Before I ask Dennis to come up, I just need to
say, and it happens frequently when we take requests,
we realize that we are praying for a lot of people
that have serious illnesses. We attend a Bible
study over in the Ramble, and I would say that
everybody there that attends... is financially
independent, that they are not ready to go on
skid row, that they have their needs met, and
yet they're continually finding tumors or things
that are very serious. And it just makes us all
realize how vulnerable we are. And I think it's
a word of... Maybe of caution or warning to us
scripture says seek the Lord while he may be
found call upon him while he is near It is easy
to get so involved in making money or doing our
little things that we ignore the priorities and
so I encourage you to put the Lord first in your
life and To make sure that you're spending time
with him investing time with him every day Looking
at God's Word and letting God's Word look at
you because it's just really important. Now Dennis'
dear brother, I first knew his brother Harold
in Raleigh and Harold and I used to have a lot
of fun. I loved Harold's laughter. He liked to
laugh and he was a lot of fun to be with. I have
lots of memories that I'm not going to share
because I'd rather hear from my brother Dennis.
But Dennis, I appreciate you coming. I appreciate
your heart. I appreciate your message. The clock
says you got all the time you need, so you just
come on up. Thank you, brother. Oh, yeah, that's
right, children's church. Well, Peter was keeping
up with me while I was over. in Europe and he
was checking to see if there were any barbecue
places over there. And there weren't. But they
do love cheese and bread. They eat a lot of cheese
and bread. It's quite a privilege to be with
you all again this morning and I have a one string
banjo. My one string banjo is always the gospel
of Jesus Christ the gift God has given me is
the gift of evangelism So I'm not a great Bible
teacher. I'm not going to teach you anything.
You've never heard from the Bible this morning
But I will tell you how to get to heaven from
Fletcher, North Carolina If you would if you
got your Bible with you this morning open it
up to the book of Romans And I want to begin
by reading the first 17 verses of chapter 1 for
our main text this morning. Really, the Word
of God is the most important thing that we'll
hear right now. It is the Spirit of God that
can take the Word of God and do stuff with it
in our hearts. And what I'm going to say is probably
going to mess up what you hear as we read these
17 verses. Let's begin by Romans chapter 1 verse
1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to
be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,
parentheses, which he had promised afore by his
prophets in the holy scriptures, closed parentheses,
concerning his son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which
was made of the seed of David according to the
flesh. and declared to be the Son of God with
power according to the Spirit of Holiness by
the resurrection from the dead, by whom we have
received grace and apostleship for obedience
to the faith among all nations for His name,
among whom are ye also the call of Jesus Christ.
To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called
to be saints, grace to you and peace from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." That's
a long sentence, isn't it? You'd probably get
marks off in English class if you wrote a sentence
that long. But you can do that when you're writing
the Bible. Verse 8. First, I thank my God through
Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken
of throughout the whole world. For God is my
witness whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel
of his Son that Without ceasing, I make mention
of you always in my prayers, make and request,
if by any means, now at length, I might have
a prosperous journey by the will of God to come
unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart
unto you some spiritual gift to the end you may
be established. That is, that I may be comforted
together with you by the mutual faith, both of
you and me. Now, I would not have you ignorant,
brethren, that often times I purposed to come
unto you, but was let hither to, that I might
have some fruit among you also, even as among
other Gentiles. I am a debtor, both to the Greeks
and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to
the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready
to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome
also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
For it is the power of God and the salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith as it is
written. The just shall live by faith. Our Father,
this morning as we have read these 17 verses,
I pray that by the power of your Holy Spirit,
you would take these truths that are in this
little bit of Scripture here and speak to our
hearts and do what needs to be done to encourage,
to exhort, to convict whatever it is, Father,
I ask in Jesus' name, Amen. On July 29th, Beth
and I left to go to Europe for four weeks. And
we came back on August the 29th. And before I
married Beth, I'd never even been on a commercial
airplane. And so she started me off with a 10
-hour flight to Hawaii. But since then, I've
been on a few commercial airplanes. And so we
flew all the way over to Geneva, Switzerland.
And there in Geneva, Switzerland, We spent the
night and went to St. Peter's Basilica where
John Knox, not John Knox, John Calvin preached
six days a week. One of the fathers of the Reformation.
