This is Clarence Sexton, and I want to thank you for securing a copy of this CD. It's a very interesting story, and I'd like to tell you the story about how this came to pass. Thirty years ago, I was invited to preach at the Emanuel Baptist Church in Fort Myers, Florida. I'd been carrying a great burden for my family, my brother, my mother, my two sisters, my brother's wife, their children, my stepdad. And they agreed to come and hear me preach on a Sunday evening at Brother Dick Riley's church there in Fort Myers, Florida. With all of my heart, I want to thank Pastor Dick Riley for allowing God to use him and inviting me to speak that night in his wonderful church. And the Lord has used him in a mighty way through the years to be a great encouragement to my brother, to me, and to my family. God bless you, Brother Riley, and your family. You can just imagine how I felt when my family came in that building. I'd been praying so much for their salvation. And I asked God to use me to speak to their hearts. I preached that night, and after the message was given, my brother and his wife went home and gave their hearts to Jesus Christ. That's 30 years ago. God has used Tom Sexton in an amazing way these past 30 years. He's preached in different places around the world and all across America. He started a wonderful church in Cape Coral, Florida, the neighboring city of Fort Myers. God has blessed his family in a mighty way. He has a lovely wife who loves the Lord Jesus Christ and teaches God's Word. He also has two outstanding Christian daughters, married to outstanding young men, and they have beautiful families, and they're raising their children to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. God did an amazing work that night, and we give Him the glory. The tape of that message was lost. Believe it or not, it was lost. In the church, they had the habit of taping over those tapes and getting another message recorded, and then another message recorded. But somehow or another, tape fell down in a crack in the sound booth. Only the Lord could superintend something like that. Now, 30 years later, they were remodeling that area, and they found this old cassette tape stuck down between some boards. And it just happened to be in the providence of God, the message I preached that night when my brother came to know the Lord Jesus as his Savior. May God bless you as you listen to it. The song is heart-stirring as you think about it and think about the people with lonely faces and lonely hearts. They need a friend, and as a friend the Bible says, a stick is closer than a brother to the Lord Jesus Christ. I never dreamed when we came to Fort Myers, Brother Ryder, this past week visit with my family that I have an opportunity to speak, but I appreciate the invitation and the opportunity to come. I pray God will bless. Your pastor asked me to say a word about the bus ministry, and I'm very grateful to God to be involved in the bus work at the Highland Park Baptist Church for a number of reasons. One of the most important reasons, I think, because Dr. Lee Robertson is our pastor. I feel like he's the greatest living man in the work of the Lord alive today. Another thing that maybe some of you didn't know, M.J. Parker, who is the founder of the evangelistic bus ministry in America, is a member of our church, still living, near to 80 years old, and very active in the bus work. And he's a storehouse of knowledge. Anything you want to find out about the bus work, you can ask Brother Parker. And anything that's printed in any book, Brother Parker's already gone through it and experienced. And so my wife knows every week. almost without fail, is a good part of at least one day I spend with Brother Parker discussing the bus work of our church. Of course, he has so many valuable things to give in the way of advice. I appreciate God allowing him to live and the privilege I've had to meet him and get to know him. I love the bus ministry. I thank God for it. It's a way of reaching people for Jesus. How many of you here are involved in the bus work in some way or another? Maybe all of you don't actually. Ride on the bus or work on a bus, but I may be involved it would you raise your hand? I like to know that's great reason. I don't see come on keep your hands up good Good Amen, that's great. It's hard working I Know it is it's difficult work, but when somebody comes to Christ that makes it worth it all doesn't I remember one certain place? We started a bus ride in Chattanooga not long ago and And the first day we ran through there, a teenage boy started to get on our bus, and one of his friends, who was a little bit older than him, grabbed him by the arms and started to step on the bus. I happened to be on that bus that day. And he said, you're a fool, just like that. And the boy stopped for just a second, started not to get on the bus after his friend had called him a fool, but after a little bit of a hesitation, he got on the bus, came to church, and that day he heard the gospel, realized he was lost, and asked the Lord to forgive his sins and save him. And I've often thought, who was really the fool? The fellow that called him a fool, who stayed at home and didn't hear about Jesus, or the boy who came and found Christ as Savior. Another area I'm thinking about where we just started to bust this past week, when we go yesterday in an area of our city where children live in apartment buildings and their yard is no bigger than the top of this pulpit where they have to play. And the street runs right in front of them. It's a pitiful thing when you go by and the little children have no room, no anything. It's a heartbreaking thing. We started a route there last week, and some people got a burden for it. It's a very rough district, a section of our city. And the bus ran, and I think 40-something people rode the bus the first Sunday it ran. And I think three or four of the people there were saved, and I thank God for that. On and on and on you