Morning. Let me introduce myself to you. My name is George Jones. I'm the assistant director of the Baltimore Rescue Mission and Lord willing, January 1st, 2024, I will take over as the executive director. And it is an honor to be with you today, but it's an honor to serve Jesus. We sang at him a few minutes ago, my Jesus, I love thee. My start date at the Baltimore Rescue Mission was August 1st, 2022. And I sat in Brother Chuck's office that morning and he looked me right in the eye and told me about Miss Jana's grandfather, a man named Arthur Jennings Long. It was Arthur Jennings Long who started taking Brother Chuck to the rescue mission. And he'd look him in the eye and ask him his question. Brother, do you love him? Pricked me right to my heart. Right then and there. You know, when we sing the words to these hymns, and I love the old hymns. So doctrinal. But do you mean it? Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. Man, I haven't forgot that since day one. I want to tell you a little bit about myself, but I will ask you this question. Do you love him? Do you love him this morning? I was saved at the age of nine at Patterson Park Baptist Church. I actually grew up about 10 blocks from the Baltimore Rescue Mission. And God would have a way. I'd leave that neighborhood and eventually bring me back there. About 20 years ago, he'd bring me down there as an answer to prayer to serve. I preached my very first official message behind a pulpit down there. when I surrendered to the call to preach. And then I was asked to serve on the board of directors. And I'll never forget, it was after a March board meeting of 2022. Brother Chuck would call me the next day and I'm like, he says, I need to talk to you. I'm thinking, uh-oh, what did I do? Was he gonna fire me? He says, I need to meet with you. So we picked a Thursday morning, or really, right at noon, a good Christian spot, Mission Barbecue. And believe me, my nerves are going the whole time. And he said, would you come on board as the next executive director? My knees are knocking, tears are falling down my cheeks, and I told him what any good Christian would say, I gotta pray about it. I immediately, after that meeting, contacted five pastors, including mine, and one retired preacher. I sought prayer. I sought godly counsel. I wanted to make sure it was God. You see, I'd been in the ministry for over 20 years by vocational. And I tell you, when God calls you into something, there's no such thing as part time. He just allows you to do the other things. You serve with your whole heart. And I was running the, at that time, I was running all the outreach ministries of our church. I was teaching Sunday school, running the Iwana program, junior church, and pulpit supply, and still working a full-time job. And I'll never forget. Luke chapter nine, verse 62. The Lord laid this verse on my heart. No man, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom." Wasn't time to look back. It's time to move forward. So I told Brother Chuck after a week, and I mean, I prayed and fasted. I had my answer from God. I said, I'll do it. I'll start August 1st. I wanted to get some affairs in order. I wanted to sell my house, you know. I wanted to go in coming in completely debt-free, owing no man nothing. I didn't want any distractions in the ministry. And I told my wife, and my wife doesn't travel with me. She gets injections in her back. I'm always putting these lidocaine patches on her. She's always on a heat pad. She's had a couple of hip surgeries, even though they haven't replaced them. And she's older than I am, so when I call her my old lady, I'm not lying. She broke down in tears. She knew where my heart was. And I did my family vacation with my family right before I started. I had turned in my notice, given my employer almost four months to get somebody in there for me to train. And they begged me not to go. I mean, they offered me all this money. No, I'm leaving. Went on a family vacation to Myrtle Beach with my wife, my children. All my children are grown, but they like to go with us because we like to camp. Or should I call it glamping? I've got a big fifth wheel camper. So we went to Myrtle Beach. I was sitting on the beach one morning watching the sunrise. I love to do that, go down there with a cup of coffee, Make Psalm 19 come to life and the heavens declare the glory of God and affirm and show it this handiwork. God spoke to my heart. You're not going there to replace the man of God. You're going there to build upon. And then when I got back from vacation that Saturday, that Monday morning I started, I haven't looked back. This morning during the Sunday school hour, Brother Chuck talked about Isaiah 58, a verse that Riley Holt shared with him. And the Lord laid a verse on my heart to be my theme. And that verse is Hebrews chapter 12, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Knowing that if I take my eyes off of him, I'll fail. My goal is to serve Christ. And I get to serve him every day. I love those men who come through the doors. I've been trying, it's been a year now, and I've been trying to get to know everyone. It's easy to say, you need to do this, this, and that. But can I tell you, they don't trust a lot of people. You have to earn their trust. When they find out I grew up in that neighborhood, I went to some of the same schools as some of them, they go, you've been there. And you build up a rapport and come on a first name basis with some of them. And I love the fact that I get to serve Christ every day. And that's what we are, we're servants. We're on the front lines down there. There's a spiritual warfare. Yes, we have the physical needs, but there are the spiritual