, Lord, again. Lord Jesus Christ, we
pray that if this is the desire of the heart of any need tonight,
And anybody here unsaved, I pray they won't consider you a tormentor.
I pray they'll know how wonderful you are. Lord, have your way,
I pray, in all of our lives, for Jesus' sake.
40th Annual Missions Conference Pt 3
Third night of our 40th Annual Missions Conference with Dr. James Ray
| Sermon ID | 316091046143 |
| Duration | 37:59 |
| Date | |
| Category | Special Meeting |
| Language | English |
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