go. I think a little boy named Johnny Garden here, we met last week in North Chattanooga. He and his two other brothers. And Johnny hadn't been to church. Never heard the gospel. I met him on the street while visiting there, and I asked him if he was a Christian. He said, no. I asked him if he liked to know about the Lord. He said, yes. And I didn't have an opportunity to talk with him at length that day. We were trying to get people to ride the bus, fill up the bus. So I took him to his house and asked his dad if he could ride the bus. He told me he could. His father was a Christian, but in a backslidden condition. To make a long story short, little boy got on the bus Sunday morning in a downpour of rain. We had the hardest rain I believe I've ever remembered since I've been in Chattanooga this past Sunday. And just in a downpour of rain, he and his two little brothers were waiting on the bus. Got on the bus, rode to church, gave his heart to Jesus. And Sunday night, his dad came back with him and said, I've been away from God too long. And he came back home to the Lord and is determined to be faithful to the Lord and to his church. These are just a few things, but I want to encourage you just to keep on for the Lord. Just don't quit. The Word of God says of those early disciples in the book of Acts, they cease not to preach and teach Jesus Christ. May God help us to be that kind of people. Now listen, I said this morning in the pastor's class that my wife and I asked about a church we could visit, be a part of, and worship in while we were here. And our pastor gave us the name of this church. And I feel like that's a great compliment to Emmanuel Baptist Church in Fort Myers, Florida. The fact that our pastor and others in Chattanooga recommended that we worship here while we're in this area. And I was so happy to find out when I got here My two little nieces who live in Fort Myers ride one of your buses to Sunday school and church. And that thrilled my heart. I thank God for that. My mother would remember that while we lived in Chattanooga for a short while 20 years ago, I rode a bus to Highland Park Baptist Church. And now in the plan of God, I have an opportunity to direct the bus ministry to our church. So it's been just a real experience. I was frightened about speaking tonight, Brother Pastor, and I know when you said I was going to introduce my family, thinking they were all going to have to stand and introduce them, that they were more scared than I was. But I'm glad they're here. My sister and her husband and my brother and his wife and two little girls, I think they're here. Yeah, there they are. There they are. God bless their heart. And my wife and my mother and dad, we thank the Lord for them and for what they've done for the family here in Florida. I hope you get to know them for the better in the days ahead, and they get to know you. Let's have a prayer together. I want to speak to you about some things on my heart tonight. It's been a difficult thing, Brother Riley, to know about what to speak on tonight, but the Lord has laid this on my heart, and I pray he'll bless, and we'll see people who don't know Christ come to the Savior tonight, and many who are saved but are just not living for Jesus like they should. I pray they'll come home to the Lord this very night. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word, and we believe it. We thank You, dear Lord, for the truth of it, the fact that it never fails. We thank You for a church like this that stands for Your Word and has a testimony in this city that's even reached into the city hundreds of miles away where we live, and we've heard the work they're doing. We pray You bless them, continue to use them, and may they have a renewed vision of multitudes, thousands, upon thousands in this area who still are lost and dying and going to a devil's hell who need to hear the gospel story. Bless this pastor. And Father, strengthen him. Use him. May he be the example that you would have him be to these folk. May you challenge them through him to new heights, to honor and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray this. And Father, we pray that tonight you'd help us as we preach. We acknowledge before these folk and in the presence of holy angels and to your throne tonight that we need your help and your strength as we stand to preach. And oh God, help us. And may in an unusual way we sense the presence of the Holy Spirit here in this place. And when the message is finished and the invitation is given, may we see men and women, boys and girls, respond to the call of the gospel and the wooing and working of your Holy Spirit and come to Jesus this very night. In his name we pray. Amen. If you have your Bible, I want you to turn with me, if you would please, to the Gospel according to John, chapter one, beginning with verse thirty-five. John chapter one, beginning with verse thirty-five. I want us to think for just a while tonight on the subject of bringing the lost to Jesus. Bringing the lost to Jesus. I thought about a story as I looked up here. A preacher this morning, one of my little nieces, said to me that you could get up there in that balcony. I don't know how she knew that, but you could get up there and look all over this place. And I looked up there tonight, and even beyond the balcony, there are two folk. I first looked earlier, and there was just one person up there in that little covey hole. And I didn't know what was going on. Now there's another one up there. And if I guess two more get up there, before long they'll cut a hole in the roof and lower somebody down in here, bored of four. Oh, man, it's good to see you, folks. God bless you. Yes, sir, you can hear, too, can't you? Amen. I can look up, look down, look all around. Yes, sir, good to see you. If you don't know what's going on, you do, I hope. Good. Amen. John chapter 1, beginning at verse 35, as we think about bringing the lost to Jesus Christ. I believe with all my heart