In the last chapter of Acts, we've been preaching for quite some time through the book of Acts, and today we'll make this our final message from the book of Acts. I'm glad to see you here today. Thanks to those who are so faithful just to be in God's house. If you're like I am, You never get completely filled up with God's Word, God's will, God's ways. You always need a little more. Don't you? Always a little bit more. Never have we arrived. We may have thought we arrived, but we're not. And so we need a little more. Have you ever read a book that just ends abruptly? Man, you think, that was sudden. That was it? That was all of it? I thought there would be something else. I was expecting a more dramatic end. I thought there would be more of a conclusion to this. And this is how the book of Acts ends. It's like the apostle and writer of scripture, Brother Luke, the physician, it's like he comes to the end of Acts 28 And he just stops writing and lays down his pen and walks away. Wow, what was that about? Where's the rest of it? Aren't you going to tell us more what happened to Paul? In Acts chapter 28 and verse number 30 and 31, it says, And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him." He's out there two years, he's in prison, and there it ends? What more is there to be said? Well, turn, if you will, to 2 Timothy chapter 4, Verse number 6, 2 Timothy 4, 6. This was not all the story. This was not the end of Paul's life. This was not the end of Paul's ministry, nor was it the end of the church that he preached about. God had plans for him to move forward after this, and we'll see it in 2 Timothy 4, 6. He's in prison now. He's been imprisoned a second time. And here's what he says. So in 2 Timothy, Apparently the last book that Paul wrote, inspired in scripture, was this passage. He's awaiting death but this comes at another imprisonment later on. He's released after Acts chapter 28 verse 31. He's released and he goes on and does some other things and we'll see the evidence to show that he did in fact move on with his ministry. But I want us to pray right now and get into it. Father, I pray that you would bless us as you show us the things from scripture that will reveal to us that Paul was a man who loved you supremely and he was ready to move on that nothing stopped him short of the end of your will for his life we pray Lord that you'd help us to see this morning that you have a plan for our lives and nothing should stop us from moving forward help us this morning to be encouraged to be strengthened to have our faith uplifted and, Lord, to be motivated to move into the future. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, the book of Acts ends with Paul in Rome. He's under house arrest. He's got a hired house or a rented facility where he lives while he's in prison. Now, he's still chained to a Roman soldier, so he's under the authority of imprisonment emperor of Rome, but his story doesn't stop there. The gospel kept moving, the church kept moving, and Paul's life was one that was poured out in service to God, one that we can admire. And there's no literal Acts chapter 29, but I've took the liberty of putting in quotes, Acts chapter 29, the unfinished chapter. Paul had more going on in his life than just the end of the book of Acts. And I would ask you this question to think about as we go through this this morning. You're alive, you're sitting here this morning or you're watching online and you're obviously alive or you wouldn't hear me. But the question is this, how will your last chapter end? What is your Acts chapter 29? And what will your life say after your eventual death? Paul's final days were not a retreat. but rather a triumph, and so can yours be. Some have put some perspective on the story of Paul by noticing his final years. He was preaching in chains. Think about that. Paul, he's imprisoned, although he's got a lot of liberty. He's still chained to a Roman soldier, but everybody's coming to him, and he's preaching, and he's giving out the gospel. He's winning people to the Lord even as he's chained. His final years, we read there in Acts chapter 28, but let's read in Philippians 1-12. Philippians 1-12 helps us to understand more about his imprisonment. Philippians 1-12 through 14 says, ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out, rather, unto the furtherance of the gospel." Did you hear that? Paul's saying, look, yeah, I'm chained up to this Roman soldier, and I can't get away. I'm stuck in this house. But God had this plan, and it's part of my ministry to be here, and it's happened so that things that have fallen out have furthered the gospel. I'm sitting here, but the gospel is going forward. And he says in verse 13, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places and many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear." Paul's saying, yeah, I'm chained up here, but man, I've got some of the Christian leaders coming to me, and they see me preaching from my chains, and that's made them bolder to go out and witness for Christ, not fearing what can be done, because they see that, hey, I'm chained up, but I'm still going, so you boys keep on going, too. That's what he's