6-4-23 Special Guest Speaker Tim Lee - Late Service

Amen. Let's give brother Tim Lee a hand this morning. Amen. Am I on?

I am on. Thank you, brother. And it's such a joy and an honor to be back at lighthouse. How many of you have never heard me speak before? Hold up your hand. Wow. Good night.

A bunch. And uh, They've never heard my story. That's uh, how many of you have heard me speak? Hold up your hand. Well, good night. So I'm going to do something different.

I don't normally do this, but I'm going to do something different. Take your Bibles. The book of the revelation chapter number 12. Revelation chapter number 12. And I just changed my message. If you want to hear what I preached in the first service, you'll have to ask them for a copy of it back in the back.

I'm sure they recorded it. And uh, so I'm going to give my story in this service. Revelation chapter 12. And um, thank you pastor for letting me come back to uh, the lighthouse. I love this guy. I love his family and uh, I preach for his brother Chillicothe as I'm saying that right. Chillicothe, Ohio on several occasions.

And then like you said, we were here, uh, right when COVID hit and uh, in 2020. Matter of fact, after Sunday night, we were at Bobbitt. Uh, what's the name of that restaurant? Bob Evans.

Yeah. And uh, a couple of buddies of mine from Vietnam were there. Uh, is Earl, Earl, are you here in this service? Earl Lewis. He was supposed to be here backslid. No, there he is right over there.

My buddy Earl and uh, and then Ray Burchie. I don't think Ray's uh, here this morning. We were eating at Bob Evans and they announced that they were closing down all the restaurants uh, and uh, so uh, we got out of Dodge just in the nick of time. We flew back to Dallas but uh, we had a great day. It's good to be back. I've been telling you pastor for 3 years. I wanted to come back and I called him every once in a while. I said, brother Joshua, I'd sure like to come back. He said, brother Tim, you're just not ready yet and so I called him back a few months later and I said, brother Joshua, I really want to come back to the lighthouse. He said, brother Tim, you're just not ready yet. So, I called him a few months ago. I said, look, uh, brother Joshua, I said, I'll come for free. He said, brother Tim, you're ready now.

That didn't happen. My wife is with me. Connie, would you stand up and turn around and let the folks meet you to have a great time? Thank you, Connie. And we just recently celebrated 51 years of marriage and have uh very wonderful children, sick grandchildren, god's been so good to us. We just had a great big celebration. Earl was with us uh in uh Dallas.

We had uh went to South Fork Ranch. Some of you old folks remember uh that's where JR got shot and um how many of you remember that show? Hold up. These are the old people right here.

Okay. And um we just celebrated 50 years of preaching the gospel and had a phenomenal time and it was just uh hundreds and hundreds of folks that come from all over America. We had Senator Ted Cruz.

Uh it was a keynote speaker Willie Roberson of Duck Dynasty. Fame uh did a phenomenal job and then we had a video by Ollie North. Ollie was supposed to have been with us.

His wife's been close to death now for several months. He didn't want to leave her side and um Charles Billingsley sang for us. We had, it was just amazing. Just a great great time just to celebrate and I think every once in a while, God's people just need to celebrate and just have a good time and uh we did that. So, um thank you for letting us be um uh uh days like this come and go by so fast. They get there over with before you before you know it and uh so I hope your pastor will have me back. If I don't ever come back, it won't be my fault, alright?

Alright. So, Revelation chapter number twelve. If you want to stand while I read these verses and then I'll have you be seated when I'm finished. Revelation chapter twelve. Let me begin reading that verse number seven and there was war in heaven and Michael and his angels fault. There's going to be another war. That's in chapter nineteen.

That'll be the war that ends the war. There was war in heaven and Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not and neither was their place found anymore in heaven. The great dragon was cast out.

That old serpent called the devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him and I heard a loud voice saying in the background. Now, is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our god and the power of his Christ for the accuser of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our god day and night and the question is, how would you overcome the accuser and a more pertinent question on June the fourth two thousand and twenty-three. How are you and I going to overcome the accuser? Two ways. The very next verse tells us.

Are you ready? Here it is. Verse number eleven and they overcame him by the blood of the land. by the word of their testimony. What's your testimony?

What's your story? The lord will add his blessings to the reading and the preaching of his word. You may be seated. When you go out to the cemetery, you see a headstone. There's enough information on that headstone that we know something about the person that is buried in that particular spot.