And they showed me the chair where John Calvin
would sit and the platform that he would preach
from and his beautiful cathedral. With these
beautiful stained glass windows and a ceiling
so high you'd hurt your neck looking up to see
it. A church today that stays empty all the time.
It's just a museum. It's just a place for come
to come and look. And I sent a text to my son
-in -law AJ and Raleigh, who's with Child Evangelism
Fellowship, and I said, this is the chair that
John Calvin sat in. And he sent back and said
it was predestined that he would sit there. And
I text him back, I said, or did he choose that
seat? So we still didn't figure that out. And
for those of you that didn't find that funny,
John Calvin is the one who promotes predestination
the most with the tulips and all that stuff.
But anyway, it was wonderful to be there in that
church that has such a history of people coming
to faith alone in the person and work of the
Lord Jesus Christ in Geneva. We paid a little
bit extra to go up in the bell tower of that
church. And we walked and we walked and we walked
on this circular staircase up into the bell tower
that has these gigantic beautiful bells up in
it. And when we finally got up there to the top
of the bell tower we could look out over Geneva
and see all the way to that beautiful lake that's
right there and the top of those buildings. And
this stuff has been there for thousands of years.
That stuff's been there longer than the United
States has been a country. When they built things
over there, they built them out of rock and brick
and mortar. They didn't build it out of wood.
And so it was neat to look out over history.
And there was a young couple, the only other
people that had too little sense to go up in
that bell tower. There was a young couple there
from Brussels and so we engaged them in conversation.
Well my wife was in Brussels for three years
working for NATO when she was in the army and
so she knew a lot of the same cities around where
they lived and so we had a little report there
and they were interested in that she knew where
they lived and stuff and after a few minutes
of small talk I asked the man, I said, well,
do you have a faith? And he said, no, and I don't
want one. So I whipped out my wordless book.
And I said, well, I used to run a children's
camp and tell boys and girls about God using
this. Let me show you what I would tell them.
And I went through the colors of the wordless
book and talked about the streets of gold being
the gold page and sin that we've all sinned.
Nobody had to teach us out of the lie, cheat
or steal. And then I showed him the red page
and talked about the blood of Christ that flowed
from the cross of Calvary. And then I showed
him the clean page and told him how his sins
could be forgiven if he put his faith and trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then I showed him
the gold page again and I said, so one day you
can live with God in heaven. Well, they were
ready to go. They were polite, but they heard
the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I said, God took
this old farm boy from the tobacco fields of
Wake County all the way to Geneva, Switzerland,
to the bell tower in St. Peter's Cathedral to
tell two people from Brussels about Jesus. You
know why I had a wordless book in my pocket?
It's because when Beth and I decided to go for
four weeks to Europe. I was asking God, God use
me. God speak to me. God show me. And we have
some plans for our future and we're not sure
what to do yet. We want to be used by God. Beth
just turned 70 and I'm 72. We don't have too
many more years left. But we want, we have reasonable
health. So we want to be used by God in some
way. And so I was seeking God's face while we
were there in Europe. What would you have me
do? Show me something from being around these
people that don't speak English much. And so
God spoke to our hearts and he used us. That
same day we caught a taxi cab driven by a Somalian.
And we engaged him in conversation and asked
him if he had a faith. And he said, oh, yes,
I'm Muslim. And so Beth told him about the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he believed in Abraham, of
course, because Muslims revere Abraham. But anyway,
again, we were able to talk to somebody from
Somalia in Geneva about a man who died for them
in Israel. outside of Jerusalem. And that was
our theme the whole time that we were there.
One of the parts of our trip was a trip down
to Rome. I much, very much wanted to go to Rome.
Rome is a city of thieves today. It's a city
of graffiti. Every building is painted with spray
paint. except the ones that are protected by
fences and men with guns and police and private
security. But every public building is covered
in Rome with graffiti, trash in the streets.
It's an ugly city outside of the tourist park.
But as we were heading to Rome, we were going
down this... where everybody drives wide open
over there. And the speedometer on this rental
car we're riding in shows 130 kilometers, whatever
that is. And I'm saying, Lord, it's been a nice
72 years. If this is it, Lord, it's all right.