saying to them. In Philemon 9 and 10, which was another prison epistle written from Rome, he says in Philemon 9, Who is Onesimus? He's a runaway slave. And Paul's writing his master whom he ran away from. And he's saying, hey, I'm telling you about your slave. He's here. He's been here. He's going back to you. I want him to Christ. He got saved. I'm chained up here against this soldier, but I had the liberty to lead Onesimus to the Lord. And now he's got a changed heart. And now he's coming back to you. His master, He's going to serve you, but you're a Christian and He's a Christian, you're going to have a whole different relationship now because God has changed you, sir, and God has changed your slave, and you'll have a relationship in Christ as brothers now. Isn't that amazing? Even in Rome, Paul remained active in the ministry. Paul preached with boldness. I think you can say one thing about Brother Paul. He was no coward. He's a prisoner of the emperor, the most powerful man on the face of the earth. He didn't let it stop him from witnessing. He didn't let it stop him from preaching the Word of God to everybody who came to him. It was like an army of ants coming to him while he was in prison. They're coming and going all the time and he tells them all about the Lord. Last week or so we've been invaded at our house by black ants. Anybody else having that problem? You got them too? This happened last year. Black ants, there's a whole trail of them coming into our bathroom and they're going to our lavatory to get a drink. And I told them, get your own water, you rascals. Don't come into my house. But there's thousands of them coming and going. So I bought all these remedies and poisons to try to get rid of those ants. So far, according to the directions, you'll see a lot more ants before they take the poison back to the hive and eventually the queen will die and stop laying eggs. And so then you get rid of the ants. That's what they say. And I'm hoping it's true. But there's just dozens and dozens and dozens of them coming and going. That's the way it was with Paul. He's in prison, but he was well-known. He had the gospel, the life-changing message from Christ. And as he's imprisoned in Rome, man, they're just coming and going all the time, a steady stream of them. And he says, sit down, boy, I'm going to tell you about the Lord. You don't have to go to hell. I'm going to tell you how to get to heaven. And there's only one way, and I've got the way that I'm going to tell you about. And so he tells them, he preached with boldness and he welcomed every one of them that came in. He didn't care who they were, he just talked to them about the Lord. And his message in Rome laid the foundation for future church growth. He, Paul, encouraged the churches while he was in prison. How did he do that? Well, he wrote letters. Have you read Ephesians before in your Bible? He wrote that while he was in prison. He's ministering to churches. He's giving us church truth, church doctrine while he's in prison, inspired by the Lord. He wrote Philippians. Read that one before? He wrote that in prison, encouraging them. It was the epistle about joy. Here's a guy in prison writing about joy. Can you imagine that? And sometimes we get to thinking, we've had it so rough, man, I can't be joyful. I've got all this stuff going on. Well, talk to Paul, see what he did. He wrote Philippians. He's encouraging the churches. He wrote Colossians and Philemon while he was in prison. All of these encouraging Christians and churches. You see, wherever Paul happened to be, he was still doing the work of the Lord and he's still trying to encourage people, trying to build people up, trying to win people to the Lord, trying to help those churches. I would ask that question, are we doing that? no matter what situation we're in, whether we're employed or unemployed, whether we're sick or not sick, whether our family's doing well or not so well, whether there's circumstances in our life that's painful. Are we still serving the Lord? And are we still being a blessing to the church? Are we still being a blessing to other believers? Are we still trying to win people to the Lord? Paul was. He encouraged the churches. His suffering inspired others. His suffering? Yeah. You see, when you think you've got it hard, look at Paul. He had it pretty tough and yet he said that his suffering caused others to be inspired to keep on going. They say, man, we can't sit down and We can't sit down and quit and look at Paul, man. Look what he's going through, and he's still serving God. I better quit my whining. I better quit laying around in depressed stupor. I better get up and do something for God. Paul did, and so he's inspiring people to go ahead. His chains advanced the gospel. Philippians 4.22 says, All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household. You know what he's doing? He's even witnessing to Caesar's bunch. Those servants, the guards, and Caesar's own family. Paul's preaching to Caesar's family. Isn't that amazing? Well, this just goes to show us that trials often become a platform for a greater ministry. Did you hear that? Your trials, your hardships, Your tribulations can