The Lost World

Adriene Rogers was a motivator, an encourager, and a leader of the faith. He was also passionate about presenting scriptural application to everyday life circumstances, and you'll hear that in today's message.

Now, let's join Adriene Rogers. Would you take God's Word and find the book of Romans as we're working our way through the book of Romans? Romans has been called the Magna Carta of our faith, the constitution of Christianity.

It's the greatest theological treatise ever written. In a very unsure age, we need a solid place to stand, and thank God, with the book of Romans in our hands, in Christ in our heart, we do have a foundation for our faith. In a moment, we're going to begin reading in verse 18. May I tell you that these are perilous days in which we're living, and there's no ifs, ands, and buts about it. We are on a collision course with disaster and judgment, and you can see it in many ways. I suppose the worst indicator of the situation, if I could say the best indicator of the worst is in entertainment, and then that is compounded by the fact that crime is on a rampage at its sword. Families have been destroyed.

Millions of babies are being destroyed in their mother's womb. Suicide and violent crime are at the top of the list as killers of America's youth, and then we have sexual diseases that are pandemic, and we don't seem to be able to back up and refocus and to see where we are, and if you talk to people and say the problem is sin, they will disagree with you because today's sin is out of vogue. Do you know what the only sin is today? The only sin today is to call sin, sin, and then if you call sin, sin, then they say you are intolerant. A man may be sick, but he's not sinful. He may be weak, but he's not wicked. He may be ill, but he's not evil, and even if you were to tell people that what they're doing is wrong, they would say that they have some excuse. It would be environment.

It would be genetics. It would be ignorance, but nobody wants to be blamed. Everybody wants to be pitied and coddled. Well, we're going to learn something today about the wrath of God, the judgment of God. The title of the message today, The Lost World, and I'm not talking about a movie. The Lost World or the bad news that makes the good news good. Now, you know the word gospel means good news, but good news is not good news unless, first of all, you have some bad news.

Coming back on a trip, I had my wife with me. We were told that the plane was leaving on time, and we jubilated. Well, why were we so happy?

Because we'd heard that the plane was going to be about three or four hours late. It was the bad news that made the good news good, and we're going to have to see the bad news in the Word of God. Look, if you will, in verse 18, God is revealed, the wrath of God. Now, we hear about the love of God, and God is love, infinite, fathomless, measureless love. God is love.

You agree to that, don't you? He is love. God is love, but this God of love is also a God of wrath, and when you love righteousness, you hate sin.

The doctor who loves health hates microbes and germs, and when you love children, you hate pornography, and you hate child abuse. So, you see, you cannot have a God of love without also having a God of wrath, and if you just take the love of God, and that's all you hear, just the love of God, you only have half of the story. Now, God is love, but when you take half of the truth and try to make half of the truth all of the truth, then that half of the truth becomes an untruth because you've distorted it and it's not balanced. So, verse 18 says, the wrath of God, the wrath of God, God's burning anger against sin is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.

Now, here's the concluding part. So that they are without excuse. There's one thing that God will not accept for sin, and that is an alibi or an excuse. He will accept a confession and he will forgive, but there is no excuse. Man is inexcusable in his sin.

I want to give you three reasons. We're going to think today about this scripture as a great courtroom. Think of Almighty God as the judge. Think of the apostle Paul as the prosecuting attorney, and he has three lines of argument. He's going to show that the pagan world, the heathen world, even those who've never heard the Bible, even those who've never heard the gospel, those who've never seen a church, they are still without excuse. Every man, woman, boy, and girl who's ever lived is a sinner without excuse before a righteous and a holy God.

What are these three lines? First of all, man's willful, and I put the emphasis on the word willful, man's willful self-determination. Man does not want God to rule over him. Now, he somehow moves God out of his heart even though God's existence and God's power and God's authority is clearly revealed.

Man willfully determines to go his own way. Now, there are three things here in verses 19 and 20 that you may notice. Let's read verses 19 and 20. He says, they hold the truth in unrighteousness or suppress the truth because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has showed it unto them. By that verse, write the revelation of God's truth. The revelation of God's truth. The revelation of God's truth comes in two ways, in them and unto them. Do you see it there in verse 19?