We know their name of course and then maybe there's something about their family. Maybe a Bible verse, perhaps something about their military career but then there's always the two dates. There's the date that the person was born and then there's the date that the person died.

but more important than the two dates in between the two days is a little dash and it's what's on your dash that matters the most. That's that's your story. What happened in the time that you took your first breath to the moment that you took your last breath. That's your story. I'm going to hold in my hand today a book. It's full of stories of people's lives. Men and women. Old Testament and New Testament. It all starts with Adam. Did you men ever stop to think what it would have been like to have been Adam? Adam had a wife and and did not have a mother-in-law.

That's a story. Adam had a story. Noah had a story. Abraham and Moses and Joshua and Isaac and David and Daniel Chad, Elijah, Samson all had stories.

Jonah and Nehemiah and John and Zacchaeus and Peter and Paul. There's a whole chapter in the book of Hebrews. We oftentimes refer to as a faith chapter and and in that chapter, there's one story after the other because of their faith.

It's called faith stories. These great men but did you know that right in the middle of all these men, there's a woman that is listed there by Rahab. You know what Rahab was? Rahab was a prostitute.

Rahab was a harlot and yet there comes a day in her life when she too puts her faith and her trust in god and god thinks so much of her faith that he puts her in the faith chapter. I'm talking to someone right now and you feel like you've blown it. You've messed up. You've shipwrecked and you're thinking well, there's no way that I can have a story but I've got good news for you. Two things. Number one, you're in this room right now and you're breathing air. That means you're alive and number two, my god is a god of a second chance and sometimes a third and sometimes a fourth as some of us can testify.

It's too late. What's your story? What's your testimony? I was raised in a preacher's home. My dad was a Southern Baptist pastor for almost 60 years.

Can you imagine that? Almost six full decades of pastoring and preaching god's word. My mom went to heaven 4 years ago. One of the most godly women I've ever known in my life. A strong woman. She didn't weigh but maybe 120 pounds soaking wet. She was strong.

There were seven of us in our family. She did the cooking and the sewing and the washing and raising of us five kids, mom and dad. Motor yards. She she was mowing her yard with a push mower when she's 91 years old. I'm not talking about the kind that she pushed the handle down and it takes off.

I'm talking about a push mower. Ninety-one. She called me and she said, Tim, I I sold my car. I was shocked that because she drove herself everywhere. I said, mom, why did you sell your car? She said, well, I'm 91.

I've never had an accident and I've never had a ticket and I want to go out on top. I couldn't say that when I was seventeen years old. Our home was not a perfect home but no stretch of the imagination but it was a great home.

It's a good home. You know what you do when you're raised in a preacher's home? You know what you do? You go to church all the time. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, Revivals, Bible school, vacation Bible school. I I told a group of teenagers other day.

I was on drugs whenever I was nine years old. Mom and dad went to church on Sunday morning. They drug us back Sunday night when the doors were open. We went to church. We never ever sat around and had meetings to decide whether we were going to go to church or not. We never ever did that. I I read on social media preachers will say most time they posted on Saturday night Sunday morning church attendance is a Saturday night decision.

We didn't do that. We didn't ever have a Saturday night meeting about whether we were going to church on Sunday morning. We just knew come Sunday morning. That was the Lord's day. We were going to church on Sunday.

Friends, that's a good thing to have for your children that they know there's nothing else going to happen. That's more important than being in the house of God on Sunday morning. When you make that a priority, you see we're so messed up in America today. We got things so far out of whack.

The Bible says, seek you first the kingdom of God and all these things should be added unto you. We're putting everything before God kind of go. We travel across America week after week. We go down front to the to the get us a bite to eat on Sunday morning and before we come to church and there's ball teams scattered all all through there. They're getting ready to go play ball. They used to didn't even play ball on Wednesday night. Did you know when I was in school that the schools didn't have activities on Wednesday night? You want to know why because that was the prayer meeting night for the church. They knew that now we got it flipped. The church is looking to see what the world is going to do before we make decisions for shame and and now then they can't even wait to Wednesday night. They got to play on Sunday morning 10 o'clock on Sunday morning to get ready to go play ball.

There's not a priority of God in America today and that's one of the reasons why we are in the last that we're in today. It's sad and it's shameful. But but it wasn't that way at our home. We went to church and you don't know some parents. It didn't hurt us a bit. It was good for us. We learned a lot at church.