become a platform from which you can proclaim God's goodness and God's gospel. Fanny Crosby was six weeks old when through a doctor's error she was permanently blinded. Her family could have let bitterness take root but instead they trained her in the ways of the Lord. Fanny's grandmother was her greatest teacher. And she filled Fanny's heart with love for the Lord. Fanny got saved and began to write poems, hymns. And she had, although she was blind, she had a clear vision of God's grace. We sang about that a little while ago, God's grace. You can be blind and still see clearly the grace of God. Fanny did. Now life wasn't easy for her. Can you imagine being blind? It would make life a little bit more difficult, wouldn't it? But for her, here's what she wrote in one place. She said, Oh, what a happy soul I am. Although I cannot see, I am resolved that in this world, contented I will be." Oh boy, that puts me under conviction. How about you? She couldn't see and she said, but I've decided I'm going to be the happiest and most contented person because of the grace of God. I'm going to be the happiest one in the bunch. And instead of shrinking back, she used her hardship to become a platform from which to minister to people. How many of her songs do we sing still yet in churches today? She wrote over 8,000 hymns. Doesn't sound like somebody who's sitting back in the corner saying, oh, woe is me. Oh, how I have been mistreated. Oh, how unlucky and unloved I am. No, she wrote 8,000 hymns about the grace of God and what God had done for her, though she was blind. What excuse do you have? Well, the final years of Paul, we're talking about the final years, the end of the story for Paul. It's not yet. But there were some final years creeping up on Paul and eventually we see the second imprisonment. After Acts 28 is finished, we see Paul imprisoned again. Paul was again arrested under the reign of Nero. You remember Nero? He was a brute. I mean, he's the one that would light Christians on fire and use them for lampstands along the street. He's the one that would saw Christians in half just to see them bleed and scream and die. He was the one who would blame Christians for the burning of Rome. He's the one who loved to persecute Christians. He loved it. I'm not so sure he might have been a worse guy than Adolf Hitler. This guy had more far-reaching effects, perhaps. But Paul is arrested the second time, sent back to Rome, and this time he doesn't have a rented house. This time he doesn't have people coming and going. This time it's under much, much harsher conditions. He was deserted by many. Paul was deserted. Friends abandoned him because they were afraid they'd be persecuted if they came to him. Just a couple years ago, Elon Musk was a favorite of the liberal green movement. I mean, he's the one that was celebrated by the green movement because he had come up with a really quality Tesla car, all electric, and the liberals loved him. But just in the past few weeks or months, now he's the devil, and they call him Hitler. Oh, how fast times can change. He was loved until he took a different political direction. Now we see bombings of his dealerships, vandalism of just individual owners who bought his cars. The same people that used to praise him now hate him and try to destroy his car. Stockholders have deserted him in a large number. Stockholders who had once said, man, this is the wave of the future. We're investing in Teslas. Many of them are now pulling back. And the tide can turn quickly in somebody's life. Your life. It did in the Apostle Paul's life. When we face rejection, we can feel the pain like, maybe like the Apostle Paul did. Have you ever been ghosted? That's a new, fairly new term, last few years, being ghosted. How many of you have heard that, ghosted? Yeah, you've got a friend or maybe a romantic involvement and you're in communication and suddenly, man, that communication just stops and it's like they vanished into thin air like a ghost. And now they won't answer your texts. They won't answer your phone calls. They won't communicate with you. And you're wondering what happened. I didn't get any kind of warning. What did I do? What did they do? Well, that's what happened to Paul. He got ghosted. Man, everybody has abandoned him as he faced this final imprisonment in Rome. He experienced the loneliness and the betrayal. and desertion that people dread so much we all like to be loved we like for people to want to be with us or around us we like for people to like us and they did like Paul but boy now it's different in his second imprisonment things changed and when we face rejection we can draw comfort from knowing that the greatest friend is ever near Jesus said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. Do you believe the Bible? That's what he said. The Lord said, I'll never leave you. This friend, that romantic partner, that bunch, those at work, those acquaintances, they may leave you. But Jesus said, I'll never leave you, never. And that's a good promise, friend. that no matter what happens in your life, no matter how lonely you feel, bring yourself to realize and remember that Jesus said, I'll never leave you. In