needs. And I ask that you pray for us, and I know you don't, but I mean earnestly pray for us. Well, that's some of the brief history If you got your Bibles, open up your Bibles this morning to the Book of Romans, chapter number six. Now, I'll kind of go through the whole chapter, but I'm only gonna start off with one verse. And that verse is verse number 23. And it says, for all have sinned, or excuse me, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Can we pray? Heavenly Father, just help us for the next couple of minutes to glean from your word. Lord, speak to hearts and souls. Minister as only you can do. Pour out your Holy Spirit this morning and stir us to be servants for you. We give you praise, honor, and glory that you alone deserve, in Jesus' name, amen. In your bulletin, it says, the title of the message is Sin's Last Laugh. That was my error. It should have been a question mark after it. Couple weeks ago, I was on my way home from Myrtle Beach, got three miles from home. I'm on I-95 North, and if you know Maryland drivers, they cannot drive. They will test you. They will test your spirituality. They will make you get in the flesh. That's why you don't see no crosses on the back of my pickup truck or no bumper stickers. 9.30 at night on a Saturday night, I'd just driven back from Myrtle Beach, hit a bump in that construction zone, nowhere to pull off with that fifth wheel, and broke both leaf springs on that rear axle broke. and locked up that camper. Oh, man, that close to home. So state police come, they called a tow truck, and not much he can do. Him and I laid under that thing for about three and a half hours, jacking it up, pulling the wheels off, chaining up that axle just to get it off the road. I got it off, and early next morning I called my pastor, can I bring it up to the church parking lot, you know, a safe place to work on it? and fix it? He says, sure. So I get it up there, and two Saturdays ago, I'm underneath it. I can't afford to pay anybody to do the work, but the Lord has blessed me with common sense, something that's uncommon in this day and age, and I can figure out pretty much how anything works. I'm not saying I can fix it. I can figure it out, though. And I'm replacing those leaf springs. I went ahead and did brakes, wheel bearings, everything else. The Lord started speaking to my heart. About cancer. About cancer. I'm sure everybody in this sanctuary has known someone with cancer, dealt with someone with cancer, or maybe even had it yourself. It's deadly. Once diagnosed, there are only a few options left and hope to live for yet another day. Sadly, just when we think we have it defeated, it comes back more aggressive, only to claim another life, only to have its last laugh on those who thought they had whipped it. I know this personally. My mother, she had ovarian cancer. She went through the chemotherapy and everything, and they said it's in remission. They said, we can't find nothing anywhere. And we prayed, and we prayed. About four months later, it came back so aggressive and took her quickly. Sadly, in our society, sin is the same way. So many think that they have a grip on it, They can defeat it. Did you know that this year, approximately 10 million people worldwide will die of cancer? Here in America alone, about 610,000 people will die of cancer this year. Almost 2 million will be diagnosed with cancer this year. It says here, one out of every two people carry cancer cells in their blood. And when it's somebody we know, we care, and we say, especially if it's a child. My daughter works with a young lady. Her daughter is 15 and was just diagnosed with stage four cancer, and she's at Johns Hopkins, and they got the port in. She went for her first treatment, and the port came out, and she leaked out over a quart of blood. And they had to give her transfusions. And the mother, I wish I could take her place. You know, in Romans chapter 9, Paul wished that he could take the Jews' place, that he could give up his own salvation to see them saved. And how many of us would not give up our life to see one of our loved ones to be able to live? Sadly, why don't we feel that way about sin? People are dying and going to hell all around us from sin. I said one out of every two people carry a cancer cell. Well, can I tell you, one out of every one carry a sin cell. Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Why don't we care for them? Many of us know people in our own households or family members who are lost and going to hell. And so just like cancer, and I tell you, sin must be diagnosed. I'm going to say this right off the bat. A new old country preacher, he used to say this. You've got to get them lost before you get them found. You see, a lot of people don't realize they're sinners. They've been steeped in it so long. And that's what we deal with at the rescue mission every day. People who are thinking they're okay. but it takes people with a heart for the lost to minister them and to show them the diagnosis. Most cancer patients, they don't self-diagnose. They just know something's not wrong. They go to a doctor, usually their primary care, and they'll look at them and maybe take some blood samples and then refer them to a specialist, an oncologist. A sinner's got to know he's a sinner. And so the first thing I want to look at is diagnosing the disease. When we diagnose things, we're not judging them. But Jesus said, ye shall know them by their fruits. There is a way that our lifestyle projects that shows whether we're saved or not. And the method of diagnosis that we use at the Baltimore Rescue Mission is none other than the word of God. Look with me at Hebrews chapter 4 and verse number 12. And