I would say it's a tremendous blessing to have a pastor who is so passionate about the Lord, amen? A pastor who genuinely cares for the people, amen? It's not just a job to this pastor. You can tell, you can sense, you can hear it in his prayers. He's not praying for the likes. He's praying because he has a conversation and a relationship with Almighty God. You can tell that this man sacrificially spends time in prayer for your souls watching daily. And I'm telling you, it is a joy, it's a pleasure to have a pastor like that. Amen, amen. I think that's the way God's house ought to be. It ought to be with a man of God, a man who genuinely loves the Lord, a man who genuinely loves people and desires to see them saved, a man who is a serious soul winner, a man who is faithful who knows that he's a sinner and that he falls short of the glory of God daily, but a man who then turns around and weep and repent because he want to do right by God and he want to do right by the people of God. That is a genuine gift from God to this establishment, this local New Testament church. Not every place with a steeple have a man like that. Not every place that calls themselves a church, not every Baptist building, not every Pentecostal place have a man of God like that where you can count on him to be there for you in the midst of your hard times. Well, it is a joy and a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Pastor, for sharing your pulpit with me this morning. And so I'm here with my wife and our seven children. And with the time that we have, I'll share my testimony with you all and just who we are, what we're here doing, and so forth. So our family is from, I'm from Chicago originally. I grew up in Chicago. I grew up at, Grew up in a street life. My mom and dad both was a part of starting an organization, which is a gang. And so I was raised that way in Chicago. I was raised stealing. I was raised lying. I was raised manipulating. I was raised throwing up gang signs. And it was expected of our siblings to live that way. My mom oftentimes would have us go and attack people you know, she would tell us to sick them like we was dogs. And we didn't ever find nothing wrong with that. We used to have family brawls. But that was a little bit of how I was raised in my mom's house. And I was a part of that family system from Chicago, the African-American family that lived in the projects, the families that was dependent upon the government for their income. And my mom, was dependent upon the government for her income. I used to get upset with my mom about this. But then when you really look at how life was for a single black mom in Chicago, Illinois, during the 60s, 70s, 80s, and you really take a look. Still, racism was at an all-time high. Prejudiceness amongst the workplaces was still there. It wasn't easy for her to get a job. You had crooked cops during that time. You had the mafia during that time. You had many other gangs and street organizations during that time. And so it wasn't just an easy life. for my mother. And as much as I used to get upset with how she raised me, I have to stop and take a look at what her life was like, and I have to be understanding to her life as well, and her path of life. But she depended on the welfare for our income. We got the food stamps before it was an EBT card. We had the actual food stamp. cash, and I remember that to this day. But one of the other ways my mom made an income for her four children was she had each and every one of us on SSI. And in order to get on SSI, you had to manipulate the government. You had to have either mental health problems or you had to have learning disabilities. And my mom had us pretending to have both. We pretended to have mental health problems. We would go in the doctor's office and we would act a fool. And we would act like we ain't got no sense at all. And my mom would encourage it. She would say, before we get in this doctor's office now, the new Nintendo was coming out, not the Sega, but the Nintendo, and I know you want that Nintendo, but you better get in here, and you better act a fool. And I would go in there acting all crazy, slapping things, spitting on a doctor, you know, all type of manner of wickedness. But then she also had me pretending to have learning disabilities. And so for the majority of my schooling, I grew up in LCD classes, lower educational classes, LE, I don't know what it meant now, but that just right there, that's a symptom of my LCD learning right there. No, but I grew up in LCD classes and And perhaps when I was young, I really didn't have a learning disability. But the more and more I was subjected to pretending to not be able to understand and not learn, eventually, as an adult, I really did have learning disabilities. As an adult, I really did struggle to read and struggle to spell and don't know history. And I mean, just common things that my children all know to this day, I'm learning from them. I didn't understand. And that was a direct result of the way my mom chose to live and have us live so that she could have an income. And I'm fairly confident that it wasn't just the black community and just in Chicago. I'm