We're sitting in one of these little compact
cars. That's all they have in Europe. They're
about this wide and about that long. and there's
four of us in this thing and I'm sitting on the
back wheel hitting every bump going down this
road going wide open and all of a sudden we come
to a stop and traffic's backed up all four lanes
and we find out that a tanker truck has exploded
and is on fire down the road and so we sit there
for three hours And the minutes just keep dragging
by, you know. So we start looking up jokes on
our cell phones and start telling each other
jokes just to pass the time. And do you know
that a man said that it's been determined that
people eat more bananas than monkeys? I've never
eaten a monkey. And so they would just tell jokes
to each other and a little while some officials
came. and started turning all the cars around
and we were going back on the edge of the road
back to the next exit two miles back and going
back through the woods. There used to be a saying
in the time of Paul, and that saying was, all
roads lead to Rome. Well guess what? If you're
going south, they do. So we got off in the woods
and we would get to these little circles They
don't turn right or left over there in Europe
and you know a lot of ours are starting to get
that way You go around a circle and as we go
around the circle to be a sign R -O -M -A they
don't know how to spell Rome over there Roma
this way or if you go a little further another
sign Roma this way and I'm like I Guess all roads
do lead to Rome but finally we got there. And
as we were there in the city of Rome, we got
to go see the Forum, and we got to go see the
Circus Maximus, and we got to see the Colosseum,
but the thing I wanted to see the most was the
Arch of Titus. There is preserved something that's
been there since 72 A .D., the Arch of Titus.
this great marble archway that was built by Deccletian,
which was Titus' son, to celebrate him conquering
the Jews and destroying Jerusalem. And all that
arch is a relief of them bringing out the furniture
that was in the temple, carrying the Ark of the
Covenant and the menorah, and all of that is
a relief in that arch. And as I stood there looking
at this plaque in front of that arch that was
explaining how this was built and who it was
built for and how this great procession of army
officers would ride through this arch as they
have conquered the Jewish people. There was a
Japanese fellow that came up and was reading
the plaque. And I turned to him and I said, can
you speak English? He said, oh yes, and he could
talk just as good as I could. I said, do you
know that this arch that we're looking at verifies
the Bible? Do you know that this arch right here
fulfills prophecy that was spoken by Jesus Christ
our Lord? He said, no, what do you mean? And
I said well in Matthew chapter 24 as the Lord
Jesus and his disciples are coming out of the
temple His disciples are like wow Looking at
this building if you've ever been to the Grand
Canyon, that's a wow Pictures never make Show
you what that looks like the first time the only
time I ever went to the Grand Canyon as I walked
up to that giant chasm in the earth I said, wow.
It just come out. And after I'd been there a
while, I got to thinking and I walked over to
the side and watched other people as for the
first time they would get there and they would
go, wow. The Grand Canyon is a wow place. I remember
the arch in St. Louis, going up to that giant
arch and looking up at it. And I remember saying
the same thing. I felt like I was going to fall.
I was going, wow. Well, that's what the disciples
were doing with Jesus when they came out of Herod's
temple It wasn't as glorious as the first temple
that Solomon built but by now it was still a
beautiful temple It was one of the wonders of
the ancient world Covered in gold and silver
and marble and the disciples turned to the Lord
Jesus and saying Lord look at this building And
Jesus said One stone will not be left upon another.
This building is going to be completely torn
down. Don't be enamored with this building. Do
you think the God of the universe is impressed
with any building on this planet? When you're
flying at 37 ,000 feet in an airplane and you
look down, everything looks like a grain of sand.
Imagine God from heaven. He's not enamored with
any building and the Lord Jesus Christ was not
enamored with a temple and he predicted that
one day every single stone of that temple would
be leveled. Well that arch of Titus that I was
standing in front of I was explaining to this
Japanese guy Jesus said that this temple would
be destroyed and they did take all the furniture
out of the temple and they tore down that temple
and there was not one stone left upon another
and that Japanese fellow looks at me and says
Are you a Christian? I said, yes, sir. I am And
he said, I've never talked to a Christian before.
