So take your Bible, turn to John chapter 3, and you're going to follow along with me, okay? I promise you, I'm not interested in dragging this message out any longer than you are sitting there, alright? I'm going to preach the Gospel today. Maybe there's somebody here today that needs to hear it. Maybe there's somebody passing by online. Maybe you've pulled up Facebook and saw our feed. Maybe you've pulled up Sermon Audio and just glanced at a church and there you are. But you're going to hear today why it is we feel the way we feel and why I'm even up here today. I would not serve a God that would just leave me without any help. I would not serve that God. So I'm going to preach to you what the gospel is today. It's very simple. It's very sweet. And I'm going to give you the opportunity to respond to such a gospel today. John chapter 3. Let's say verse 16 out loud together. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Verse 17, together. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Father, I pray God that You would help me preach this morning. Father, Lord, in the weakness, in the absolute weakness of my flesh today, Father, I can't hardly wait, Lord, to go lay down. But Father, I just pray, dear God, that Lord, something I say would be a blessing to somebody. Father, Lord, that You would give me grace today as You're giving these other people grace. Lord, I pray, God, that You would just manifest it today in this place. Lord, just help us today, we pray in Jesus' name and all of God's people said, Amen. Turn to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. Let me just run down what these verses mean. For those of you who think that you're too bad, that God can't save you or that you cannot live a Christian life, God sent His Son to the entire world. Now that is every rotten, filthy, nasty human being that's ever lived and is living today, God sent forth His Son to be their Savior. Most people will refuse the free gift of salvation. They'll refuse it. They won't have it. There's been missionary sin all over the world. They've been gone to places like India, the Middle Eastern nations. They've preached the gospel, but for the most part, to no avail, because these people will not adhere to the gospel. They won't believe it. They won't believe that God's Son, or that God loves everybody enough to sacrifice His only Son. They don't believe that, and they don't want to believe that. But I'm telling you this morning that God loves you so much that He sent His Son in your place and put Him in the seat of condemnation for you to take all your sins and your transgressions that were against you and He's nailed them to His cross and He did it for you as a free gift. The only thing He asked you to do is trust in what Jesus did because I'm telling you that even us church people don't trust in what we do. Can I hear God's people say amen? Romans 3.23 says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The last testimony that you heard a while ago was the preacher's daughter. I'm sure you've heard a joke about the preacher's daughter. Well, I've got three of them. It means I've got more jokes than you. Okay? And all three of them are here. And I'm telling you, there are no saints when it comes to, oh, they don't do anything wrong. I raised them, and they've got enough of me and Lisa in them that I know that they're rotten, filthy, dirty, low-down, hell-deserving sinners that need to be saved by the grace of God and nothing else. If the preacher can admit it, and the preacher's daughters can admit it, and the preacher's wife will admit it, amen? Sweetie pie, that'd be you. then you should admit it. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I've been in church all my life and do not merit being in the presence of Almighty God. Nothing have I done merited being in the presence of God because I am unholy and God is holy. Turn to Romans 6.23. Here's what's going on. If you don't believe this, I can't help you with it. Let me tell you, the preaching like this, what they say, there's a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. It's that simple. I know where Lee Walsh is today. I know it. I know it beyond any doubt. I heard him the night he died. I know where Danny Rowe is today. Listen, God can save Danny Rowe. He can save anybody. Amen? I liked him because he was rough. Danny was rough and just an old grease monkey. He did not achieve the level of success that everybody attains to in this world. He was just a simple man, former Roman Catholic, but he knew that Jesus died for his sins. And his wife asked him the day he died, Danny, where are you going? He said, I'm going to heaven. Flesh and blood don't tell you that. The Spirit of God tells you that. Keith Kettleson is in heaven today. Jimmy Carmichael is in heaven today. There's a lot of us. David Toomey is in heaven today. These guys are all gathered together, not wishing to come back, but waiting for the day when we get there. Am I telling the truth? See, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about everlasting life. and an everlasting blessing or everlasting punishment. You say, well, I don't believe in hell. You believe in prisons. You believe in jail. You believe that judges are to take dope heads and dope dealers and rapists and murderers and cast them into prison for life, don't you? You think some people ought to be executed, don't you? Then why don't you believe in God's court that there is a punishment for