pretty sure this was something that was widespread amongst the nation of America and amongst American people. And, um... And so with that being the lifestyle that we lived, it was expected of me to behave bad and to not be smart. And so by the time I turned in 10th grade, I was already getting arrested, brought a gun to school, and got caught with that. And I thank the Lord that in fifth grade, I didn't do something so heinous and dangerous that I lost my life. I remember many years ago when I was a young kid, there was a black kid in Chicago who was wrestling with his sister. He put her in a move. He was only 10 years old, and he accidentally killed her. And they eventually sent him to adult prison for that crime. I just thank the Lord that in fifth grade that I didn't end up doing something so wrong that I don't have a life out here. So, this was our lifestyle as we lived in Chicago up until we got kicked out of Chicago by our organization. At the time, my mother started dating a man who was from a different neighborhood. He was from Caprini Green area. And he had moved over to our side of the town, and he did something that was an invalidation, and they gave him 48 hours to get out of town or else. And we was, and I tell you, I kid you not, this was the lifestyle we lived. We was packed up and moved without all of our belongings immediately. It was a serious threat to his life. And we moved to Minnesota. while I was at the age of about 13 years old, where I ended up eventually going to a church service because they had Snickers and tater chips and all that stuff. And so let me just say this. I thank the Lord for churches who suffered the little children to come unto them. I thank the Lord. I thank the Lord for churches that have vans and run bus routes and go into them rowdy communities and pick up those little, those baby kids. I thank the Lord for churches like that. I thank the Lord for churches that knows that oftentimes it takes incentives to get the kids in the house of God. And if I'm accurate in this, Pastor, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Bible said, Jesus said, compel them to come under my house that it may be full. So I think there's nothing wrong with using Snickers and chips and all of that good stuff. I oftentimes will use money to get kids to come up in the house of God. I don't mind giving out some dollars for somebody to get saved, amen? It's worth it, amen. So I ended up going to a church service where I met my lovely wife when I was about 14 years old. I met her and she was 12 years old at the time. Her mom had gotten saved out of a rough lifestyle. Her mom is Native American, grew up on a rez. She had that full-fledged reservation lifestyle, and her mom was fairly fast and runaway as a teenager, pre-teens, and lifestyle like that. She got saved and was on fire for God. And her dad, trying to slow her mom down, took her to church. And when she got saved, she started dragging him to church. And so I thank the Lord for my mother-in-law. But my wife's dad was a deacon, and he served in the church. Her mom served in the church. As she would tell you, she was a drug baby. She was drugged to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday. She had no choice in it. She was there, just like my kids. Amen? the same medicine she got, they getting. I thank the Lord for that. And so she grew up in a church. And we met at that time. Her mom was driving the van. And one day, due to my poor behavior at church, I eventually got kicked out of the church. I was pretty much just in rebellion. Smoking, fighting, anything I can do, I was just doing it at the church. And I'll just tell you this, don't give up because kids behave that way. There are kids with a very immature mind. I think the Lord that someone didn't give up on me. Eventually, I heard the gospel and so don't give up. And plus, all of that investment bared fruit much later. And so you never know when you will bear fruit from planting seeds and watering with the word of God. And so I, uh, ended up getting kicked out of the church. And when I started rebelling, my mother would have me go to, she would take me to the hospital and she would have me admitted into the psych ward as a tool to discipline me. After all, she had all those years of history of me having mental health problems when she had me acting a fool in a doctor's office. And so it was easy for her to tell them that I was manic-depressed or schizophrenic and I was having an episode when I was in rebellion against her and had me checked into a psych ward for a 30-day evaluation. And I'll tell you this, being in the psych ward was the worst places I've ever been in my life. I absolutely hated it. I couldn't understand as a 13 year old young man how they had the ability to physically force me down and put me, you know, take my clothes and put me in this little banana suit or or forced me to take medication that would have poor negative results on my body. But it did, and that happened. And I'll tell you this, I'd rather have been at my mama house getting whooped and beat than to be at the psych war. And so I thank the Lord for parents who know how to discipline their