your darkest hour, He will be with you. Things might not happen and turn out the way you want them to. I'm sure the Apostle Paul would rather not be in that second imprisonment. And he said, nobody stood with me except the Lord. The Lord stood with me. Paul knew that, see, he had a close enough walk. And here's where it comes down. You've got to have a close enough walk, like the Apostle Paul did, with the Lord, that when these bad times come, that you automatically know He is with you. You can't, wait, you can't ignore God your whole life. You can't ignore His Word your whole life. You can't ignore the church your whole life. You can't ignore His Bible. You can't ignore your prayer life. You can't ignore involvement of telling others about Jesus, and then you have bad times to come, and all of a sudden you say, I think I'm alone. Now if you've been walking with the Lord all that time, you'll know He's still there. You don't want to wait till the last minute to try to make contact with Him. That happened to Israel. They turned their back on the Lord time and time again and finally He fell silent. You don't want God to be silent in your tragedies. So you better walk with Him regularly before the tragedy comes so when that heartache happens, you'll know in your heart he's still here. You say well I know that already but in your tragedy you're not thinking clearly so it better be embedded in your noggin and in your heart enough that when the tragedy comes and your thoughts are scattered like a spider web you better know the Lord close enough that one thing you know he's still there. I've visited people in the nursing home that had dementia and they had loved the Lord all their life and served the Lord all their life and now their thoughts are scattered now their memory is just about gone and you can't carry on the conversation with them but I've seen them hear a hymn sung Amazing Grace how sweet the sound you start singing it and they just start singing along with you Everything else might have been gone, but their walk with the Lord was so strong that they remembered things like that. We need to preserve our walk with the Lord. Paul stood strong knowing that the Lord stood with him. In 2 Timothy 4.16, here's what the scripture says, At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthening me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion, and the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Paul said, Things look pretty bleak around me, but the preaching is still working. The preaching that was out there years ago is still bringing forth some fruit. Churches are still reading the word that I wrote under the inspiration of God. When we find ourselves deserted, like Paul was, it can be a very painful time. Tim Tebow, once one of the most talked about athletes in the country, faced some intense scrutiny when he began to talk publicly about his walk with the Lord. And man, he was dismissed by a lot of people. They didn't want to hear him talk about scripture. They didn't want to hear him talk about the Lord. But you know what he did? He took every opportunity just to keep on talking about the Lord. He said, my games may be over, but I'm still going to talk about the Lord. And he did. Crowds left, but his commitment to Christ remained. And with Paul, this gospel still advanced, still moving forward. Suffering in Christ's name. Paul saw suffering as part of his course. Did you hear that? Paul saw suffering as part of his course in life. Do you remember when we started back earlier in the book of Acts? Do you remember Acts chapter 9? When Paul, then Saul, met the Lord Jesus on the Damascus road, he said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? The Lord said, you go on up to Damascus. You go on up to Ananias' house. I've prepared a speech for him to give you, and he's going to tell you what I want you to do. And here's what he found out from Ananias about God's will. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel to me, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. Paul was a chosen vessel to suffer. Sometimes we think we're sick. We don't deserve this. This should be happening not to me. Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe this is chastisement. Maybe you're a chosen vessel to show the glory of God through your suffering. Did you know people watch you when you're going through tough times? The unbelievers many times will watch. Oh, you say you're a Christian. Let's see how you act under this trial. They're watching you. They want to know if you're going to be faithful, if you really believe what you say you believe. Or will you throw up your hands and say, man, I don't understand this, I quit. Paul kept going, and we should too. Christians are sometimes hit with tough trials. And sometimes, you know, Christians just have more than they think they can take on. They just lose their song. They're not able to have their joy, their singing anymore. Adrian Rogers told this story in a sermon I read about once. He said Chippy was a parakeet. This lady was cleaning Chippy's cage one day and she was vacuuming out, had a vacuum cleaner hose stuck in his cage and she was vacuuming out the