the greatest thing any human being ever did for any other human being is bring that person to Jesus Christ. And perhaps the most difficult thing for you and I to do as children of God is to please our Lord in this area of winning people and bringing people to Jesus, our greatest failure. The world's greatest need, the closest thing to our God's heart, And our greatest failure is in this area of witnessing and doing our best to win the loss and dying to Jesus Christ. Some folks say, I don't believe in the way that some people say to do it, just to out and out approach people and talk to them about the Lord. That's a very personal and private matter. That's why we ought to talk to people personally about it. You see, so many people say, well, I don't want to offend them. Well, the real problem is, folks, that we're not afraid of offending them. We're afraid they'll offend us. And we'll be embarrassed and we'll have our feelings hurt. And somehow or another, we'll be ashamed and we are ashamed to bear reproach for Jesus Christ and be dead to self and alive in Him and care not what folks think about us, but seek to do nothing else other than please Jesus in telling others about Him. To say what I said this morning, concluding, as Moody said in that incident of the World's Fair in Chicago, when people came, he was told there was no way he could have meetings during that time in Chicago nearly a hundred years ago, over a hundred years ago now. D. L. Moody said, people are still hungry to hear about Jesus Christ. And if we live and walk and talk in such a way that others will see Jesus in us, their hunger will find what it's looking for. And I believe that. The Bible says in John chapter 1 beginning with verse 35, John the Baptist had been preaching, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. John had a following of disciples. He had baptized the Lord Jesus Christ, recognizing him as the Messiah, the promised one from God, the Deliverer, the Savior. And the Word of God says, as John was standing with his disciples, And Jesus was coming by, the Bible takes it up and says like this, in verse 35, Again the next day after John stood in two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned and saw them following, and saith unto him, Them what seek ye? And they said unto him, Rabbi, which is to say, being interpreted, Master, where dwellest thou? And he saith unto them, Come and see. And they came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day." Think about it, spending the day with Jesus. What a day that day must have been. For it was about the tenth hour. One of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messiah, which is being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. That's what I want you to get, verse 42, and he brought him to Jesus. And I believe the word of God's without error. Everything that God's proclaiming in this blessed book is true. The Bible says there's a real place called hell, an eternal place, a place of torment and suffering. The Word of God says, as our Lord Jesus speaks in one particular place, talking about a man dying, and the Word of God says, And the rich man died and was buried, and in hell he lift up his eyes, and being torment, seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom, and cried, and said, Father Abraham, send Lazarus. that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame." Jesus Christ said hell was a place of flame and a place of conscious, unending torment. And everyone who has never personally prayed and invited Jesus Christ in their heart to be their Savior will die and go to that awful place the Bible calls hell. The Word of God also says a place called heaven, made by the hand of our God for those who have been redeemed who will trust Jesus as Savior And when they leave this world and lay down the robe of flesh and soar beyond the stars to be with Him, God says there's a heavenly city with gates of pearl and a street of gold, mansions that defy human description, that our Lord has made for every person who will trust Jesus Christ as Savior. On the one hand, there's the eternal hell God prepared for the devil and his angels for those who don't know Christ. On the other hand, there's eternal blessing glory in the glory world called heaven for those who know Christ as Savior. And you and I find ourselves standing in the gap between those two places with the message of heaven for the hearts of men. And if they'll believe it, trust Jesus as Savior, they'll miss the awful place of hell and go to the glorious place of heaven. And not only go to heaven, they'll find it's heaven to walk with Him and talk with Him here on this earth every day of their life. Now, God's told us what to do in this matter of bringing people to Jesus. Very little is said about Andrew. He's just a common, ordinary, everyday man. But he let God use him to bring his brother, Simon Peter, to Jesus Christ. So many folks say, I can't be a soul winner. I can't bring people to Jesus. I just can't talk to folk about the Lord. I'm just a common, average sort of fella. Well, the Bible says that's the kind of fella Andrew was, but he let God use him. You know, I'll let God use us like that. The Word of God says that he got burdened for those in his own home. And I believe in my own heart, if you've been saved, the burden that'll flood your heart the moment you come to Jesus is for those of your own loved ones that you want to know Christ as their own Savior and their own Lord. Many of you here tonight who have folk who don't know Christ, and you ought to be burdened enough about them to do all you can to get them to Jesus. The Word of God says He simply told them of the Savior. That's what God wants you and I to do. All these truths can be gleaned from this one incident in John chapter 1, beginning with verse 35. But let's think for just a while. What are we going to have to do before we can bring people to Jesus Christ? You know, some folk, Pastor, when you talk