children. And so that was, I found out that I could go to juvenile or the psych ward. And my choices were juvenile or psych ward. And so what I chose to do was I chose to commit crimes and just go to juvenile. When I noticed the time was upon me for my mom to send me to a psych ward, I would commit crimes. And I would just go to juvenile facilities. At least there, they didn't do all the other stuff that was happening at the psych ward because you was mentally ill, allegedly. And so I started getting locked up and I would go on from 13 to spend just about over 13 years of my life locked up in jail, prisons, and mental institutions. When I was 18 years old, I got out of juvenile on my 18th birthday, which was June 26. About a month later, I was locked up again for first degree aggravated robbery, first degree kidnapping, first degree assault with a deadly weapon, where I took a man and took him to a bank. and robbed him. And let me tell you, I could have been on the world's most dumbest criminals. I promise you I could have been just a young boy who really was foolish and didn't know what I was doing. And so I got arrested about a month after my birthday or so. They sentenced me to six months in a workhouse. 36 months over my head, which meant if I messed up again, I'll go to prison for 36 months. And they gave me 20 years of probation. And I went off to the workhouse for about six months. And when I got out, January the 20th, I was arrested again, February the 17th, this time for a much more violent crime of assault with a deadly weapon. let me see, felon in possession of a firearm. And so I end up shooting somebody when I had got out. And I think the Lord, the man did not die. He's still alive. God preserved me during that time. But now I was on my way to prison. And at 18 years old, going into prison, They call it a correctional facility, but really it's a training ground. And so I went off to my training ground and I got deeper and deeper and deeper into this lifestyle, into this pit. It's funny to me that From 13, if I would have had some people that really loved on me and took care of me the right way, I probably wouldn't have ended up in that pit at 18. But I went from being this impressionable young man who was extremely gullible, all the way up to being now a criminal in the eyes of the courts and unredeemable, to now going to prison and what I did not really know how to do, I learned how to do in there. And so I went off to prison, and I just got more violent and spent more time fighting, got into riots. Eventually, I ended up from St. Cloud Prison, which is intake to Oak Park Heights, maximum security, where I would go and spend three years and four months of my life in solitary confinement. And during that time, I literally almost broke. You know, I almost gave up on life altogether. But then, While I was in Oak Park, in the solitary, I would spend my time imagining when I came home from prison what I would do. I would spend all of this time imagining all the crimes I would commit and how I was going to get rich. and all of these things. But I would also think about people from my past. It wasn't that many people, because my life was in and out, in and out, in and out. And I would think about people from my past, particularly women who I could marry one day. And criminals got dreams, too. So don't be judging me. And I would oftentimes think of that young girl who I met, Samantha, when we was just pre-teens. And I determined in my heart that when I got out of prison, I was going to go and find her. Well, what ended up happening was I got out of prison, now second in command of a gang that is very notorious for homicides and drugs. Most of my friends are locked up. They're indicted on RICO cases or in prison for murder right now. But I was the second in command of this gang. And I was fully living in this delusion now. I mean, I was this big, bad, tough gang member now. I mean, I was an 18-year-old impressionable young man when I went in there with my shirt tucked in, hoping I can be invisible. I'm coming out now, 18— much older, tatted up, built, you know, second in command, grandiose as can be, and truly believe in I'm this wild criminal that needs to be feared. And so I got out and I went right back to the street life, went back to robbing, went back to assaults, went back to the drugs, and I had added to my list of crimes running a prostitution ring. And during that time, I ended up getting in contact with Samantha, and she came over to my house and visited me where she saw the lifestyle I was living, the many women there, the crimes I was committing. And at the time she was going to school, to be a police officer, and I asked her, I said, you know, do you choose me? And she said, I said, well, I'm choosing you. And she said, no, no, you got too much going on in your life. And she left me with those words and rejected me flat out. Amen, amen. Well, I would think about that, and in my wisdom, I decided I would go back to prison to get rid of the women in my life. And truth be told, if anybody here from prison, or spent time in prison, you know the truth. Prison had become a haven for me. I was somebody in