Paul wrote a letter here and said to the saints
at Rome that your faith is known throughout the
world. Well, guess what? It ain't anymore. As
a matter of fact, the tourist guides had gathered
around with their little groups and they were
listening to me tell them what this arch of Titus
was all about and one of the tourist guides says
I never knew that and later another group come
by and I said can you speak English and I would
tell them the same thing I said this is a dream
come true for an evangelist to just stand here
in front of this object lesson and tell people
about Jesus and we did stay there a long time
It was proof of the scriptures that said in Matthew
24 that that temple would be destroyed. And they
put up an arch in Rome depicting that. And yet
people won't believe this book. We were at a
missionary conference in France for a week. And
one of the missionaries there is a missionary
to Muslims and he said, don't believe that you've
got to know everything about Islam to tell people
about Jesus. And he made, it was a woman actually,
she made the statement, she said, we have a silver
bullet. I thought, what does she mean? She said,
we have the gospel. You don't have to know about
Muhammad, just tell them about Jesus. And so
that's what we did. Paul says here in this first
chapter, to the saints that be in Rome. As I
read that while I was in Rome, matter of fact,
I wrote down the date so I wouldn't forget it.
It was the 13th. I said, Paul's writing this
to me today. It meant something special to me
as I was reading through that chapter that day,
to the saints that be in Rome. Beth and I stayed
in a special place because she's a retired army
colonel. We were able to stay in this officers
club, French officers club. And outside of this
beautiful five -star hotel that we get to stay
in pretty cheap since she's a retired Army Colonel,
there is something called St. Augustine's Cathedral,
another one of these giant, beautiful places.
And this was in Paris. And so we go on Sunday
before last. And we're the only two people sitting
down in this beautiful cathedral. And I said,
well, let's pray. Beautiful cathedral, which
is now just a museum that they open on Sundays,
let people come in. There was a man out in front
of St. Augustine's Cathedral pulling grass out
of the cracks on his hands and knees. And I thought,
Faith is not known all over the world like it
was in the first century when Paul wrote this
letter. Their faith is not known here in Paris.
People are going about on Sunday mornings business
as usual. No thought of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And out in front of St. Augustine's Cathedral
is this giant statue of a horse with a woman
on it. And I said, well, let's go around. see
what this is about. So we go to the front of
that giant statue there in front of St. Augustine's
Cathedral and it says, to St. Joan of Arc. And
it tells about her. As our brother said this
morning at Sunday School, the Roman Catholic
Church could not make her a saint. As a matter
of fact, the Roman Catholic Church burned her
at the stake and a few hundred years later then
made her a saint because they said, oh, I think
we made a mistake. And so now there's this giant
monument to this 17 -year -old girl called Saint
Joan of Arc. And I thought to myself, I'm a saint,
but not because of the Vatican. We went over
to the Vatican and right outside of the Vatican
is a Burger King. And I said, that's appropriate.
You can have it your way. You can have religion
your way. As we go into the Vatican, around the
Vatican is this giant wall. And in every little
concave of this wall is a king or a pope or somebody.
I don't know. Idols everywhere, and if it's not
people, it's animals. And if it's not animals,
it's birds. Idolatry run rampant. As we were
on a bus going back to our apartment one day
in Rome, there was a young man who looked like
he was from Nigeria. And I asked him about his
faith and he said, oh, I'm Catholic. My dad works
at the Vatican. But he said, don't believe the
Pope or anything that comes out of the Vatican
because none of it is about Jesus. And I said,
what a testimony. He said it's all lies if it
ain't about Jesus. It's not the truth So this
bus full of people is listening his conversation
We're having about the Vatican and the Pope and
the Roman Catholic Church and I'm like, yes Jesus
It was good But Rome's full of thieves we had
two cell phones stolen from our party while we
were on the bus shoplifters apart pick Pickpockets.
Got her brother -in -law's and her nephew or
niece's cell phones. They're just really good
at it. The buses are crowded and they bump against
you, you know, and before you know it, you've
lost your wallet or your cell phone. And they
even have signs in all the restaurants. Protect
your valuables. Thieves are about. Well, Paul
said, I want to get to Rome by any way possible.
Back to our text it says In verse 3 concerning
his son Jesus Christ our Lord which was made
of the seed of David according to the flesh Matthew
1 1 records Jesus as the seed of David Revelation
22 16 records Jesus as the son of David. From
the first book of the New Testament to the last
book of the New Testament, Jesus is referred
to as the son of David according to the flesh.
But he's regarded as the son of God by the spirit
of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
You see, the very fact that Jesus rose from the
dead is what our faith is all about. lived a
complete life of victory, a complete life of
power over sin. He was perfectly holy. He never
looked with lust. He never uttered a hasty word.
