[0:00] Man, that's the first time for playing and singing.! I can't do that. And I want my life to count for Jesus Christ, too.
[0:12] So I'm going to ask you to get open your Bibles to two places. The first one is Genesis chapter 1. That's pretty easy. The second one is in the New Testament, and it's 2 Corinthians chapter 4.
[0:30] 2 Corinthians chapter 4. We'll get there in a little bit. We're going to begin in Genesis chapter 1. The last time we were together at the beginning of the year, the first Sunday of the year, I challenged you regarding the new year.
[0:53] And I challenged you to put the Lord first in all that you do, in your decisions, in your goals that you may set for the year, in your resolutions, to not make them about how you look or how your clothes fit, but make them to do with your walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.
[1:12] Because in the beginning, God, and He belongs in the beginning. And we looked at a few other things that I challenged you in regards to spiritual goals. And I want to continue in Genesis chapter 1.
[1:24] And I want to look this week at the very first thing that God does when He brings that creation of His back into, I don't know, back to life. It's submerged in verse number 2 in water.
[1:38] And I'll just begin at verse number 1. And I want to relate a few truths. Rather, I want to discover a truth. And then I want to relate that truth through a few stories to you this morning.
[1:52] And then I want to challenge you and try to drive and charge that truth home to you that you act upon it. So, Genesis chapter 1. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
[2:04] And then in verse 2, we see that something has happened. And it's not articulated in Genesis. But piecing together a few other passages, we see that there was a judgment of a fallen, of a rebellion, of Lucifer.
[2:20] And the earth, in verse 2, was without form and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light.
[2:35] And there was light. And God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day. The darkness He called night.
[2:47] And the evening and the morning were the first day. The first recorded words spoken by God here in the Bible are His command for light.
[2:58] Let there be light. He commanded the light to penetrate and separate the darkness. And God divided the darkness and created something that He called day.
[3:10] He made a division. A division that did not exist, at least from the earth's point of view. There was no division. It was just incomplete and total and utter darkness.
[3:22] And yet God speaks and commands for light. In verse number 4, God saw the light. And He immediately determined that it was good.
[3:36] The darkness, the destruction, the earth being without form and void. It had gone on long enough. And that is not why He created that earth. And so God says, let there be light.
[3:52] The darkness, the water, the condemnation, the judgment. There's nothing good about any of that. But light.
[4:04] The presence of light, God saw that and said, now that's good. That's something good there. The Lord's not interested in the darkness and the condemnation.
[4:16] It brings Him no pleasure to see this creation of His under His condemnation. He doesn't want it to stay that way. And when God looks and sees the light is good, there's no man.
[4:28] There's no animals. There's no flowers and there's no trees. There's no life. But there is light. And before He can get any life on that planet, He commands for there to be light.
[4:44] Now let's relate this. To you and I. Flip over now to 2 Corinthians chapter number 4. 2 Corinthians chapter number 4.
[4:55] What we're reading in Genesis 1. That thought, that may seem insignificant to you. But what I want to show you is that in fact, that command for light is one of the greatest things that God has ever done.
[5:13] Not for the earth, but for you and I. And now you're going to see this. Look at 2 Corinthians. We're in chapter number 4. And I'm going to begin reading in verse 3. The Apostle Paul says, If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.
[5:31] In whom the God of this world... We know from the Bible that that's the devil and Satan. The God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
[5:54] For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. Now watch carefully in verse 6. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
[6:20] What we're reading, according to the Apostle Paul, is that what took place back in Genesis chapter 1, when there was an earth that was without form and void, it's a picture of a man that is lost.
[6:34] A man that is blinded. His understanding is darkened. He doesn't see what God has done for him in the person of Jesus Christ.
[6:45] The God of this world has blinded his mind, and he doesn't believe, according to verse number 4. That earth in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 2 pictures a lost man in complete darkness, dead in his sins, under condemnation, with no hope.
[7:05] And yet in this passage then, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, in verse 5 it's preaching Jesus Christ.
[7:17] That message is the glorious light that God commanded to shine, to separate, to divide the darkness, and to bring light to a world that was under condemnation.
[7:32] What God did in commanding the light, verse 6, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts.
[7:43] What God did was pushed back the darkness that was blinding you and condemning you. Now if you're a born again Christian this morning, you ought to understand and be able to relate to this parallel.
[7:58] According to Paul's analogy, you were lost. You were dead in your sins. You were under condemnation. In Ephesians 4, having the understanding darkened because of the blindness of our hearts.
[8:13] And we find out in this passage, who's blinding our hearts. Who's keeping us from seeing and understanding what Jesus Christ did. In total darkness.
[8:24] You once thought. You once thought that you were a good person. I'm good enough. I haven't done anything terrible.