there. I had friends. I had food. I was okay. In the free world, I didn't know how to pay a bill. But in there, I knew how to survive. I knew how to manage. I wasn't afraid of going to prison. In fact, I said to myself, well, I'm going to just take a break from the free world, go back on visitation. And so I went back in prison. to get rid of the women that was in my life. Throughout my whole life, I knew that the moment I get locked up, everybody's scattered. I knew that for sure. I mean, from 13, my mom wasn't there, friends wasn't there, nobody was there. And so this was my illogics. And the Bible says that the God of this world has blinded the mind of those who are not saved, and we need to really understand that, that they're lost and they're blind. I was lost and blind, as you can tell. And so once I got out, Now, not having all of these people living with me and doing all of the crimes I was committing, I called Samantha and asked her if she'll come and see me. I called her and I said, hey, this is your first love, your true love, your only love, who am I? She said, is this Tyrone? I was like, yes it is, will you come and visit me? And she came to visit me. But with her, she brought the gospel of Jesus Christ. And she would start sharing with me the good news about what God has done for me. Now, she was going to school to be a cop. I was second in command of a gang. She was sharing with me the gospel. I was sharing with her, you know, how we all are gods because I wanted her to rob the evidence room. And so that never worked out. She never did that. But this was my plan at the time. And we end up getting a place together. We moved in together and we was, you know, not living for God by any means. I was still living my life in a gang life. She was going to school and struggling to be faithful in church. And by the way, Samantha was not saved at this time. But because she grew up in church, she knew what was right and wrong. But she wasn't saved, exactly. And so we was living this way. I remember her pastor came to our house and he said, you want to get right with God, young man? I said, yeah, just trying to get him out. He said, well, you need to send her home. I said, well, I'll think about it. He says, good. I'll wait while she pack her bags." I said, good night. This man is serious. And thank the Lord for a pastor like that. Don't get indignant when a pastor comes and have to get stiff with you about sin in your life, amen? You want him to be there for you and pray over you when you're in desperate times, and when he gotta come and deliver bad news to you about your sin, don't get all mad with him. Just understand a man loves you. And I thank the Lord for that pastor. Pastor Jerry Brantham of Southside Baptist Church. He's still pastoring there to this day. And I couldn't wait after I got saved to go back to him and tell him thank you. And just let him know that it wasn't empty. What he did was not empty. It actually had some results on me eventually. And so we was living this way. And due to my lifestyle, Samantha and our oldest girl, Sahara, ended up in a situation where they was almost kidnapped. And so I had made a deal to try to take care of that person. I made a deal. And one night, I was on my way to go and complete that deal, which would have cost me the rest of my life in prison when I was arrested. And I thank the Lord for his intervention. And I got arrested. And so now I go to jail again. I'm sitting in a county jail. Samantha got my property. And she found out about my unfaithfulness in our relationship for the short period of time that we've been dating. She came to visit me, and she confronted me on this news that she found out. And then when I told her the truth, she started to tell me, like, you know, you're wrong, you're dirty for this and that. And I said, well, listen, you don't need an excuse to leave me. If you're going to leave, just go. And she looked me in my eyes, and she said, leave you. Leave you. I'm a Christian woman. I'm not going to leave you. Let me tell you, this is the first time in my life I ever heard someone declare to me that they was going to stay in my life. and she banked it off of being a Christian woman. Now, during that time, Samantha and I both got saved around the same time. I believe she got saved right before that visit, and then after that visit, I would go on to start communicating with God. I was talking with the Lord, asking him, you know, how do you love me, Lord, when you keep allowing me to get locked up like this? And like I said, I was blind, and so I was saying things to God, you know, you won't let me be successful at robbing a bank, but you keep getting me locked up. How do you love me, Lord? I really didn't understand that, you know. Honest to God, I kid you not. And for parents out there with children who constantly get locked up, it's hard for you to understand why they just won't do right. But they're blind. They're blind. I was so deceived. I mean, I literally was saying to God, you know, you won't let me rob a bank, but you keep having me locked up. And I'm faithful to the streets. I'm loyal to the streets, Lord. And it was almost as if the Lord