He never said anything that was untrue. He never
entertained an impure thought. He was never accused
by his conscience. He was never inflamed by unlawful
or wrongful passions. He was never out of the
will of God. He never wasted one minute of his
life and his power was never used for his own
selfish ends. His judgment was never wrong. He
never apologized and he never said oops. He lived
a completely sinless life by the spirit of holiness.
He is the perfect son of God that lived a perfect
life so that he could die on the cross for a
man who has never lived anything perfect. God
punished Jesus as if he had broken all the commandments
and he hadn't broken none of them, but I have.
And so he could take my punishment because he
had never sinned and he can give me his righteousness
by the spirit of holiness. When I put my faith
in the finished work of Jesus dying on the cross,
God sent His Holy Spirit to come live inside
of me and made me a saint. I haven't been declared
a saint by some pope over there in Rome. As a
matter of fact, they got it all mixed up. It's
idolatry. It's messed up. Ever since Constantine
made Christianity the world religion, it's never
recovered. Because they took pagan people and
put them in charge. of what they thought was
a Christian religion and it went way off the
rails. Now I don't have any beef with Catholic
people, but I have a big beef with the Roman
Catholic Church. There are some people who do
come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
who have grown up in the Catholic Church. Not
because of the Catholic Church, but because of
the Word of God. And so it's sad. to stand there
in all that pomp and glory at the Vatican and
see all these glorious buildings and all of this
stuff that has nothing to do with God. Paul says
in Romans chapter 1, verse 8, I thank my God
through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith
is spoken of throughout the whole world. And
a guy from Japan says, are you a Christian? I've
never met a Christian. What an indictment against
the church. Now I don't know where he was from.
He was Japanese. He was a tourist like I was.
But he said he never talked to a Christian. The
church has failed. The church is failing. People
are not going out and giving their lives. They're
going out and giving their weekends. I remember
when God impressed on my heart to quit my job
with the Raleigh Police Department and move to
Asheville and start a children's camp. I never
intended to give a weekend. I intended to give
the rest of my life. That's what God calls us
to do, for the cause of His Son, the Lord Jesus.
Paul says, for God is my witness whom I serve
with my spirit, verse nine. in the gospel of
his son and without ceasing I make mention of
you in my prayers making requests by any means
now at length I might have a prosperous journey
by the will of God to come to you." Paul wrote
this letter to the Romans. He found out that
Phoebe was going to Rome. We find out from the
last chapter. And he said, let me write you a
letter of introduction. Take this letter with
you when you go to Rome. I'm going to give you
this letter to take to the saints at Rome, Phoebe,
and make sure they read it. And so in the folds
of her gown, when she went to Rome, she was carrying
this treatise that has been so great for the
Church of Jesus Christ, that so clearly spells
out the gospel of Jesus Christ. She had no idea
the powerful document that she was carrying to
Rome. And Paul says, tell them I'm wanting to
come. I'm going to come one day, and God's going
to give me a prosperous journey somehow to Rome.
And when Paul was in the temple in Jerusalem
praying, the Jews thought that Timothy, a Greek,
was in there with him, and they came and arrested
him and would have killed him, but he was rescued
by some Romans soldiers. And they didn't know
what to do with him. And Paul ended up saying,
I appeal to Caesar. I haven't done anything wrong.
You appeal to Caesar? Well, we'll send you to
Caesar. And so Paul got a free trip to Rome,
Jerusalem, by the Roman Empire. Now, you almost
drown going. On the way, they have a shipwreck
and get washed up on a shore and there on that
island where he's at. the king of that island
is sick and so Paul goes and heals the guy and
his Roman guards like who in the world do I have
under arrest here and so when they get to Rome
they just said he puts a guard with him it says
stay with Paul but let his friends come to him
all they want to and so Paul is in Rome sharing
the Lord Jesus Christ with Caesar's household
Only God can do that. That's right. One of the
places, another place that I wanted to go to
in Rome was the maritime prison. Mamertine prison.
You might never heard of it, but it was a place
where they would put political prisoners and
slaves when they were under arrest. It's right
there near the forum. It's right near the Arch
of Titus. You can see it from the Arch of Titus.
And as you stand there at the maritime prison,
you can look over the hill and there's this giant
coliseum that was built where they would take
the Christians and feed them to lions. While
we were in the coliseum, I asked some of the
young people that were there as tourists, I said,
isn't it terrible that they fed Christians to
the lions right there? And they looked at me
and Beth and said, really? We didn't know that.