bottom of his cage. Chippy was sitting up on his swing and she was vacuuming out the cage and the phone rang and she turned her head to answer the phone for a minute and that hose got pointed upward and sucked Chippy right down into the vacuum cleaner. Man, I mean, he went all the way to the bottom. Under desperation, ripped that canister open on that vacuum cleaner, pulled that paper bag out, ripped it apart, and there's old Chippy. Man, he's covered in dust. I mean, you could almost not see him. He's so covered in dust. She knew she had to do something, so she quickly ran to the kitchen and flipped on the faucet. and gave him a blast of ice-cold water to wash the dust off, and old Chippy is stunned. And then she realized, he's shivering, he's cold, I shouldn't have put the cold water on him. So then she grabs her hairdryer, turns the heat up on high, and gives him a blast of hot air. Well, Chippy survived, but he never did sing again. You know what happens? Sometimes Christians, we get hit with a blast of hardship, trials, We lose our song. But God means for us to keep on going. John G. Patton was a missionary to the New Hebrides Islands. He faced unimaginable hardship. His wife and baby died just almost immediately after they landed there to minister to the people. The tribes, the native tribes in those days, they were known cannibals. And this was not an easy place to minister. His wife and baby died and left him utterly alone. Yet he decided, I came here to minister to these people. I'm going to stay. So alone, he served those people and his life was under constant threat. But he pressed on refusing to give up and leave. And it went on a pretty good while before he began to make a breakthrough with those people. And as he abandoned his own will just to serve the Lord and fulfill God's will, after years of toil and service, God blessed in a mighty way and those people were, there was a great revival. People got saved and things started looking up. Entire villages turned to Christ. But his willingness to suffer and to press on while he's suffering paid off big time. What will it take, friend? What will it take to get you to give up? Will it take a spouse to leave you to throw in the towel and say, I'm done, I quit? Will it take a church to disappoint you when you say, they did me wrong, I'm not going back to church anymore, I'm finished? Will it be a job that you had your eye on, maybe participated in, that suddenly turned a different direction and wrecked your future? And you say, that's it. I'm done. I shouldn't have started going to church. I shouldn't have started serving God. I shouldn't have started tithing. I shouldn't have started reading the Bible. I shouldn't have started witnessing to people. I should have quit. What will it take to get you to turn your back on the Lord? Would you quit? faithfully serving because of any of those things or some others. Paul didn't. It cost him everything. He kept serving. Paul didn't quit and neither should you. The final moments. Let's look at the final moments of Paul's life. Man, his life was an encouragement, but still yet, what exactly did happen to Paul? I want to know the end of the story. Where's Paul Harvey anyway? We need to hear the rest of the story. What happened to Paul? Besides his unwavering faith, we'll see some facts and evidences. He kept his confidence in Christ. He said, I have kept the faith. I hope I can say that at the end of my life. I've kept the faith. I finished my course. He didn't fear death but saw it as a victory. You remember when Paul said that he had a willingness to depart and be with the Lord and nevertheless he'd be willing to stay and serve people for the Lord's sake? And that's the way he lived. But he was martyred. How do we know that? Well, we can look at some evidences that might help us out. Roman imprisonment. He was under house arrest. We read about that in the end of Acts, Acts 28, 30 and 31. We read it earlier. He was under house arrest and that's when he wrote most of those prison epistles. But then he was released and we can see in Romans 15, 24 and 28 that he had planned to go to Spain. Now there's nothing written in Scripture to say that he went there, but that was his plan. So if he got released, maybe he went. That's what he wanted to do. But then he was arrested again under Nero, placed in harsh confinement. Then he was martyred about AD 67 or thereabouts. He was beheaded in Rome under Nero. How do we know? Well, there's early church writers that testifies that Paul was beheaded in Rome in this second imprisonment. Clement of Rome wrote that, Tertullian wrote that, Eusebius confirmed that Paul was executed in Rome. In the back of my mind, before I read about it, I just thought, boy, I hope Paul just finally got away or maybe he died of natural causes while he was in prison. Maybe they didn't mistreat him and torture him. Well, if he had been other than a Roman citizen, they would have probably done something to him because their practice was to crucify people. Remember, Peter was crucified upside down, according to tradition. And so the Romans were big on crucifixions. They crucified Jesus. And they would have crucified Paul, probably, had