Look at it. In them and unto them. In them is the inner witness called conscience. Under them is the outer witness called creation. And there are two witnesses that every person who has ever lived has a witness in them and a witness unto them. Now, the witness in them is conscience. There is a God-shaped vacuum in every man's heart.

The Bible says Christ is that light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. When a man says that he is an atheist, he is lying. When a man says he's an atheist, he's lying. He may not even know he's lying. But down deep, down in his subconscious, he is lying.

There's a man that owns a trucking firm, operates across state lines, interstate trucking firm. When he employs people, he gives them a lie detector test. And one of the questions in this lie detector test is this. Do you believe in God? Every time, listen to me. Every time a person said, no, I do not believe in God, the lie detector said he's telling a lie.

Every time, he's telling a lie. Now, he may even think that he doesn't believe in God, but down in his heart, down deep, God has showed it unto him. And that's what the Bible says. Everybody comes into this world with a God consciousness.

Christ is that light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Then there is another witness. Not only is there the witness called conscience, but there is also the witness called creation. Look again in verse 19, for God has showed it unto them. How does he show it unto them? For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.

What does that mean, being understood by the things that are made? Well, if you have things that are made, you have to have a maker. If you have creation, you have to have a creator.

I mean, you don't have to be a PhD to figure that out. See, the atheist believes that nothing times nobody equals everything, that it all just happened. But the Bible says it's clearly seen. That's the reason the psalmist said in Psalm 19, verses 1 through 4, for the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. There is the revelation of it.

There is the reach of it. Everybody knows that God made it all. How else would you explain creation? And evolution is a biased guess. It is not true science.

It is the next best guess of those who will not accept Almighty God. Design and designer show that there's a God. If I were to pluck some parts from nowhere and put them in a box and shake them around, then they become a button. Then after a while, they become a steam gauge. And then after a while, they become a compass. And then after a while, they become a watch. And I wear it, and I say, that's how this watch became a watch. You would say, you're lying. That doesn't make sense.

Your eye is far more complicated than this wristwatch that I wear. To think that these things happen by blind, fortuitous chance, we ought to know better than that. There's the revelation of God's truth. There is the reach of God's truth. Every man, every woman.

But here's the sad thing. There is the resistance of God's truth. Look, if you will, in verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Now, the word hold is the key word here. In the King James, it is translated hold. In other translations, it is translated suppress, repress, smother, stifle, hold down the truth. That is, there is a resistance against the truth. People put out their own eyes. They do not want to know. Willful blindness is more than tragic. It is wicked. I receive a lot of letters. You'd be surprised.

Here's one from a listener in another state. Dear Adrian Rogers, your sermons on evolution need balance. While you did not deny that the universe is 15 billion years old and the earth is about 5 billion years old, isn't it past silly that you would want to attribute the creation of the universe to a savage Hebrew tribal deity? That's his name for the God of the Old Testament. A savage Hebrew tribal deity who is recent by comparison and who himself is a product of evolution. The biblical God evolved from a vile-tempered, foul-mouthed, woman-hating, genocidal maniac to a loving God in 40 short booklets. Now, there is your miracle. Here's a man who actually hates the idea of God.

He resists the idea of God. I received another letter. Boy, I'm getting some good letters this week.

Here's one. Dear Adrian Rogers, you might address your problem with evolution by reading the wonderful new special issue of Astronomy magazine February 1998 on the origin of everything. And then he concludes this letter by saying, I'd sooner place my faith in Dennis Rodman than in God. And then he goes on to say, DNA and genetic science has proved Darwin correct on evolution. Now, there are a lot of people out there, folks, who absolutely hate God. Now, he says, I'd sooner believe in Dennis Rodman than to believe in God. So, you know that he doesn't want to believe in God. He doesn't say, I wish there were a God I could believe in. He doesn't want to believe in God. So, he takes DNA and these other things and says, that's where my faith is.