It was wonderful because you know something else. We also learned a lot of good stuff at home too. There's a lot of young adult parents here this morning. Let me give you a couple of verses of young adult parents Deuteronomy chapter six and verse number five and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart with all thy soul with all thy might and verse number six and these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart not an option. It's a command that shall be in thine heart and verse number seven and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shall talk of them when thou said it's in thine house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou ridest up. What are you talking about? You're talking about the word of God.

When are you talking about it? When you sit down, when you rise up, when you go by the way and who are you talking about it to? To your children. Hey, as important as for your children to be in Sunday school or a small group or an AWANA program or even a Christian Academy.

All that's great and all that's wonderful. But listen to this young adult parents. It's not their primary responsibility to teach your children the word of God. It is your responsibility to teach your children the word of God and you teach them when when you rise when you sit down when you go by the way.

When they learn from you as a parent, they understand that that's a priority of your life and they can pass it on to their children and then they can pass it on to their children and that's the way that it's supposed to be. Hey, when I was only ten years of age, North City Baptist Church in North City, Illinois Sunday morning, sat in on the second row on the right hand side. I got into conviction as a ten-year-old boy. I don't know whether you understand what conviction is best. I can explain it in a moment. A sentence or two is that the conviction is when God himself comes to you and starts talking to you personally about big stuff like life and death and heaven and hell and eternity and man when conviction comes to you, especially if it's in a setting like we're in right now on Sunday morning church and conviction comes if conviction was to come to you today while I'm speaking, you probably will be the most miserable person in the building. You're going to want the preacher just to shut up.

No more singing. Somebody help me. Get me out of here. But friend, let me tell you if conviction does come to you today while I'm speaking to you know what you ought to do.

You ought to thank God for it. You know what it means? It means God loves you. It means this one true and holy God wants to have a personal relationship with you. It means he wants you to spend all of eternity with him in this beautiful awesome place called heaven and on a Sunday morning, January 10 year old boy, North City Baptist Church. I'm under conviction when the invitation comes. I'm really under conviction.

It's so bad. All I can see is hell, somebody said. Well, you shouldn't get saved just to stay out of hell. Maybe not, but that's not a bad reason to get saved. I left my seat that morning and I went out at the altar. My mom came and knelt inside me as a 10 year old boy. I repented of my sins received Jesus Christ as my personal savior and I got born into the family of God and ladies and gentlemen, young people. I'm here to tell you today. That is the greatest thing that has ever happened in my life and if you've been saved, that is the greatest thing that has ever happened in your life.

I gotta be upfront with you. I gotta tell you if you've never been saved, then your life is incomplete. You may be the richest person in this room. You may have more money than all the rest of us put together, but if you don't know Jesus, then your life is incomplete. You may be the smartest person in this room. You may be the most educated person in this building today, but if you don't know Jesus then your life is incomplete.

You may be the most beautiful woman in this county. You may be the strongest man in this county, but if you don't know Jesus, then your life today is incomplete. You need Jesus.

I was so excited. I told my family and and friends what had happened in my life, but then when I became a teenager, something else happened in my life. It never happened overnight, but rather gradually I started to put things before God football and basketball and baseball and track and field. These things soon became my gods and my dad told me more than one time, Tim. There's there's nothing wrong with you playing ball unless you put it before God.

I don't want to listen to that and a little bit little bit little. I started putting these things before God in my life and when I did, I started having trouble. I began to rebel. I rebelled at school. I rebelled against God. I rebelled against mom and dad. He said, well, Tim, what did your parents do when you rebelled? They had never read any of Doctor Spock's books on child psychology.

They didn't even know who the dude was. He believed that if a child was frustrated, whatever to get the frustration out, let him do it. If he wanted to pick up a rock and throw it through the window, if that would help him get his frustration out, then let him throw the rock through the window.

Well, my dad had other ways of getting that frustration out. We lived on a farm for a while and behind the farmhouse was a willow tree. Now, I don't know whether you know what willow trees are good for or not but you don't get any fruit off of them. They're not a real good shade tree. The only thing they're good for is to get a switch off of them.

The only prayer that I did back then was for that tree to die and it never did die. I have to go out and get my own switch and man, I'd be hurt before I got back cuz I knew what was about to happen and um they would always talk to us before they spanked us. Always, they say, say, say something like this. They say, no, Tim, this is going to hurt me a whole lot worse than it's going to hurt you. I thought, isn't that dumb?