You see history is lost as to the faith of the
Lord Jesus Christ over there. Right there in
Rome, where people gave their lives for Jesus
Christ, who would not bow the knee to Caesar,
who would die at the mouths of animals or gladiators
or whatever. And today young people have no idea.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not going out in
Rome like it was then. But there's the maritime
prison just from the Colosseum and the Arch of
Titus. There's this prison. And that's where
Paul ended up before he was executed. And they've
made a monument about it. It's all written in
Latin. Is that right? Italian and Latin but Beth
has this great app on her phone that she can
put over signs and it reads out in English which
really comes in handy when you're trying to get
out of parking decks because they're not they
don't put stuff in English over there in Italy
let me tell you it's not like America where you
got all these different You get stuff in the
maleness in every language you can ever imagine.
But there at the maritime prison, they have a
plaque honoring the apostle Paul. And when he
was sentenced to die, there's a hole in the floor
about this big around. And they let him down
in that hole into the dungeon underneath the
prison. And it's about the size of this right
here. just part of the room. And while I was
down there in that hole, I went around and touched
the walls and just closed my eyes and thought,
this is where the Apostle Paul spent his last
days. What a failure. What a failure. Today we're
reading this letter he wrote to the Romans. And
he will say, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of
Christ. It is a power of God's salvation to everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first and also to
the Greek. And this letter goes on today and
will be read in churches all across America and
all across the world. And people that will can
learn how to be saved from their sins through
God's grace, through faith alone in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. because it is the power
of God and his salvation. When they cut Paul's
head off, he entered into the presence of his
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. His earthly work
was over. You see, the worst thing that can happen
to you is not that you die. The worst thing that
can happen to you is that you die without Jesus.
Beth and I talked to a lot of cab drivers. just
individuals about the Lord Jesus over there in
Europe. We didn't talk to anybody that said,
oh yeah, I'm a Christian, I believe in Jesus.
Except at the missionary conference. It's sad.
Jesus is coming back. I'm glad you're having
this mission conference. Pray for missionaries.
Pray for people that would give their lives for
Jesus Christ. Pray for Beth and I. We're kind
of leaning towards Samaritan's Purse, maybe working
with them more on a regular basis. We've worked
with them some. I've got too much help to waste
the rest of my life mowing grass and goofing
off. Verse 16 and 17 says, for I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God and a salvation to everyone that believeth.
That's the crux. When I finish today, some of
you will believe it, some of you won't. Some
believe, some don't. And that's the way it'll
always be. But to those that believe, It says
to the Jew first and also to the Greek for therein
is the righteousness of God revealed from Old
Testament faith to New Testament faith as It
is written the judge shall live by faith and
that's a quotation from Habakkuk chapter 2 in
verse 4 It's a verse that transformed a fellow
by the name of Luther. I said the judge shall
live by faith Yeah For by grace, God's grace,
are you saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. There's nothing we
could ever do to deserve God's grace and forgiveness.
But if we believe that his son died on the cross,
was buried, and rose again the third day, and
that he's coming back, not believe about Jesus,
but believe in Jesus. God has promised that we'll
have everlasting life 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. I have everlasting life and I don't deserve
it. And if you trusted in Jesus Christ, you too
not going to have but already have everlasting
life. Brother Peter, would you close us out?
But the question about do you know the Lord Jesus
have you believed in him is not just an intellectual
belief But it is a commitment Jesus says no man
can be my disciple Except that you follow me
deny himself take up his cross and follow me
That's a life verse for me. That is really really
important. He comes first Let me close you in
prayer Father, thank you for my brother And thank
you for the heart that you've given to Him and
the passion. And thank you for using Him to speak
to my life and to put me on the spot to be more
faithful, more obedient, more submissive to you.
We have such a great Savior and such a powerful
gospel. And I pray that you'll just continue
to help us be faithful with the treasure that
you've entrusted to us. Ask your blessing now.
the rest of this day. Pray for Dennis and Beth
and for their future and for what you're going
to do in them. Thank you for giving them the
health that they can serve you and the heart
and the passion to do that. Do that for all of
us. Do that for all of us, I pray in Jesus' name
with thanksgiving. Amen.