he not been a Roman citizen. But Roman citizens were afforded better treatment. They just had their head chopped off. Well, I guess that'd be a little better than being, that's kind of like asking, do you want to die of a heart attack or cancer? Well, I'd rather not have either, but that's probably what happened to Paul. The fact that Luke wrote all of the book of Acts and he's there up until the end of that first prison interment and then what, What about Luke? Why didn't he come back after Acts 28? Why didn't Luke write the rest of the story? I mean, we said at the beginning it's like Luke wrote up to Acts 28 and 30 and 31 and he just laid his pen down and stopped. Why did he not write the rest of it? Well, some of it might have been that he was trying to accomplish a certain thing about the history of the church in the book of Acts, not about the end of Paul's life. But Luke likely witnessed Paul's final days because he said in 2 Timothy 4.11, that's when he's in his second imprisonment. In 2 Timothy 4.11, Paul said, only Luke is with me. Kind of sad, isn't it? Only Luke is with me. Boy, aren't you glad if you've got one good friend. You may have had a bunch of friends in the past If the going gets hard, if you've got one faithful friend that sticks with you, that's special and that's valuable. Be that friend. Be a Luke. Paul said, everybody else is gone. They're gone as a wild goose in winter, but Luke's still with me. Praise the Lord for Luke. And it may be that Luke was writing Acts and Acts 28 saw Paul released. and Luke saw that and that's all he wrote about. We can't question, why did God not write that the way I wanted it to be written? Why didn't God answer all my questions? In Deuteronomy it says, the secret things belongeth unto the Lord. There's some unanswered questions in your life, same as there is about the Apostle Paul. And you might not know all the answers you want to know. It's not wrong to ask God why, but it's wrong to demand of Him an answer to the reason why. Most of us wonder how our last days are going to be. Well, I'll tell you this, that as we see Paul's life come to a close, we see him still serving God. We see him still writing his epistles. We see him witnessing to those who he could talk to. And Paul was like a relay runner. A relay runner doesn't just go to the end of his assigned part of the race and throw the baton down. What does a relay runner do? He passes on to the next runner. What are you and I supposed to do? What does all this mean for us? You're carrying a torch. You're carrying a baton. and that must be passed on to somebody. Will you pass it on to your children? Will you make sure they know about the Lord as Fannie Crosby's parents made sure she found out about the Lord? Will you pass it on to your grandchildren? Will you pass it on to your friends? Will you leave a legacy at the church where you faithfully attend that you may come to the end of your days but that doesn't mean the gospel And the church and the ministry has come to the end of its days. Acts doesn't end with a conclusion, but Paul's life is a call to every believer. Are you continuing the work of the ministry as Paul was involved? Will you take up the ministry that Paul is trying to pass off to you? What will your chapter 29 look like? What legacy will you leave? I hope the Lord says, Well done, thou good and faithful servant, but I also wish that I'd leave behind enough of a testimony that others could say, You know, that guy was a servant of the Lord. He might not have been the best looking, he might not have been the most eloquent, he might not have been the most outgoing, he might not have had the best personality, but boy, he was a servant of the Lord. He kept on going all of these days. Now Paul did eventually die, but you know he still speaks. How does he speak today? Well, he speaks in Scripture. You read the epistles that he wrote? He wrote a good portion of the New Testament. You can hear Paul speak today. What kind of legacy is that? When you're gone, will you still be speaking with your life and memories that you left behind? In Hebrews 11, 4, we're shown that you can die and leave a speaking legacy like Paul did. Hebrews 11, 4 talks about Abel. Remember Abel was slain by his brother Cain? Here's what it says, offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh." We're still talking about Abel. We're still talking about Paul. We're still talking about the saints that lived in the Bible that spread the Word of God, and when they died, their testimony lived on, and yours can too. Your faith, you can leave a legacy of faith. You know the best, listen to this. If you didn't get anything else out of this, I want you to hear this, especially those watching online and anybody in this room that's not saved. You know the best testimony, the best testimony that you can leave behind for your family? It's not that you made a lot of money. It's not that you left them a good inheritance. Those things are good and important. It's not that you left them a comfortable life. You know what the best testimony you can leave behind? Leave behind, listen, if you're not saved, listen to me. Leave behind the testimony that you