If you give me that switch, I'll show you it's going to hurt the worst. I said many times even before I joined the Marine Corps that I served under the stars and the stripes. My dad burns the stripes. I saw the stars and but they believed in old fashioned discipline but many many times I would slip out behind their back to do what I want to do.

I tend to public school. Most of my friends were not saved. Most of their parents were not Christians and I made up my mind as a teenager that I could live my own life.

My junior year in high school set records in the long jump. The hurdles win ribbons and medals but get him further and further and further away from god. He said, Tim, what did god do? God declares in Revelation chapter three and verse number 19. God said this as many as I love.

Listen to those words again. This is god saying this. God said, as many as I love, I rebuke and chase him. Be zealous therefore and repent. Five of my high school friends were killed in car wrecks.

Every time I would see one of them in a casket, I knew that it very easily could have been me and god would speak to my heart but I wouldn't listen. I kept running. I kept rebelling. I graduated from high school. I started college in the day working nights in the meantime, my life became one disaster after the other and I didn't think it could get any worse but it wasn't long until I got fired from my job. I got kicked out of college. Nowhere to go.

Nothing to do and again, my life full of confusion. Walking down the street in my hometown, McLeansboro, Illinois. I went by the post office and I and I noticed a sign. I'd seen this sign before but it never got my attention like it did that day was a picture of a of a young man in a sharp looking uniform at the top of the sign. It said the Marines are looking for a few good men. I was so full of myself and so egotistical.

I went in and told that recruiter that I found what they were looking for. Young people to be real frank with you. I was tired of living at home. I wanted to change. I wanted something different.

I was tired of being told what time to go to bed and what time to get out of bed and how to get my hair cut and what I could do and could not do. So, I joined the United States Marine Corps. Wasn't the most intelligent thing I ever did. They put me on a greyhound bus, sent me to Paris Island, South Carolina. I got off that bus and stepped out of those yellow footprints and I met that guy they call drill instructor.

Man, I was there less than 24 hours when I decided I didn't like him and he didn't like me but you know the real reason why I didn't like him. He was in authority and I didn't like authority. I was rebellious toward all authority but I was soon to discover that no matter where I would ever go in this life that there would always be authority with god being the supreme in all authority. I laid awake nights many nights platoon 305 thinking about my life. The shame, the disgrace that I brought to my dad's ministry, my own family. My attitude began to change in boot camp but the Marines had some things to help it change and I graduated from boot camp with a meritorious promotion with the ITR then I went to engineering school at Camp Lejeune graduated with another meritorious promotion and then I received my orders that I was to go to South Vietnam. I had 3 weeks leave. I went home to Southern Illinois and spent those 3 weeks with mom and dad on Sunday before I was to leave on Monday. I went to church with my parents and in the service that morning, I thought I genuinely thought that I had made things right with god and on Monday, mom and dad drove me to Saint Louis. I got on that plane. It no more get off the runway and I basically told god that I couldn't do it. Those men were Marines.

They laugh at me. I was afraid they'd make fun of me but the Vietnam was there for 9 months and I didn't go back to do a lot of the things that I had done before but friend, listen to this. If you're not for the lord, then you're against him. For the believer, for the Christian in this room today, there's no middle ground. Today, you're either helping the cause of Christ or you're hurting the cause of Christ.

I had an opportunity after opportunity to live for god. Mom sent me a Bible on the inside of that Bible. She wrote these words. She said, Tim, this Bible can keep you from sin or sin can keep you from this Bible.

I put it in the bottom of my foot locker. I had no prayer life. I had no testimony. It was a black marine in my squad by the name of Lee Gordon. Lee and I flew to the same plane.

We were the best of friends. He was a Christian living for god. I was saved. I was running from heaven. Oftentimes, I watched as he said, I'm the edges rack and read his Bible. Openly talked to other marines about the lord and I knew this was the story.

I knew this was the testimony that I was supposed to have but I wouldn't do it. I kept running. Thirty days left in my my top sergeant offered me a desk job. A desk job was coveted.

It meant you didn't have to go back out to the field to the bush anymore. Most of the time. But for some reason, I told my top that I'd rather spend the rest of my time with my own men. I was told to take them on a mind sweep. I've been on numerous mindsweeps. The only thing particularly different about this one is that some of my men were fairly new in long.