So, what happens is this. First of all, there is the revelation of God's truth, the reach of God's truth, the resistance to God's truth. They hold back. They stifle the truth of God. Their problem is not really intellectual.

Their problem is moral. The Bible says, the fool has said in his heart there is no God. He doesn't say it in his head.

He says it in his heart. Brother Jim Whitmire and I have a friend that we met. He was a youngster down in Florida when we were down there together at Merritt Island. This youngster who was an honor student wrote a letter to the editor. His name was George and he wrote this letter to the editor of our paper down there. And he said, when people stop believing in God and when they stop praying to a nonexistent God to save them from a nonexistent hell, then finally one more day, perhaps maybe, the world will be populated again by people rather than sheep. And that was his letter, stinging letter written by a young atheist. Later on, that young man came to our church, I think to mock and to argue, but the finger of God touched him. He got under conviction.

God opened his heart and he got saved. And I invited him to my study. I wanted to talk to him. And I said to him, George, you claim to be an atheist and now you say you're professing faith in Christ.

Tell me about it. Here's what he said. He said, Mr. Rogers, when I wrote that letter, I was so sure that God didn't exist.

And he said, and now I cannot even remember the arguments. Now, where was that man's problem? It wasn't in his head. It was in his heart.

He had a bias against God. There is the revelation of God's truth. There is the reach of God's truth. There is the resistance of God's truth. Man's willful, willful self-determination. Now, what is the second step that shows there without excuse? First of all, there is that willful self-determination.

They repress, they hold back, they smother the truth. There is a second step, not only man's willful self-determination but man's wicked, wicked self-deception. You see, when a man decides he's going to go his own way, he also deceives himself.

Nature abhors a vacuum. And if man resists a lie, he's going to believe something. If he resists the truth, he's going to believe something so he will believe a lie. When a man says, I don't believe in God, that doesn't mean that he believes nothing. It means he will believe anything because believe he must. And so he's going to put his faith somewhere else and he deceives himself.

Now, how does this go? Well, look in verse 21. In verse 21, there is a selfish indifference.

Look at it. Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. Neither were thankful but became vain in their imagination and their foolish heart was darkened.

That's selfish indifference. He's not thankful. He doesn't glorify God. He knows there's a God, but there is no glory to God from his life. There's no thankfulness to God from his heart. And so what happens with this indifference, this selfish indifference? A darkness comes.

You see, God has given him light, but light refused increases darkness. You don't take truth and put it in your pocket. Truth is not meant to be interesting. It is meant to be disturbing.

And if you don't use it, you'll lose it. And when you become preoccupied with yourself and fail to give God glory and fail to give God thanks, your heart will be darkened. Selfish indifference, verse 21.

Now look in verse 22. Sophisticated ignorance. Sophisticated ignorance. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. Now, these people may have PhD after their name and I'm not against PhDs. I know many wonderful PhDs, but there's so many who have the idea that they are too intelligent to believe in God and so they have this air of sophistication about them and they refuse God's light. Selfish indifference.

Sophisticated ignorance. And now watch the next step. Shameful idolatry. Look in verses 23 and 24. And they changed. The word changed literally means exchanged the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts.

Now watch this. And creeping things. Start at the top of that verse. The glory of the uncorruptible God. Come to the bottom of that verse.

Creeping things. Here's how far man has come from failing to worship the uncorruptible great eternal God of might and power who made everything. They worship the creature rather than the Creator. It begins with man.

Man, first of all, begins in his own humanism. He makes a God of himself. He defies himself. But the idolatry goes down and down and down until he gets down to where he worships creeping things. Do you know what a creeping thing is? That's a bug. A bug. People worshipping bugs. Bugs. You say, nobody would worship a bug. They do.

Go to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and you will see the scarab. The sacred beetle. They worship bugs.

How the mighty have fallen. You say, well, nobody would do that. They do.

They do. But not in America, pastor. They don't worship bugs in America.

No. Do you know what an idol is? An idol is anything you love more, fear more, value more, or serve more than almighty God. That's an idol. That's an idol. Your idol may be your home. It may be your automobile.