got saved and that you're going to meet them again in heaven one day. If you have loved ones that died without Christ, where is the hope in that reunion? If you have loved ones that went to heaven, Loved ones, it's going to go to heaven. The best testimony you can give and the most peace of mind that you can offer your loved ones when they gaze upon your body in that casket, the best testimony being dead and yet speaking is that you knew the Lord as your Savior. They can go home after the funeral. They'll still cry. They'll still miss you. but there'll be joy in their heart and the peace in their heart knowing that you knew Christ and that you're in heaven. When we see it written on Facebook, somebody died and we see it, RIP, rest in peace. Or they're up above looking down on us. Or they're in a better place now. Can I just tell you they're not all in a better place? And they're not all resting in peace? Only if they knew Christ as Savior. The only testimony we can leave behind that will be peaceful to our loved ones is that we were saved and went to heaven. I preached at my mother's funeral a number of years ago. She lived to be 89. She had asked me to preach her funeral. I didn't know if I could do it or not or if I was wise to do it, but she had asked me to, so I determined since she asked me, I'm going to do it. And I just asked God for His grace to help me preach the funeral message for my mother. And God gave the grace. I preached the gospel and if I preach your funeral, I'm going to preach the gospel. If you don't want me to preach about Jesus and salvation, you better not ask me because I'm going to preach it. When I finished that sermon and people were getting ready to file out, most of them had already filed out, I leaned over my mother's casket and I kissed her on her cold cheek and I said, I did the best I could and I'll see you again someday. How could I know that? Because I'm saved and she gave testimony that she was saved. You know what? It was tough losing her. We're all going to die, aren't we? And the only way to leave a testimony behind that's going to bring peace is to know the Lord as your Savior. If you're not saved, you have this opportunity, this moment to trust Christ as Savior. You're not promised tomorrow. You're not promised next week. And you're not promised a year from now or 20 or 40 years from now. If you're waiting to get saved until the party is over, you may have waited too late. But you have this moment where you're awake and alert and the Holy Spirit dealing with your heart that you need to be saved. There's no way to deal with sin except through the Lord Jesus Christ. He shed His blood to pay for your salvation. And if you place your trust in Him right now, He will save you. But you only have this moment. You don't have a promise of tomorrow. You might have tomorrow, but maybe not. You might die at midnight tonight. Would you bow with me, please, in prayer? Father, we love you. Thank you for the testimony of Paul the Apostle. What a great life, what a great servant. How he never wavered in his faith. How he kept serving you and witnessing for you and preaching for you and writing scriptures for you. Lord, help us to gain some inspiration, some encouragement, some motivation to keep on serving. as long as we're alive. We might not serve in the same capacity, same position, but Lord, we can keep serving. You can give us that stamina, that excitement, that zeal for the future, as Paul did. I pray that you give Christians that zeal and motivation right now. Lord, I pray for those who are not saved. Lord, while they have this moment, I have no promise of tomorrow. I pray that this moment they would say in their heart, Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. Just like the Bible says, I know I can't pay for my own sins. But I believe you died on the cross to pay for every sin that I've ever committed or ever will commit. And Lord, I'm placing my trust in you this moment to be saved. I believe you died for me. I believe you rose again from the dead You came out of that grave so I could have the promise that I, too, escaped the grave. And I pray, Lord, that this would be the moment that that person would be born again, replacing their trust, their faith, with the work Jesus did on the cross in Calvary. Thank you for your love. Our heads are bowed and eyes are closed. Christian, would you recommit to the Lord to be faithful? To death? Lost person? Would you be willing to come to an altar and have somebody talk to you about how to be saved? If you would, you would stand and walk right up here. Everybody who's gotten saved has done it in a similar fashion. Perhaps he's gotten a little ashamed of Christ. If you're watching online, you can be saved where you're at. You don't have to be in a church house to be saved. You don't even have to be in an altar to be saved. What you do have to do is put your faith in Christ as Savior. He is the one and only one that can save you, so why don't you do it right now while you have that time? Ask the Lord to be your Savior. Trust Him to save you. Thank you, friends, for being in the service today. We appreciate you being here. Thanks for those who watched online.