Some of them have been there a few weeks. I got my men together in March the eighth 1971. I told my men that I would walk point. Point man, the first man in the squad, 1520 meters, another marine, 1520 meters, another marine, and we'd be staggered out in that kind of formation. Normally, I would have been in the back of the squad with the raiderman, corpsman, lieutenant, would try to be a hero or anything like that.

Simply walking point, especially for the new men. We walked that morning without any trouble. We found a couple of rounds. We detonated them. We stopped at noon hour to eat. When I was eating, my friend asked me if I wanted him to take over his point. He could have very easily have done it. He was as well trained as I but for some reason, I told him I would finish the day and then on the next day, he would walk point.

We picked up where we left off from. Forty-five minutes later, I stepped on a sixty-pound mine. Move me several feet into the air, rip both of my legs off of my body. I should have been killed instantly. It was a big enough mine to destroy a jeep. We had entered a major minefield. At the very exact moment that I stepped on a mine, the South Korean Marine that was serving with us stepped on a mine, lost one of his legs. Our bulldozer driver set his blade down on a mine and now there's noise and smoke and chaos and confusion. Some of our men think we're taking on a small enemy fire and I'm in extreme pain. It was only unconscious for a little while. Realized that I've been hit. I didn't know how serious it was. In the midst of all the commotion, the confusion, looked up, my head was laying a little out.

Corporal Lee Gore. Lee wasn't cussing the president of the communists, the Vietnamese, but rather tears run down his face, praying and asking God to help me. And I can remember today as though it happened five minutes ago, crying non-providence a little after one thirty in the afternoon. I looked up that day and I prayed. I didn't want to die. I wanted to live. It was a simple prayer. God, if you'll let me live.

Something like these words, get back home to mom and dad. Well, I'd prayed and made God so many promises on so many of the occasions but I never meant it like a minute that day. He came to the medevac shop. He came to the hospital ship, the USS Sanctuary.

Second day, I was on that ship. Two naval doctors basically gave up hope. Infection had set in.

High degree temperature, a lot of complications. They never expected me to live. Doctor Robert Bailey was one of those two doctors. He and I were reunited in Garland, Texas years ago and he told the thousand people that night that they didn't think that I was going to live because of the seriousness of my wounds.

But God had a plan for my life. I lay on the hospital ship for 2 weeks unconscious most of the time. They took me to the island of Guam to the Naval Hospital where I spent the next 2 weeks unconscious most of that time. Weighed 187 pounds before I was hit the island of Guam.

I weigh a little less than 80 pounds. During that first 4-week period, mom and dad received visits from the Marines, the Red Cross, and numerous telegrams and from what they've been told, they never expected to see the oldest son alive again. God had a plan for my life. Years ago, I was speaking in Dayton, Ohio.

Faith Baptist Church. Earl Lewis, the man Sentinel Love mentioned just a while ago. Came to hear me speak and Earl was the fifth man back on the mine sweep that day.

He told Connie and I that it looked like someone had taken a five-gallon bucket of red paint and just poured it all over me. That none of my men thought that I would live in that revival crusade in Dayton, Ohio. Earl gave his heart to Jesus Christ. Pastor Lim baptized him faithful member of that church for years and years and years.

He's been attending over here the last few weeks. Two years ago in Danville, Virginia, Ray Burchie came to hear me. Ray was the radio man on the mine sweep that day. He told my family that when they put me on the medevac chopper to go to the hospital ship that none of my men thought that I would be alive by the time that we reached the ship.

It was only a 20-minute flight. God had a plan for my life. He brought me back to the states of the Philadelphia Naval Hospital a few years ago in Warren, Ohio.

It was four years ago. Ray came to hear me a second time and in the second service when the invitation was given, he was the first to get out of his seat and come and gave his heart to Christ. God had a plan for my life. They brought me back to the states of the Philadelphia Naval Hospital where I spent the next eight months. Surgery after surgery after surgery after surgery.

When the doctors were finished and all the surgeries are over, I had three inches remaining on my right leg, eleven inches on my left but no other part of my body was hurt and some today would tell us that it was nothing more than an accident or just a coincidence but I remind you friend that with God there are no accidents and there are no coincidence. God was not asleep on March the eighth 1971. You see, as a ten-year-old boy, I said yes to Jesus Christ but as a teenager, I decided that I could live my own life. I made a choice, a deliberate choice to run.