about this, they already just mark it off. They say, I can't do it. I hear a lot about it, but I can't do it. I believe anybody can win souls. Anybody can tell folk about Jesus Christ. Anybody. I ran into a fellow who's a member of the Forest Hills Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia, where Dr. Curtis Hudson is the pastor. This man's name is L.D. Harrington. L.D. Harrington can't read or write. He's forty-something years old. He carries a little New Testament, and he pretends that he can read and write when he pulls it from his pocket to read it. He's memorized these verses, Romans 323, Romans 623, and Romans 1013. Those are enough verses to get anybody saved if you'll let God use you and giving them out. And he opens his Bible and reads those verses to people and pretends he's reading them, but he's actually got them memorized. And I heard the man say from his own lips, not braggling, that in one year's time he led over a hundred people to Christ because he let God use him. Anybody can win folk to Jesus. Anybody can bring folks to Christ. Anybody can do it. How? First of all, you and I are going to have to realize the condition of the unsaved. How many times have you heard somebody say, well, so-and-so is such a good fellow, such a nice fellow, got a good heart, a big heart, do anything for anybody in any kind of a need. Well, the truth of the matter is, if a man has never been born again, his problem is his heart. He needs it cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. He needs to be saved. He needs to have a personal experience with Christ. I remember a lady in the lower city where I was pastor for three years. We went into her home to talk to her one day about the Savior. And she was a member of another religious group. She was a sweet lady. A very kind and gracious and courteous lady. As a matter of fact, I'd never met too many people any nicer than she was. And when I asked her if she was a Christian, she said, yes, I am a Christian. I believe there's a God. I go to church regularly. I do all these things. Then I said, ma'am, have you ever personally prayed and asked God to forgive your sins and invited Jesus Christ at heart to be your Savior? She said, I've done that a lot of times. And on and on and on we'd go. I said, have you ever realized that your sins have separated you from God and you're a lost, condemned, hell-bound sinner and you needed Jesus to save you and come and live in your heart to get you to heaven? She said, no, I've never done that. The lady was religious. She even said she was a Christian. She believed there was a God. She believed the Bible was God's Word. She'd even said she had prayed a lot of times to invite the Lord into her heart. But she had never come to the place in her life where she was convicted of her sins and realized she was lost, and personally, personally received Jesus into her heart to save her. Now, folks, this city and every city in America is filled with people who are religious and qualify like that lady qualifies in all those categories, but have never been born again. And before you and I will ever get like we ought to in this matter of winning souls to Jesus, We've got to come to grips with the condition of people who have never been saved. The Bible says anybody that's never really been born again is lost. The Word of God says in Luke chapter 19 and verse 10, For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. What does it mean to be lost? We have boys and girls, scores of boys and girls who come to our Sunday school church, been coming for years before I ever got there. They were coming and they're coming now and I thank God for them. Sometimes we talk to them about being lost and they think it means being lost out in the woods somewhere, being lost maybe in another neighborhood and can't find their way home. What's it mean to be lost? To be separated from God, lost away from God, wandering in darkness with no purpose and no meaning in life. What's it mean to be lost? I think about a lot of kinds of loss. Some people lose their wealth, they lose everything materially they possess in this world. My wife and I came home one Saturday from town when I was pastor in Greenback, Tennessee. And when we arrived at our home, our house had burned and everything we owned in this world was destroyed or damaged by fire. What a loss it was. But it does not compare to the loss of the eternal souls of men. Some people lose their character. You have friends, and so do I, who have given up everything good and godly about their life. They've just sold out to animal-like instincts, and they just live without any kind of decency or reason or morals of any kind. And they don't care what anybody thinks about them. They've lost their self-respect. They've lost everything that's good and godly about their life. But that does not compare to the loss of an eternal soul. Some people lose their mind. I know folk, personal friends of mine, who have lost their mind. They can't think anymore. They've had to go off to institutions for help. But the loss of a mind, as great as it is, doesn't compare with the loss of an eternal soul. If you've never invited Jesus in your heart, if you have loved ones who have never invited Jesus in your heart, the Bible says they're lost away from God. They'll die and go to hell in that lostness and outer darkness for eternity. The Bible says, they're condemned already. The Word of God says in John chapter 3, I want you to hear this. In verse 18, he that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. A preacher once preached on 99 ways to go to hell and only one way to get to heaven. The truth of the matter is, there's only one way to get to heaven, and that's by Jesus Christ. And there's only one reason you're going to hell, because you've never trusted Jesus as your Savior. The Bible says if you've never personally prayed and invited Christ's heart, you can be the most good moral person in this world and still die and go to