It may be your business. It may be a sex. It could be anything, anything that takes the place that almighty God ought to have. Anything that is first place in your life is an idol before almighty God. And we may think we're a little bit too sophisticated to worship creeping things, but we still have idolatry in our hearts. Shameful idolatry.

Do you know what man does? Do you know what an idol is? An idol is only a magnified sinner.

That's all an idol is. Man takes his worst vices, greed and lust, violence and pride, and he deifies them. That's a unique thing because then he legitimatizes them when he deifies them. For example, I've been to Baalbek in Lebanon and seen the mighty temple there to the god Bacchus, the god of drunkenness. And how did they worship him? By getting drunk. You can go to Corinth and see the Acro-Corinthus up there on Mount Corinth where the prostitutes were up there. How did they worship their god? By going in and having sexual intercourse with the prostitute. What he does is legitimatize his vices and nothing is too good for a man's god.

Pretty slick, right? First of all, there comes this selfish indifference. He doesn't care about God.

Then there comes this sophisticated ignorance professing himself to be wise. He becomes a fool. And then there comes this shameful idolatry. He exchanges the truth of God for a lie and he begins to worship anything but the almighty, rather than the Creator. Now, what is the result in society when we have idolatry in America? And by the way, in 1962, we kicked God out of our schools in a vacuum.

We had all kinds of strange idols to come into America and a part of that is the grisly abortion business. Let me give you some verses. Psalm 106, verses 35 and 36.

Well, verses 35, let's go through verse 38. He speaks of his people who were mingled among the heathen and learned their works. And they served their idols which were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils and shed innocent blood. Did you know that the chief god of the abortion industry is demonic? They sacrificed their sons and daughters unto devils and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and their daughters. And the land was polluted with blood. The Bible links all of this with idolatry.

We've made such a god of pleasure. Most abortions today are convenience abortions. People don't want to have to raise a child. They don't want to be inconvenienced. They don't want to have to give up a job.

They want to do this or that. Let's just snuff out that life. You say, well, a woman has a right to determine whether or not she's going to have a baby. Not after the baby's conceived.

Not after the baby's conceived. She talks about being pro-choice. She has a choice whether to have a live baby or a dead one. That's her choice. Have a live baby or to have a dead baby.

She's going to have a baby because there is a baby living in her. But we've learned the way of the heathen. Well, the land is flooded with innocent blood and the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. Men who suppress the truth, resist the truth, who hold back the truth in unrighteousness. Now, here's the third step. Step number one, man's willful self-determination. Step number two, man's wicked self-deception. He blinds himself. He deceives himself. And now finally, man's woeful self-destruction.

Self-determination leads to self-deception, leads to self-destruction. And the rest of this chapter tells about that destruction. What is that destruction?

Well, it comes in several stages. First of all, people who turn from God always become sexually perverted. Look, if you will, in verse 25, they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever. And for this cause, God gave them up to vile affections.

Now, what is he talking about when he says vile affections? For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, the men with men, working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet or fitting.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. Now, what God is talking about here is the sin of sodomy and the sin of moral perversion. Notice how God calls this sin. Actually, he begins up in verse 24. He calls it uncleanness.

He calls it lust. He calls it dishonor in verse 24. In verse 26, he calls it vile affections. In verse 26, he says it is against nature. In verse 27, he says it is unseemly. Over in the Old Testament, in Leviticus chapter 18 verse 22, the Bible says, Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind.

It is an abomination. I've been amazed as I've read those who want to practice this perversion, some of the fancy footwork they've done to try to explain away the plain meaning of God's Word. As a matter of fact, the explosion of sexual perversion that we're seeing today is one of the great signs that we're living in the last days and that we're ripe for judgment. Our Lord said in Luke chapter 17 that the last days were going to be like the days of Noah and the days of Lot. I want to share that scripture with you, verses 26 through 30. Our Lord Jesus is speaking, and Jesus says, As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives. They were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Then again, likewise also as it was in the days of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they brought, they sold, they planted, they built it, but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.

Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. As it was in the days of Lot, Lot, you will remember, lived in a society that had glorified sodomy and sexual perversion, and God destroyed ancient Sodom with fire and brimstone. 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 6 says, He turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemning them with an overthrow, making them an example to those that should after live ungodly. God left Sodom with its smoking ruins as an example.

The only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn anything from history. Ezekiel chapter 16, verse 48, Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom. Pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters.

Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy, and committed abomination before me. Therefore, I took them away as I saw good. God said they were full of bread. They were full of idleness. There was prosperity in the land, but they were proud and haughty.

They strutted. They were proud of their sin. As we've said, sin that used to slink down back alleys now struts down main streets. What used to be called a sin began to be called sickness, and now it's being called a socially accepted practice. And as I say, the only sin today is to call that sin sin.

And there will be people who will write to me and tell me that I'm ignorant, bigoted, and whatever. Please, if I say something's not in the Scripture, write me and let me know. But if it's in the Bible, take your argument up with God.

And if you think that I'm hard-hearted, I'm not. But I am honor bound to preach God's Word. You see, a nation, a nation that cannot distinguish about moral perversion is a nation on its last legs. Isaiah chapter 3, listen to it, verses 8 and 9. For Jerusalem is ruined and Judah is fallen because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord to provoke the eyes of his glory. The show of their countenance doth witness against them. They declare their sin as solemn.

They hide it not. Woe unto their soul, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves. God said, this is what has ruined Judah. This is what has ruined Jerusalem. And I submit to you, it will be the ruin of America as surely as there is a God in the glory. I'm only telling you, folks, what the Word of God says.

If you want to reference the Scripture again, it's Isaiah chapter 3, verses 8 and 9. But this is not the only kind of sin. Pornography is flooding America. What happens to that pornography?

Pornography finds itself in the hands of children, in the hands of children, vile, wicked, lascivious stuff. Some time ago, I was driving down Poplar Avenue. I saw two little guys out there. It looked like they may have been in grade school. They had a briefcase with them, a nice-looking briefcase, and they were going out into the woods with that briefcase. I knew something had to be wrong when you see two little guys with a briefcase going in the woods. So, I stopped my car.

They were going in the woods. I got out and I said, all right, boys, come out. I didn't hear anything. I said, you heard me.

Come out right now. After a while, two little guys, lies like squirrels, came out of the woods, no briefcase. I said, boys, what were you doing in the woods?

Nothing. I said, where's the briefcase? They said, what briefcase? I said, go get the briefcase. They said, what briefcase? I said, go get the briefcase. They said, yes, sir.

I didn't know whether they'd come back or not, but they came back with that briefcase. I said, open it. They said, do we have to? I said, open it, and it was full of vile, lascivious pornography, little guys.

It made me so angry, not angry at the pornography per se, but angry that little guys like that, little guys like that would have their minds twisted and warped at that age with the vileness that was in that stuff. I said, boys, where did you get this? Oh, they said, we got it from some other boys.

They left it out in the woods and we knew where they left it and we got it from them. I said, what would your mother think? They said, you ain't going to tell my mother, are you? I said, well, I don't know, and I talked with them. I said, boys, you wouldn't put garbage in your mouths. Don't put garbage in your minds, and I talked with them, had a little prayer. They said, what do you want us to do with this? I said, give it to me. So, I took that briefcase and put it in my car, and I said, God, if I have a wreck.

I drove down to a high school and went behind that high school and there's an incinerator, and I dumped it in that incinerator. Can you imagine, folks, $6 billion worth, $6 billion worth of pornography finds its way. I think of my little grandsons. I don't want them reading that filth.

I don't want my granddaughters reading that stuff. God tries to be twisted and perverted, but what happens? A man's self-destruction, he becomes, first of all, sexually perverted. Do you think God is against sex? God is in favor of sex. God made man a sexual creature. God made Adam and Eve, and when he gave Eve to Adam, he said, that is very good, and when God says, flee fornication, when God says, thou shall not commit adultery, when God says, thou shall not lie with man as with woman, he's not trying to keep us from sex. He's trying to keep sex for us. It is God's wonderful gift, and sex is so bad perverted because it is so wonderful as God intended for one man and one woman to love one another in a monogamous marriage to have that fulfillment and joy, and frankly, friend, I want that for my children.