said to me, not audibly, but in my heart and my mind, he said, You've been loyal to the streets, you've been loyal to your gang, but you've been disloyal to me who died for you. And that crushed me. When all I had left in my life was this identity of being loyal, real. The Lord challenged me and crushed me with that. And so I fell down to my knees and I got gloriously saved. I got magnificently saved. And the Lord would have me to go off to prison after that. But I was saved. And I had my Bible. And I couldn't convince anybody to really come into prison and visit me and teach me the Bible. And everyone tried to discourage her from being there for me. But I got saved and she knew I got saved. And she stuck to her word. She didn't leave me. She stood by my side for the four years I was sentenced to prison. And during that time, we end up getting married. She ended up having our second child, Soraya. And we both grew together in the word of God. And from that day, we just had one major desire, and that was to serve the Lord. I promised God that I was gonna give to Him all of me, more than I ever gave it to my homies, more than I ever gave it to the streets, more than I ever gave it to the gang. I promised I was gonna give God every drop of my life, every part that I had to give, I was gonna give it all back to Him. And I think that ought to be the heartbeat of every Christian. And when you really understand, when you really understand that none of us is good, the Bible teaches us this. You mind if I go through the gospel? Amen. The Bible teaches us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. The Bible teaches us a simple truth, that every man, woman, boy, and girl is a sinner, and that none of us is better than the other. I don't care who you are. I don't care how you live. You might be a fighter-fighter running in the fire to save someone else's life. Can I tell you the Bible says that you are a sinner? You might be a person who is a police officer and you put on the vest and you get your clothes on and you go out there with your gun and you go to protect and serve. But according to Romans chapter 3 verse 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Sin is anything you think, anything you say, or anything you do that is against Almighty God. I love it. The Bible says it this way, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. If you are not God, you are a sinner. Understand that. That's Bible for you right there. And the Bible says something very, very important in Romans 5. In Romans chapter 5, it tells us this right here in Romans 5, 8. But God commended His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The Bible teaches us something here. And this is what I think dawned on me while I was sitting in that jail. It was that while I was living my life full of sin, while I had no care for God, while I had no thoughts about Him or what He wanted for my life or what He was doing for my life, I didn't think about the fact that every time I breathe out, He gives me breath in. I wasn't thinking about the fact that He kept my heart beating and He woke me up every morning. I wasn't thinking about how every good gift and every perfect gift came down from the Father above and whom there is no darkness. while I was yet sinning, while I was still full-fledged, enjoying my sin, deep into my pride, deep into my flesh, longing for the next crime. The Bible says, while I was yet a sinner, but God commended his love towards me. But he commended his love, he gave his only begotten son, knowing ahead of time that I was going to be sinning and not care. Isn't that a wonderful thought? That He commanded His love towards me, that Jesus Christ, when He died on the cross 2,000 so years ago, He was dying with me on His mind. He was commanding His love towards me. When He was saying, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do, He was speaking about me and you. He was speaking about sinners. He didn't come to call the righteous, but he came to call sinners to repentance. You say, how do I know that Jesus died for me? Are you a sinner? Have you ever lied? Have you ever stolen? Have you ever done wrong? Have you ever thought wrong? Then according to the Bible, you a sinner, you sin. He commended his love towards us while we were yet sinners. He died for us. But then also, in Romans 6.23, I want us to look at this real quick. If you got your Bibles, turn to Romans 6.23. It says this, and I know that this is Sunday school hour, and we all know this for the most part, but listen to this. This is an amazing thought that comes to my mind. For the wages of sin is death. but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. In this verse, what we see is two ways to receive something. Number one, we see a wage. What is a wage? A wage is what we wake up in the middle of the night, put on our shoes, don't want to, against our own will at times, we get up tired, hurting, aching, back aching, headache, and all of that, and put on these shoes and go out the door to go work for this wage, right? I mean, we will destroy our bodies to make a wage. Bible says this, the wages of sin. Oftentimes you hear this, you deserve