hell if you've never trusted God's Son as your Savior. As a matter of fact, you can say, I've never broken any law in God's book. All of us have it. You can think you haven't. And still have never invited Jesus in your heart. And the sin of unbelief is the same that will damn your soul and take you to hell. Because the Bible says you're already condemned if you don't know Christ as your Savior. The Word of God says you're under the wrath of God. The Bible says in John 3.36, He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life. And he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. You and I think of the wrath of God, we think of the story of Noah and the old world when an ark was built by the Word of God. Noah followed God's plan, built an ark for the saving of his family. And when the floods came and the ark began to rise and the land was covered with water and people ran to the highest peaks of the mountains and trees, yet the whole world was destroyed by the wrath of God raining from heaven. We think about that kind of wrath. The thing about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis chapter 19, when God said it's time that those two cities be destroyed, and the Bible says that fire and brimstone was rained from heaven, and the cities of the plains, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, were consumed with the wrath of God. This same book teaches anybody that's never invited Jesus in their heart is under the same wrath of Almighty God that we just spoke of, already under God's wrath. The Bible says those who have never trusted Jesus as Savior are perishing. One of the sweetest verses in all the Bible, if not the sweetest and maybe your favorite verse, is John 3, 16. 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. And such a sweet verse it is. The little children learn it so early in the age. But there's one word we've never gotten hold of in that verse. But God so loved the world, how wonderful that is, that He gave His only begotten Son, and how precious that is, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish. There's the word. Should not die and go to hell, but have everlasting life. But if you've never trusted Jesus your Savior, you're perishing. Every day you're perishing on the road to hell. The Bible says those who have never trusted Jesus as their Savior are blind. Blind. I remember as just a boy, my mother remembered so well walking down the streets in Maryville, Tennessee. And men along the street corners with little tin cups in their hands shaking them as the coins would rattle when we walked by, it drew our attention and we'd look to the side to see what they were doing. I can remember asking my mother, who sits in this place tonight, why those men were there begging on the side of the street, and she explained to me they were blind. Physically blind, they could not see, and because of that they couldn't get out and earn a living, work like other men, And so they were stooped there on the street corner with a cup in their hand, begging for somebody to help them. Did you know that people who have never trusted Jesus as Savior are blind spiritually? The Word of God says, as Paul wrote, In 2 Corinthians, under the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, in chapter 4, beginning with verse 3, it says, If our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe, not lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. Why do people sell out to the devil? Why do folk live away from God? Why do people say things they shouldn't say and show such disrespect and dishonor to God Almighty? Why do they do it? Because they're blind and they're groping in darkness. And if they ever see the light of God, they'll have to see it in your life and in mine. People outside of Jesus Christ are dead already. This saying has stirred my heart to think about it. Dead already. A famous preacher preached a sermon called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. And in that sermon he talked about sinners dangling over hell like a spider on a silver cord. And at any moment the cord could break and they'd fall into a flaming hell. The truth of the matter is we're only one heartbeat away from eternity. But one truth I'm afraid we just never have gotten a hold of is that everybody who's never prayed and invited Jesus in their heart as their Savior is already dead. The Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 1, And ye hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Every person you meet on the street, every person you work with in the store, every person you know in the schoolroom, every neighbor you have down the street or across the street or beside, left or right, every person who has never prayed and asked God to save them is already dead, and all they have to do is die and go to hell. They just quit breathing, that's all. They're dead already. Just shortly after I answered a call to preach, my wife and I were living in Forest Hill community in Maryville, Tennessee. My folks know where that's at. We were in a revival meeting in our home church. The evangelist for the meeting was Dr. Anderson Fox from Cincinnati, Ohio, and he was eating supper in our home on this particular night. We heard earlier in the day that three young men from our community had been lost in the foot of the Smoky Mountains on a hunting trip. And while they were there, snow had come to those mountains and they were afraid they'd been caught and trapped in the mountains. While we sat there at the supper table that night, the pastor and the evangelist in our home, the telephone rang. Someone told me they wanted to speak to the pastor. So he came to the phone. They explained to him that those three boys had been found in the Chilli Mountains, a chain of small mountains at the foot of the Smokies. And the boys were being brought to the emergency room of Blount Memorial Hospital. So the pastor knew he had to leave, get there and see the families in the emergency