I will come back to Romans chapter 6. Hebrews 4, 12 says this, for the word of God is quick and powerful. That word quick means alive or living. and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit and the joints and the marrow, and as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. We use the word of God. We're not about a denomination. We're not about our ideas. We're all about the Word of God. Faith Bible Church, I love the fact that you have Bible in your name. And I hope that this is your sole authority. This is what you hold to. You see, it's the Word of God that we preach and that we teach. And it is our method of diagnosing sin problem. So much so that this word goes to the depth of diagnosis, the joints in the marrow. When the Word of God is preached, it will prick your heart and go right to your core. And so much to the depth that it revealed the detail of the diagnosis. The detail is this, the thought and the intents of the heart. You see, when we preach the word of God, it's not that we're convicting you of sin. Matter of fact, I don't know any of your sin. But I've preached messages from the Word of God straight out of the Bible. Did somebody tell you what I did? No. That's the Word of God bringing conviction upon your heart. We don't know what those men did. We don't know what they're going through. But God does. And it's through His Word that the diagnosis takes place. And it goes through the depth. And the diagnosing always begins with the word of God. Yes, we're there to meet their physical needs. If they need clothes, we give them clothes. We give them food. But we're there for their spiritual needs. We're there to introduce them to a savior. So much we give them the word because we know the word of God will accomplish its task. Isaiah 55, 11 says, so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing where to I sent it. That word of God is what we cling to down there. We cling to it so much that on the rafters behind the pulpit, it says, preach the word, preach Christ, preach the gospel. You see, we want to cure them, but unless they know that they're a sinner, they're never going to come to the Savior. And for some of them, sin gets its last laugh on them. And so in diagnosing the disease, just like with cancer, we have to dispel the myths. There are some myths about salvation and how to deal with sin. Some will tell you, just be a good person, and I hope my good outweighs my bad. Or the myth that I'm all right, I'll be okay, I can handle this myself. But 1 John 1.8 says, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And we have to dispel the myth. You are a sinner in need of a savior. And you can't handle it by yourself. Proverbs 20 verse 24 says, man's goings are of the Lord. How can a man then understand his own way? You know why we can't understand it our way? Because Jeremiah 17, 9 says, for the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? You ever hear people try to give you advice and say, just follow your heart? Just follow your heart? Well, if your heart is not a heart after Jesus, you're going to be in trouble. And that's what got a lot of the men in trouble down there. They followed their heart, did what they want to do. They did it their way. And sin gets the last laugh on them. You see, we are on the front lines. We are the last resort. We are on the forefront of the battlefield, giving them the gospel. It may be the only chance they ever get to hear the word of God, excuse me, and get born again. And we have a passion for souls. I see where your church went out and did some evangelism, and you have the Way of the Master program. There's people dying all around Elkridge right here. And if we idly sit by and say, that doesn't apply to me. You see, the problem is a lot of people don't want to come into Baltimore City because of the crime. It was just rated the 17th deadliest city in the world, not the United States, the world. I was talking with your pastor before the service and we were talking, I'm talking about how South Korea is now the number one sending country of missionaries in the world. And how, isn't it something that here in the United States, what we need is missionaries. to our inner cities, and to our lost. We can't idly just sit by and let this cancer of sin run rampant on the society. We have to deal with it head on, and that is with the word of God. One of the things, as a preacher, I've preached many funerals. I've preached some of those who have succumbed to cancer. And you'll hear people in comfort and consolation. They're not in pain anymore. They're in a better place. But are they? If they didn't know the Lord Jesus Christ, look at the rich man who lifted up his eyes and held, being in torment in Luke chapter 16. That's what we're trying to do, not let sin have its last laugh on them. But not only do we dispel the myths, we direct the course of treatment. The treatment is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Revelation 1.5 says this. and from Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. You know what that washing is? It's cleansing. When we show them that they're a sinner in need of a savior and that Jesus is the only way Have you ever led someone to Christ and they were truly repentant of their sins and trusted Christ and you see the tears rolling down their face, crying? I feel like a heavy load has just been lifted off of me. It's because Christ washed away all their sins and took that burden from them. Back in Romans 6, verse 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God. And that's what we're trying to show them, the gift of God, that by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We can't save them, but we can