to die and go to hell. Well, from what I see in this verse here, not only do you deserve, but you've desperately worked hard to die and go to hell. the wages of sin. Through your sinful lifestyle, you've desperately worked hard, day in and day out, seeking your own good pleasures. In your own will, you desperately worked hard, fought against the grace of God, fought against His mercies, so that you can die and go to hell. That's what the Bible is saying here. That's the wage. I want you to see something with me. And you might think that it's just talking about Dying and because we also come in to the idea that every man will die We don't think of of this this this wage of sin being death as as bad but in Revelation chapter 21 and verse 8 it says this but the fearful and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burn, burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. That's what we worked hard for, that second death. We've all desperately worked hard through our sins to go to hell and die the second death, where the flames of hell will lick upon our skin and scorch us, where we will hear the screams from the pits of hell. Ah! That's what we worked hard for. We worked hard to be in utter darkness. We worked hard to turn from God so we would never know Him, never be in His presence ever, ever, ever again. If you're a sinner, that's what you worked hard for. That's what we see in Romans chapter 6, verse 23. That's the one way to receive something. But then there's a second one here. It says, but the gift of God is eternal life. Praise the Lord! It is a gift. It is a gift. A gift. Simply put, it is not something you can work for. It is not something you can pay for. It is not something you can earn. It's a gift. It's simply something that you have to receive. Amen You can just say it this way because of God's death He's giving you a birthday present and all you got to do is get to the table Open it up and say Lord. I'll receive it But the gift of God He has a gift for us whoa, I've desperately worked hard to die and go to hell and to be in sin, to be in utter darkness, to be separated from you for all of eternally. I've desperately fought against your hand and your plea for my life. I've desperately worked and worked hard against the blood of Jesus Christ so I can run to my sin day in and day out. And then you turn around and say, here's a gift, though. Isn't that sweet? Here's a gift. Tyrone, here's a gift. It blew my mind when I got saved, how I've been trying so hard to get out of jail, and yet at the same time, the Lord Jesus Christ somehow got through to Sally Port, somehow snuck past all the guards, somehow broke through the bars, somehow got past the COs that was watching the doors, somehow got up on the elevator that's locked, I couldn't figure out how he did that one. And then he rolled the elevator up to the fifth floor that I was on. And then he somehow got through two cellar port doors. And then he somehow got past all the cameras. He somehow tiptoed his way up the stairs. He somehow went to my cell and looked in and seen I wasn't there. He somehow walked down to the shower where I was at. And he entered my soul and saved me. It blew my mind. What a gift. What a gift. You think about the day you got saved and you will understand how much it was a gift of God. It ought to blow your mind. Oh, it blows my mind. It blows my mind that while I was in my sin, He would love me. Our own mother and fathers that live in this life don't even demonstrate the love of God. He so loved you. God so loved the world. He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. When I think of that soul love, I think of this. Only me. Only me. If it was only me, would He still do what He did? Would He still come down from heaven, bankrupt in the heavens of heavens? Will He still come down? Will He still walk a sinless, perfect life? Would he still run to the cross of Calvary if it was only for me? Will he then nail himself to that cross? Or better yet, if it's only me and him, would he then let me nail him to the cross? Will he then let me go ahead and press the crown of thorns upon his head? Whip him over his back? Ripping his flesh away from him? Will he still do that? Will he still, while he's sitting there hanging, push up to say, Father, forgive Tyrone? For he knows not what he do. That's what soul love is. Understand something. This soul love isn't about the whole entire world. It's about you and God. It's about me and God. God is a personal Savior. He's a personal God. For you, for me. Soul love. For all. He used them terms just so you know that you don't escape it. You are a part of that all have and so loved. It don't say so loved except for Tyrone. He said, no, I so love you, Tyrone. And then he says the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And the only way to receive that gift Because we understand that the Bible says that Jesus declared, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man come unto the Father except by me. Jesus is the only way. Understand something. You say, well, that's pretty narrow. Well, when you create the heavens and the earth, In Genesis 1, when you can say, in