room. He asked Brother Fox to go on and conduct the meeting in the church. And the pastor and I left the home and went to the hospital to be with the families as the boys were being brought in. We arrived, someone on a radio of some sort had called in the hospital and given this information, that two of the boys had already frozen to death, and one of them was still living. We walked in the hospital into certain rooms where they had the families waiting. We walked into one room where the family of one of the boys who was already dead was waiting. As we walked in the room and began to talk to the family, we noticed something wrong. Then the mother said something that sounded strange. She said, I am heartbroken because the two other boys are dead. But I'm thankful my boy is still alive. The pastor and I looked at one another. We wondered if we got the wrong information. We had heard her boy was already dead. So we stepped back in the hall, back to the nurse's desk, and we found out that what we had heard was correct and she was wrong. And I'll never forget as long as I live walking back in that room and looking at that mother in the face and hearing my pastor say to her, Ma'am, the truth is that your son is already dead. Folk, listen. Your friends and your loved ones who don't know Jesus, the truth is they're already dead, a condition of everyone that's never been saved. Secondly, we're going to have to realize God's commanded us to go. You see, there's no alternative. There's no if, and, or but about it. Our heavenly captain has said, Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Some people won't like it. Some people misunderstand it. In Chattanooga, we have some doors in Chattanooga that have on the door no Tennessee Temple students and no Jehovah's Witnesses allowed this house. And I thought, boy, that's almost strange, isn't it? They don't want to hear you. They don't want to talk to you. They don't want to see you. I couldn't tell you the folk my wife could stand to give testimony the same back that we've been to their homes. They said, listen, we've told those people we don't want them back here. They don't understand what we're trying to do. They don't understand they're all the way to hell. We're trying to get them to go to heaven. They don't understand that. And they also don't understand that God's commanded us to go. He's commanded us to go. Jesus said, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of this age. He's with us. He said to go. We're commanded to go. The Word of God says that. Over and over and over again, God says go. As a matter of fact, in Matthew chapter 10 and verse 7, He says, As you go, preach the gospel. The last thing God has to say to us in his book, in Revelation chapter 22 and verse 17, the Bible says, And the Spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say, Come. God's saying, Let those of you who have heard the message of salvation tell others to come to Jesus. God's commanded us to do that. And if we don't warn them, their blood is on our hands. How do you know that? Because the Bible says it is. The Word of God says in the Old Testament, in Ezekiel, listen carefully, Ezekiel chapter 33 and verse 1, in a story, it says, Again, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coast and set him for their watchman, if when he seeeth the sword come upon the land, and he blow the trumpet, and warned the people. Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning, his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned, if the sword come and take away that person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity. But His blood will I require at the watchman's hand." God says that we are watchmen and that the sword of His judgment is about to fall. And we are to warn people and do our best to get them to Jesus. The Apostle Paul wrote that he wished himself a curse for this kinsman in the flesh. Paul said that I would be willing to die and go to hell forever and be separated from God if my kinsmen were saved and I could get them to Jesus. Oh, we're commanded again and again and again to go. One day, Jesus stood before His disciples and told them to go. And they went and told somebody else. And when they got saved, they told somebody else. And they got saved, they told somebody else. And they got saved, they told somebody else. And they got saved, they told somebody else. And after hundreds of years, the message came down to the ages. And somebody got saved and they told me. And if I don't tell others, others just won't hear. We're commanded to go. When I was pastor in Greenback, I visited the hospital one day to see a man who wasn't a member of our church, but was in the hospital. His name was Sam McIntyre. I walked in the room where Sam was at, and I walked to the window, passed one bed to his bed, and I said, Sam, how are you doing? Fine, Preacher, fine. Talked with him a moment, asked if we could have a prayer. And before I could pray, he said, listen, Preacher, I want you to go around the other side of the bed and meet my friend over there. He's about to go to surgery, and I think he'd enjoy you having a prayer with him, too, before he gets operated on. So I stepped to the man's bed. When I walked to the bed, the Holy Spirit of God pressed upon my heart to talk to that man about Jesus and how to be saved. And I told the Lord in my own heart, I said, Lord, I will as soon as He comes back from surgery. I don't want to upset Him emotionally or anything like that. And I knew He was nervous about His surgery, so I excused myself and went, God, You command me to do. I said to the man before we prayed, I said, listen, now when you get back from surgery and get feeling better, I want to come by and talk to you about Christ and how to know the Lord is your Savior. He acted like that pleased him an awful lot. So we prayed together and I left the room. And for some reason, I don't know exactly why, but I came back to the hospital the same day and walked back in