direct them to the one who can. You see, in Romans chapter 6, matter of fact, the book of Romans, if you've ever studied it, it's pretty much about this, salvation, sanctification, and service. Beginning with chapter one, Paul starts exposing with sin. But the first thing he makes sure people know of, he's not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And then he starts exposing sin. And then he shows justification by faith. He shows how by one man, sin entered into the world, and that we're all sinners. But then he shows us how there was a God that loved us in Romans 5, 8, but God commended his love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And then he shows us in chapter 6 that the wages of sin is death, but there's a gift. And if we will repent of our sins, Acts 16, 31, believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved. But Paul makes it clear further on in Romans chapter nine that that belief is not with the head. You see, we get a lot of men who come through the doors, they have a head knowledge of Jesus, but they never have him here. Romans 10, 9 and 10 says this, for if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. All that heart. And see what Paul deals with in chapter six is sanctification. Talking about a blood transfusion, how we must die to self. You must be born again. Let me just go over a couple of verses. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid, how shall we live that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? We are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life. For if we've been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. We got to remember that, that once we are saved, once we give those men the gospel and they get saved, they're not to be the servants of sin anymore. I've seen so many people riding around with bumper stickers and advertisements with a four-letter explicative that says something cancer. And yet that cancer gets the last laugh. And that's why the title of my message is Sin's Last Laugh, question mark. Will it get the last laugh on you? If you've been born again, it won't. Verse seven, for he that is dead is freed from sin. Isn't it wonderful to know? You don't have to be that way anymore. And we get men who come through our doors and women who are saved, but they've never been discipled. And we're there for that. If they have been saved, we want to disciple them. We don't want to turn them over to the world. We want them to see that we're to be Christ-like, conformed to the image of Christ, that there's been a transformation in our hearts, and it's real. And we want to display the fruits of the Spirit, not the works of the flesh. Verse number 12, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it and the lust thereof. Verse 14, for sin shall not have dominion over you. You're not under the law, but under grace. Look at verse 17, but God be thanked that ye were, past tense, the servants of sin. You see, and that's what our goal is. We want these men and women to get saved so that they can say, we were. I'm not that way anymore. And they don't become a casualty and sin have the last laugh on them. Not only is there directing the course of treatment, the blood of Jesus, his death, burial, and resurrection, there's defeating the disease. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 is the victory chapter in the Bible. How many of you know that song, Victory in Jesus? That's who it's in. It's about Christ's victory. It's about heeding to the course, finishing the race. Look with me at 1 Corinthians 15. Verse 55, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. The strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. You see? This is where we want to get them to at the Baltimore Rescue Mission. We want them to have victory over that sin. We don't want sin to have the last laugh on them. We want them to have the last laugh on sin, saying, look what Jesus did for me. I'm not that way anymore. Paul called himself the chiefest among sinners. You know why you could say that? Because he didn't meet me. But in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 through 11, at the end of that, he said, when he goes through that whole list of sin, he says, and such were some of you. Turn with me real quick over to chapter 6, and I'll be done. Beginning with verse nine. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. Look at this. And such were some of you. But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified. in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. Let me ask you this morning, I'm finished. I don't know you. I'm looking forward to getting to know you. I really am. Will sin have its last laugh on you or will you have the last laugh on sin? Not everybody that sits in a church pew or goes to church is going to heaven. I said it's with the heart. Man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. In verse 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I can't save you. I couldn't save myself. None of those men and women who come through our doors can save themselves. But you know what? We can introduce them to the one who can. We can direct their course. We can help them with their disease. And it's all through the word of God. You know why? Because the written word of God shows the living word of God, which is Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins. I'll finish with this, as I ask the pastor to come on up. Do you love him this morning? Do you love him enough to trust him with your life? Do you love him enough to call on the Savior if you're not saved? Maybe you got family members who aren't saved. Do you love him enough to call on him to save them? He will.