disobeying God? The wages of sin is death. Romans 6.23. The wages of sin is death. My body is headed to the same place as the rest of these guys has already been. I know it. I feel it in me. Some days it's worse than others. The older we get, the more we realize it. Can I hear somebody say amen? We're not getting better with age. I'm not. This body is going to pay the penalty for its transgressions. It's going to die. My soul, however, escapes that death. Because the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I did not earn it. Nobody in my family earned it, handed it down to me. I've known Jimmy and Linda in this church since 78. I love them like family. They didn't deserve it. They didn't earn it. It's given by grace and nothing else. You just ask Linda later on. She knows it. She knows it's by grace and nothing else. So you're being given an opportunity. You can choose death or you can choose eternal life. Don't be stupid. Can I have some people say amen? Amen. Don't take the stupid way out. Or don't say, well, you don't know what I've done, preacher, it's been awfully bad. Listen, you have no idea the people sitting in this room, what they've done. You have no clue who you're sitting next to. I'm telling you, the reason why I can say this is without a doubt the best church I've ever been a part of in my life is that everybody here is honest about who they are. We're not going to play around with it. We're not going to joke around. We're rotten people outside of the grace of Almighty God. So you make the choice. Romans 10, turn there. Verse 8, What saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which we preach. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, shalt believe in thine heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. With the mouth confession is made unto salvation. If you look at verse 13, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Let me tell you about a man. He was a thief in Jerusalem, and he was being held in prison, and the penalty for being a thief back in those days was death. Death penalty, just for robbery, just for being a thief. And when he was caught, they found him guilty and put him in prison, laid him in prison, until the day they were going to execute his death sentence upon him and it was decided that under Roman law he was qualified to be crucified on a cross. Now crucifixion was a horrible, horrible death. They would tie you to a cross type deal and you would hang there. Sometimes it would take days for people to die of crucifixion. It's a very agonizing death. When they came by to break the legs of the two men that were on the cross with Jesus, that was in order to accommodate their death quicker. Because once their legs were broke, they were relying upon holding their weight up with their arms, and that has the effect of, basically, it drowns them in their own fluid. They suffocate to death. There was a man hanging next to Jesus Christ on a cross who was guilty. And you know what he did? He did exactly what Romans 10 says. First thing out of his mouth was, Lord. He knew who Jesus was hanging next to him. And the other guy was railing on him, making fun of Jesus. And the good thief said to the bad thief, Lay off this guy. We're guilty. We deserve to be here. He's done nothing wrong. Now let me tell you what that part means. What that part means is God takes your stupid sins and He laid them upon Christ as He was crucified. That means now that your sins have been atoned for and paid for, the price has been paid, the sacrifice of Christ was made, and now you can have a full and complete pardon of every sin ever committed. The thief on the cross said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. He was confessing that Jesus was Lord and he was confessing that he believed that Jesus would rise from the dead even before Jesus died on the cross. He already knew it in his heart. So I'm going to ask you two questions. Do you believe that Jesus is Lord? Number two, do you believe He died on the cross for your sins? It's that simple. 1 John 1.9, turn there. 1 John 1.9. This is very, very simple. I'll tell you how simple it was. When I was nine years old, this was preached to me and I believed every word of it. And I went to an altar and I asked Jesus to live in my heart and save me from my sins. I'm just telling you that since I was nine, I've not been the best of persons, but I can also tell you that Christ died for every one of those sins, and I believe that. 1 John 1.9 says, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. How many here would say amen, raise your hand, or shout, or whatever, and say you know that Christ has forgiven all of your sins? Let me hear you. Amen. Now look at verse 10. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us. Worst thing you can do is to say to yourself, I'm a better person, I guess, than the people that go to Bethel Church. Because everybody in this church has confessed that they're a sinner. And anybody who will not say, oh, I'm not that bad, I do some good stuff every now and then, I'm not really that bad. Anybody who says that, God's Word is not in them. He does not abide in them. What makes this church right? What makes this church right? was that the people in it confess that they are sinners and that we are saved by grace and nothing else. Amen? So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make an appeal to everyone watching online. I don't know how many we have today. I'll check on that later. But I'm going to make an appeal to you today that if you're listening to me, and you're wondering what's going on here, we've lost a dear, sweet man out of our church. But we know where he is. He's not lost. Okay? We know where he is. And we know how he got there. Not by his good deeds, amen? Now, don't think that I think he was a bad fellow because he wasn't because he'd give his shirt off his back to anybody in this church. That's not why he's in heaven. He's in heaven because he believed Jesus. And all we're asking is for you to believe Jesus. Believe that He died and took your sins away from you. so that you could have an absolute full forgiveness of sins, and it's free. And the way to get that is just to call upon the neighbor. You don't have to be here in this church either. Right where you are, you bow, you pray, pull the car over, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, and say, dear God, have mercy on me, a rotten sinner, I don't know how to live a Christian life, but I want to. And I want to be forgiven of my sins because I don't want to go to hell when I die. Is that simple enough you think? Now I'm going to look at you guys. It's that simple. Heather, is it that simple? It's that simple. Dear God, I do not want to go to hell when I die. If the miseries and the suffering in this present world is even a glimpse of hell, I want nothing to do with it. I want to go to heaven for all of eternity, but I am a sinner and I can't get there on my own. God, can you forgive me of my sins and send Jesus to live in my heart? It's that simple. So I'm going to ask you today to bow your head. Dog gone it. Two Sundays in a row we're getting out early and Jimmy's not here. He's in heaven, so I don't think he cares. Amen? I want you to bow your head. And there's nobody looking around and John just kind of put the camera right here, alright? If you're here today and you're not sure, okay? I love you, I'm not trying to embarrass you, and I won't embarrass you, I won't call you out, I'm not going to say, lookie there, I'm not going to do that. But if you're here today and you don't know whether or not you're going to heaven or not, and you just want me to know, Would you raise your hand? Okay. Alright. If you're here today, and you're not sure that you could even let me know, while we've got our heads bowed, while all our eyes are closed, Let me tell you about a prayer I prayed one time. I didn't pray it out loud because I couldn't talk. I didn't use my hands because my hands and my feet and my knees and my body was paralyzed. It was a prayer I prayed while I was being electrocuted. It's probably why I feel so bad today. But I prayed a prayer while I was at death's door in my heart whereupon I asked God to have mercy upon me and I asked God not to let me die that day for my wife's sake. And God heard both my prayers and they were just prayed inside my heart. So today, I'm going to ask you, in your heart, will you pray, God have mercy on me? Jimmy didn't want to go to hell. Linda didn't want to go to hell. Pastor Mike doesn't want to go to hell. And I don't want to go to hell. So will you pray, God? Will you have mercy on me, a sinner? And will you forgive me of my sins and help me to live right? Father, I pray, dear God, today for anybody here, anybody listening, I pray for them today that they would have the knowledge that others have here, that heaven is their home, that if they leave this world this week, that they know where they're going. I pray, Heavenly Father, God, that You would just instill it in the hearts of those, Father, whom You call. Lord, we know, God, that no one can come to You, but You call them. So, Father, we're asking, God, for You to call many to righteousness today. Father, whether they be here today, whether they be watching and listening online, that, Father, they would know beyond a doubt before the day is over with that they have their sins forgiven. Father, I pray, dear God, that You would hear from heaven, that You would forgive their sins, that You would raise them up anew, and, Father, direct their paths throughout their life so that their life is a testimony of Your salvation. Father, just bless the words of the preacher today. Bless Your words that have gone forth into the ears of these people today. And we pray this in Jesus' name and all of God's people said, Now if you're here today and you are saved and you know it, and heaven is your home, would you stand to your feet? Amen. We'll not, for those of you online, we'll not be broadcasting a service this evening. We'll be having a visitation time here at the church for Brother Jimmy and the family is to be here at four. The rest of everybody else be here at five. You go from five to eight. And then tomorrow we will have his funeral service here at 11 o'clock. There's going to be a church dinner for the family and so we've already got some things in the works for that. If you want to help us out with that, please see Rose or somebody that doesn't look like me and tell them the important stuff, alright? So anyway, that's what we're going to do today. Are you glad you're saved today? Say Amen. Amen. You glad you came today? Say amen. You continue to pray for me. I'm going to go lay down here in a little bit. Alright? I love you. I thank God for you. And pray for one another. Alright? Let's be dismissed in a word of prayer. And as we are dismissed, Brother Sterling Leonard, please close us in prayer, please.