the same room. I walked to Sam's bed later that day and I said, Sam, I just want to drop back by. I had your roommate on my heart. I noticed he was not back from surgery. And Sam didn't say a word. He slowly lifted his head and he said, Preacher, he died on the operating table. Pastor, I know as sure as I stand here tonight, when I stand before Jesus Christ in judgment seat, the blood of that man will be on my hands because God said to me, warn him, tell him how to be saved. And I said, no, Lord, I'll do it later. And I wonder, sitting in this congregation tonight, how many of you have friends and fellows who work with you, ladies who come to your house and they're slipping through your hands into a devil's hell? I wonder. Folk, we're commanded to tell people about Jesus. Thirdly, if we're going to bring people to Jesus, we need to see the compassion that we ought to have. I quit talking about getting compassion in a church house, Brother Riley, because nobody ever gets compassion for lost souls in a church building. Now, to listen to some of these stories, and God takes them and uses them, or something I might say tonight, through the influence of the Holy Spirit of God, might some way, somehow, be use of God to touch your heart and stir you for a moment. You may even come to the place where you say, well, I'm going to do my best to get people to Jesus, but you'll never have the compassion you ought to have just from a service like this. You see, you never get burdened for people and for their salvation until you go and see the awful mess that people live in and how desperately they do need Jesus as their Savior. So often as I walk down the streets in Chattanooga and see little blond-headed, green-eyed boys, I see myself years ago on that same street. And I see maybe a little boy could get saved and someday be a bus director in a church, or maybe even take a vacation to a city in Florida and be asked to preach in a church. Maybe I see a little girl there, and maybe I think of that little girl, brown-headed and brown-eyed, who grew up someday and marry a preacher and be an influence and a source of good and godliness to him like my wife is to me. I see little black boys and girls, and we try to get the gospel to everybody, by the way. And I think of people that I've read about, like old John Jasper, the great preacher, black preacher of old. I see maybe one of those little boys or girls somewhere, maybe even on a distant shore, standing to tell people how to get to heaven. And I'm burdened as I go, and my heart bleeds as I go, and I seem to get compassion as I go, but not until I do go. And I believe that's how you have to get it as you're going. So the commitment needs to be, Lord, help me to go, help me to go, and as I go, I know You'll touch my heart and my heart will bleed for people. The Bible says one day Jesus stood in Luke chapter 19 and verse 41 and looked over the city of Jerusalem and wept over it because He saw people lonely, headlong, going to hell when He was there to save them, but they wouldn't trust Him. And I wonder how many people can think about Fort Myers, Florida, Think about family members. Think about maybe somebody in a northern city who is on their knees tonight in a church when an invitation has been given and they are praying, Oh dear God, send somebody from some church somewhere in the city of Fort Myers, Florida to a certain street and a certain house number and tell my son or tell my daughter or tell my mother or tell my dad or tell somebody that God loves them and wants to get them saved. Tell them about it. And somehow the Holy Spirit of God will move upon your heart and send you out there where the need is. But you'll have to care about folk and you'll have to love Jesus before you'll go. I wonder sometimes who really cares. We could go to heaven and say, Lord, does anybody in heaven care? The Lord would say, haven't you read my word that there's rejoicing and joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth? And you'd say, well, God, my Father, do you care? And He'd say, you know I care. I gave my son to die for you. You and I could say, Jesus, my Savior, do you care? And Jesus would say, you know I care. See the prints of the nails in my hands and feet and the sore scar on my side? You know I care. And you could say to God the Holy Spirit, do you care? And He'd say to us, do you not know how I am covering this earth, knocking at the hearts of men, pleading with them to come to Jesus? And you and I could go to the depths of hell tonight and say, does anybody in hell care? And they'd say, haven't you read in God's book that we regret any time anybody ever comes to this awful place of hell? And you and I could scan this earth and say, does anybody on earth care? I believe when we ask that question, then there'd be moments of silence as you and I search our hearts and ask, Oh God, do we really care? Do we really care? Do we really care? Do we really care? Years ago when we were just boys, my brothers here tonight, you remember this so well. We were walking down the street in Maryville, Tennessee. We met a boy. His name was Chester. There's his picture. And as we walked down the street and met him, blue-eyed, blond-headed, Tom and I asked him where he lived, and he told us he really didn't have a home. He just lived with anybody to keep him for a while, and so we invited him to come home with us. He looked like a nice fellow, and we wanted him to stay with us a while. Well, he came home with us that day, and he never left. When my folks moved to Florida, Chester came with them. to Fort Myers, really, to keep Coral, and then into North Fort Myers. I stayed in Tennessee. Got married. God called me to preach. I went to school and passed at church, and I'm still there. A number of years after they were down here, I got a phone call from my brother Tommy one day that Chester was in Lee Memorial Hospital, sick, bad sick. They didn't know whether he'd live or die. My mother was on the