I want my children and my grandchildren to know what I have known and what joys and I have known in a happy Christian monogamous marriage. The devil is a pervert. The devil is a pervert.

He has no raw materials. He can only take that which is from God and pervert it. So they became sexually perverted, and then when they became sexually perverted, they became socially perverted. Now look, if you will, in verse 28, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate. That means a decadent mind. And old friend, we don't have a reprobate-minded society today. God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient.

Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents without understanding, covenant breakers without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. Man, when he turns his back from God, becomes not only sexually perverted, but socially perverted. And the world becomes a madhouse. And we live in our self-made cells and lock ourselves in at night while the hoodlums roam up and down the streets.

And our wives and our daughters are afraid to go out at night and walk up and down the streets. What happens when man turns his back on God? When man turns his back on God, he becomes sexually perverted. Then he becomes socially perverted. And then he becomes spiritually perverted. Look in verse 32. Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which do such things, which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but they have pleasure in them that do them. We have begun to entertain ourselves. How do we entertain ourselves?

We have discussions about drunkenness and perversion, immorality and adultery. And the devil has a pipeline right into our homes because not only do we do these things, we have pleasure in them that do them. We make them the most admired people in America. Now, folks, I am broken-hearted for America.

Listen to me. God's people need to get on their face before Almighty God in prayer. Three times in this chapter it says God gave them up, God gave them up, and God gave them over. Do you know the very worst thing that God could do to America, the very worst thing, is just leave us alone. Just leave us alone.

Just say, all right, you've got it. Take your vices, take your lust, take your evolution, take your abortion, take it all, you've got it. So long. I hope that doesn't happen to America. God gave them up. God gave them up. God gave them over.

It's revival time in America. It's time for us to seek the Lord because Romans 1 is being replayed for us, willful self-determination, wicked self-deception, woeful self-destruction. That's the bad news that makes the good news good. The good news is the gospel. That's what Romans is about, the gospel. And the word gospel means good news.

Paul says in verse 16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. Every sin will be forgiven. He will come into your heart radically, dramatically, and eternally change your heart, put his spirit in you, and he will not only change you, but he will empower you, and then when time to go to heaven comes, when you die or when Jesus comes, he'll take you to be with him for eternity. Friend, that's the gospel truth. And if you're not certain of your salvation, I'm going to lead you in a prayer.

And in this prayer, you can invite Jesus Christ into your heart as your Lord and Savior. You say, Pastor Rogers, I'm not in the condition that those people were in that you talked about. I sincerely believe that. You're on the same side of the fence with them if you're not saved. And you see, friend, it's not the amount of sin that condemns us. It's the fact of sin.

The Bible says for all of sin, we're going to see that in the third chapter. And you need to be saved, and you can be saved today. Would you pray a prayer like this out of your heart?

Dear God, just speak to him. Dear God, I know that you love me, and I know that you want to save me. I'm a sinner. My sin deserves judgment, but I want mercy.

Oh, Jesus, I need to be saved. You died to save me. You promised to save me if I would trust you.

I do trust you. I believe you're the Son of God. I believe you paid for my sin with your blood on the cross.

I believe God raised you from the dead. And now by faith, like a child, I receive you into my life as my Lord and Savior. Take control of my life. Be my master, my Savior. I will live for you the rest of my life. I will follow you all of my life because you have given to me the gift of salvation. Thank you.

Thank you for saving me. I don't look for a sign. I don't ask for a feeling.

I don't think that I'm going to get this because I'm a good person. I just received the gift, and all I can say is thank you, Lord. Thank you. Begin now to make me the person you want me to be and help me never to be ashamed of you. In your name, amen. If you would like to learn more about how you can know Jesus or deepen your relationship with him, simply click the Discover Jesus link on our website, lwf.org. For a copy of this message or additional resources, visit our online store at lwf.org or call 1-800-274-5683. Thank you.