the beginning, God, if you there, and don't say in the beginning, Buddha, in the beginning, Allah, in the beginning, Confucius. In the beginning, God. Oh, it's talking about the sweet God of the Bible. It's talking about Jesus Christ Himself who made the framework of this life. It's talking about God. He says, I am the only way. Yes, He's very narrow. Yes, He's very jealous. Yes, He will not allow any false idol to stand against Him. He won't let any man stand before Him with that sin. Understand something, we deserve to die and go to hell, but we've desperately worked for it. But He says this in Romans 10, 9. He says this, says that if thou, if you, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God has risen from the dead, thou shalt be saved. If you will confess to God that you understand that you have desperately worked to die and go to hell, amen, you saw it from the Bible, that's what the Bible says, if you would actually admit that, because that's a fact, that's a truth, It's an axiom, absolute truth. You can't escape it. You deserve to die and go to hell, but you work to die and go to hell. He says, if you will confess that, and if you will believe what the Bible tells us, that Jesus Christ really did come to earth and die for you. If you will believe that, that he died for you. If you will believe that he was buried for you, and if you will believe that by his power alone, up from the grave he arose the third day, You say, well, I don't know if I believe that. Well, let me tell you something. If you don't believe that he rose from the grave, if you don't believe that he died for you, if you don't believe, then you ain't gonna get saved. You gotta believe the accounts of the Bible. If he didn't rise from the grave the third day, then there is no power in him to rise us from the grave. How can we take assurance in the resurrection if he did not rise? And if he did not rise, he is not who we say he is. If he did not come out of that grave the third day, he is a liar. We ought to strike him down. He said, but if thou will confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and notice this second part, confession is important, and believe in thy heart. Believe what the Bible says about Jesus is the absolute truth. That upon that cross, he who knew no sin became sin for you. You will believe that. The Bible promises something here. It says, thou shalt be saved. Shalt be saved. Shalt means this. It's a promise you can take to the bank, and it won't fail. You shall be saved. In this moment, you shall be saved. In this moment, the Holy Ghost of God will come into your heart and save you. You will know. Well, how would I know? Let me just ask you, are you a sinner? Do you know that you're a sinner? Okay, you know you're a sinner, let me ask you this, do you see from the Bible that you desperately work to die and go to hell? I know I have. Every one of my children have. We got seven kids and I tell you, the baby even knows how to sin. She deserves it too, just as I do. Have you desperately worked to die and go to hell? Yes, you have. Do you understand that God wants to give you a gift? You can't work for it, not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercies. If so, the Bible says, then confess, not to a man, not to a priest, but to God. God, I agree with you. I'm a sinner. I deserve to go to hell. I desperately work to go to hell. Now I want to receive that free gift of salvation. I want to. I want to receive all that Christ did for me upon the cross and believe this in your heart. You must believe confession alone is not the way of salvation. You must believe, truly believe. The Bible says thou shall be saved. You are no in a moment that you are saved. Let's close our eyes and bow our head. Oh, Lord God, I thank you for the salvation that you've given to me and for the many of people that sit here, Lord. But Lord God, there is a biblical ratio for those who will come and those who will enter many to fruit three to an unthinkable number, Lord God. And I hate to say it, but I truly believe, Lord, in a gathering of this size alone, Lord God, there are some amongst us who do not know your sweet salvation. I pray, Lord, in this moment that you would burden their heart to know it, Lord. Oh, Lord God, will you remove the veil from their eyes? Oh, Lord God. Would they believe you and your word? May they receive that gift I received in May of 2012 in the Ramsey County Jail. Oh, Lord God, do a work that only you can do. I know this is the Sunday school hour, but I just want to say this. If you do not know for sure that you're on your way to heaven, but you believe what we just examined here in the word of God, you can repeat after me. It's not the words that matter, it's believing in thy heart the truth from the word of God. Dear Lord, I know that I am a sinner. I understand from the word of God that I deserve and I've desperately worked hard to die to go to hell. I understand that Jesus Christ came and died for me. I received the gift of salvation. I believe in you. I commit my life to you. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen. The Bible says that thou shall be saved. Amen. Amen. Pastor,