first floor of that hospital, Chester, who we now call our brother, was on the third floor in the intensive care. And I'm sure you've traveled down that hall many times. So I didn't know what to do. I didn't know whether to come to Florida or not. I just didn't know. So I prayed yonder in Greenback, Tennessee. My wife and I got on our knees and we said, Oh God, we don't know anybody in Florida. We don't know anybody that knows a church or something like that in Florida. We don't know much about it. And if you want me to go down there to see Chester in that hospital, I want you to let us know. Maybe my folks don't know this day. I don't know if I told them or not, but a lady in our church called, didn't know any of the details about what I just said, and said, Pastor, I just got it on my heart to give you the money to fly to Florida so you could see your mother. God answered our prayer like that. I called and got an A reservation flight, Delta Airlines, Florida, and I'll never forget arriving here and walking to the hospital, going up to the third floor and trying to get in to see Chester, and they wouldn't let me in. My family remembers so well out there in the waiting room. Pop, you remember how it was? Everybody remembers. All that night we couldn't get in. The next day I was there, that evening, they let me in. I'll never forget walking down that hall to the last bed in that room. There he lay, 23 years old, stretched out on the bed, stripped of his clothing from the waist up with two big brown places on either side of his chest. And I realized I'd given him an electric shock. His heart had quit beating. And to get his heart functioning again, they'd shocked his body. Those burned places were there as I walked to his bedside. Tubes in his nose and his side. The doctor said he was critical. He could go like that. And he asked me not to say anything. that might upset him. I'd come a long way, hundreds of miles, and I'd made up my mind, if God let me see him, I was going to talk to him about being saved, because I knew he wasn't a Christian. Good boy. Oh, how we loved him. So I walked to his bedside. He and I alone were there that night. And I said to him, folks, I said, Chester, do you want me to tell you about the Lord? That's the first thing I said to him. He opened those pretty blue eyes and looked into my face and he said, a nickname they called me, Sec, S-E-C. He said, that's why I wanted you to come. And I said, Chester, will you pray and ask God to save you right here? And he said, you mean here? And I said, it's the only place we've got to pray. And I got alongside his bed and prayed, Dear Lord, save us, boy, this night. His friends don't understand, but he needs to get saved. right here tonight. And he prayed. When I was through praying, I looked into his face and tears broke out on his cheeks. I said, Chester, have you asked God to forgive you and save you? He said, yes, I have. I turned to leave his side and he called me back to the bed. He looked up into my face and he said to me, when I get out of here, I'm going to live for my Lord. I left the room that night and went home. where my folks live now, set the alarm clock to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning. Around 12, 12.30 at night, the telephone rang. I picked up the phone, and the voice on the other end of the line said to me, Chester just died. We had his funeral over here, Tant Funeral Home, is that the name of it? His body lays now in Coal Ridge Cemetery on the road to Pine Island. What I'm trying to tell you tonight is this. There are people in this city and all over this world who may seem at times like everything is going fine, but what they need in their heart is Jesus. And they'll never see Jesus in peace and spend eternity with Him until they trust Him as their Savior, and they'll never know Him as their Savior until folks like you tell them how. Let's pray together. I hope now that you listen to this message and you know something about the story. But if you do not know the Lord Jesus as your personal savior, you'll trust him as your savior now. And if you're one of those Christians like myself, greatly burdened for your own family, perhaps the Lord will use this. to help you reach them with the gospel message. My brother is here with me today, and I'm so grateful to God for what the Lord has done in his life. I want him to lead us in a prayer. And if you're without Christ as your Savior, he's going to talk to you right now about what God has done for him and how you can pray and trust the Lord Jesus as your Savior. Tommy, God bless you. That night when I heard the message, my heart was so empty. I tried so much in this world to fill that emptiness, but it didn't work. That night, I made a decision to change my life. I received Christ as my Savior. And the Bible says that He's willing to save anybody that will ask Him. We have to acknowledge we're a sinner. We have to believe that Jesus died for us. And by faith, we must receive Him. Right where you are, you can pray and receive Christ as your Savior. You can pray this prayer, Lord, I know that I'm a sinner. I want you to forgive me, come into my heart and save me, and help me to live for you and be a good Christian in Jesus' name. Amen. I hope you've prayed that prayer if you don't know the Lord Jesus as your Savior. I hope you've asked God to forgive your sin and trust it in the only payment that can satisfy the holiness of God for your sin debt. That's the blood of Jesus Christ. And may God bless and use you. And if you're a Christian and you're listening to this, I pray the Lord will stir your heart to seek the lost while we have time to bring them to Jesus Christ. And now may God bless you as you think about the Lord Jesus Christ as we look to Him and our choir sings this beautiful song. May all the wonders of the future of our land Oh, God forgives us. Keep your eyes upon the Lord. Look on the unbelief. Oh, God forgives us. Oh, God forgives us. Oh, God forgives us.