I ran and ran and ran until March the eighth 1971 and the running was over. I went from home from the hospital to my dad's church in southern Illinois. I went forward. I was the prodigal son come home and I asked for forgiveness and of course they forgave me. It was in that church that I met Connie. We fell in love with each other and were soon married. It wasn't long after we were married that God called me to preach.

Can you imagine that? A marine in a wheelchair with no legs and God called me to preach. Pastored for five years in southern Illinois and now I'm a forty-fifth year as an evangelist. I preached in every state.

Many many foreign countries preaching God's word. I'm going to tell you today like I've said it so many times. The past 51 plus years of my life have absolutely been the happiest years of my life. He said, but Tim, you're in a wheelchair. Your legs are gone. Today, I'm in a wheelchair but today, I'm in the will of God and that my friend makes all the difference in the world. Here's how the book of Job says that in Job chapter five and verse seventeen. Happy is the man whom God corrected.

Wow. Kimberly, you tell us that God would do something like that to a person. No, God doesn't necessarily do things to us.

He does things for us because he loves us, because he cares for us, and because we are his children. Hey, you're saved today but you're out of the will of God that I plead with you. I beg you today, don't leave the doors of this building until you make things right with God and there may be several listen to my voice right now and you have never been saved. Your life has never ever been changed by the power of God. I'm not talking about being a Baptist. This precious Baptist pastor on the front row today would be the very first person in this room to tell you that joining a Baptist church will not take you to heaven. It's not about being a Baptist or Methodist or Lutheran Presbyterian Church of Christ Assembly of God, a Catholic.

It's about a personal relationship with Jesus. You've been so awesome to speak to today and I'm going to getting ready now to say the most important words that I would have said here this morning. So, I'm going to ask you please don't interrupt. Don't disturb anyone. Don't talk to anyone.

Don't pass a note because the very person you try to distract may be the very person that the Holy Spirit is speaking to right now. So, here we go. Are you ready? Here's the most important words that I would have said here today.

Are you ready? A little over 2000 years ago, God sent his only son to this earth. God didn't have twenty sons.

God didn't have two sons. God had one begotten son, Jesus Christ. He came to this earth born of a virgin and he lived on this earth for nearly thirty-three sinless, spotless years.

He did no wrong. The only person to ever live a perfect life on this earth was Jesus. And then, one day, he walks up Calvary's Hill willingly, laid down his life for your sins and for my sins and for the sins of the whole world. He hung on an old rugged cross suspended between heaven and earth and on that cross, he shed his blood and on that cross, he died. God's only son died. They took him off with that cross and they carried him and they put him in a borrowed tomb. Ladies and gentlemen, young people right here among other things is what separates Christianity from every single religion on the face of the earth. For if you were to go to the place where they put the body of Jesus, you wouldn't find him. He's not there for on the third day, he got up from the grave bodily, physically, he arose from the dead, victorious over sin, victorious over death, victorious over hell, and today, God's son is alive. That's the good news.

Here's the great news. He wants to come and live in your life. Say, Tim, how does that happen? How does God's son come and live in my life? You come to this place and we're not talking about the geographical location of Lighthouse Baptist Church. We're talking about in your life, this moment, this time, this place in your life to understand in the sight of this holy god that you're a sinner. The Bible says so. We've all sinned. Every single last one of us have sinned and come short of god's glory. I'm a sinner.

Pastors are sinner. We've all sinned. Every one of us and it's our sin that separates us from this holy god. It's our sin that keeps us from having the right relationship with this holy god and it is our sin that will separate us from god for all of eternity in a horrible, horrible place called hell. Except for the fact that a price was paid for our sin. God's only son paid the price for our sin and today, if you're willing to repent of your sin, if you're willing to turn from your sin and turn to Jesus, listen to this. The very moment that you by faith say yes to Jesus.

What are you saying yes to? The cross. To the blood that was shed, to the death that was dying, and to an empty tomb, to a risen savior, and the very moment that you by faith say yes, you become god's child forever. Wouldn't you like to know that when you die that you would spend eternity with god in this beautiful place called heaven forever and ever and ever. You say, well, Tim, I'm not planning on dying anytime soon and I honestly don't think any of us are planning it but I tell people all the time you don't have to go to heaven and you don't have to go to hell. You can't stay here. You're going to spend eternity either in heaven or in hell and it all depends upon what you do with Jesus. Today could be the greatest day of your entire life. If you say yes, would you bow your heads this morning?