[8:35] I'm a good person. And you thought good people go to heaven. And you're blind. You thought that if I go to a church every once in a while, surely that church and just following its program can absolve for whatever wrongdoings I might have done in my past.
[8:56] And so I'll drop in every now and then and ease my conscience that I did something good. And you thought that could gain you peace with God.
[9:08] There was a time perhaps some of you thought that a church could save your soul. You thought that if I just get baptized, I'll be fine. After all, that's what a lot of people do.
[9:20] Either when they're a baby or when they're an adult. They call up the priest and they say, hey, can I get baptized? What do I need to do? And he says, well, be here. And you get your name on this form.
[9:31] And some of them say, pay this amount of money. Ungodly wickedness. Pay this amount of money and we can get you in. We'll get you wet.
[9:43] And you thought that if I would do that, I could be saved. I could have my sins washed away. You were dead. And you were blind.
[9:55] You were in darkness. Some of you thought that doing some good deeds every now and then could atone for the bad deeds. It made sense in your mind, but what you didn't understand is that you were so lost.
[10:08] Do you remember that darkness? Do you remember that thinking that I just do a few things and I can make up for it. And it could never work. You were in darkness.
[10:21] You were lost. But God, according to this passage in sect, God who is rich in mercy and his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, that quickened us together.
[10:36] He made us alive. How so? Because he commanded that light would shine unto you. Maybe it was a Christian that you work with that witnessed to you and said, you need Jesus Christ.
[10:50] You can't go to heaven without Jesus Christ. The Bible says that Jesus is the way unto the Father. Maybe somebody came by you and your family and said, you're going to church and it's not going to do anything for you.
[11:04] You need to come to where they tell you the truth. Maybe somebody handed you a piece of paper, a little pamphlet that contained the Bible stories and the Bible verses that show you how you can be saved and on your way to heaven.
[11:16] Maybe somebody, God in some way, used some means, some person, some circumstance, God used it to shine light into your heart.
[11:30] God commanded light to shine. Why did he do that? Because he cares for your soul. Because he's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
[11:42] So he shines a light to attract you to that light. What God did was not see fit to leave you in your condemnation. He takes no pleasure in a sinner under condemnation.
[11:54] The Bible says that he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He's not willing that any, including you, should perish. And our wonderful God in his mercy and grace, he saw us in our helpless state.
[12:12] He saw us blind, without hope. And he sent a light. He had compassion of our souls and commanded light to shine into our hearts.
[12:23] He said, let there be light. He did that for you. He did that for you. He commanded the light to shine.
[12:34] And just like God did that back in Genesis chapter 1, And just as he commanded that light to penetrate the darkness that you were in, still today, today, God is commanding light to shine on people and on places.
[12:53] And he desires to use you and I to shine. I want to tell you a few stories this morning in attempts to relate this truth to you.
[13:05] I may have told one or two of these to you already. I'm not entirely sure. If I did, just bear with me and you'll hear it again. But I want to give you a few short stories that will reveal in different circumstances how our God commanded the light to shine down upon this earth.
[13:27] The first one I'm going to borrow from a missionary. There was a man, I want to say it was back in the 70s, 80s, in that range, a man in the United States of America that God laid on his heart to surrender to missions.
[13:40] And he surrendered to God and said, I'll go wherever you want me to go. And the Lord laid on his heart the country of Thailand. Thailand. So he said, I'll go.
[13:51] And he went around and raised up support and he headed out to the country of Thailand. For what purpose? To take a Bible and to preach to those dear souls the gospel of Jesus Christ, that the God of this world that has blinded that country and their religion and their false doctrines, that it would be removed.
[14:10] That the light would shine. And the missionary began preaching around the area that they felt the Lord lead him to. He surveyed and kind of parked into a city.
[14:21] And he began spreading the gospel and talking to everybody that he could talk to out in public or out at their jobs or out in the fields. And he worked and he labored and he labored.
[14:31] And he just did his best for the Lord Jesus Christ. And every now and then he would get a soul saved. Somebody would trust Christ and believe the message of the gospel. And he tried to get them together and get a handful of people together and have a church.
[14:45] And as he continued to work and labor, then one of them just quit coming and the other one quit coming. And over the years of his ministry, he could never get a church established in this town in Thailand.
[14:57] He felt like a failure. He felt like, God, you sent me here. I'm doing the work and I'm not seeing hardly any fruit. I can't get anything going. And as time went on, things changed in his life.
[15:09] Either it was the finances from the churches began to dry up or circumstances had it so that he felt, my time here is done. And he prayed about it.
[15:20] He fasted and he just felt like it's time to go. He packed up and he headed back to the United States of America. Feeling like a failure. Feeling like maybe I didn't work hard enough.
[15:30] Maybe I didn't pray hard enough. What was going on? Some years passed. Another 10 to 15 years went by and the Lord laid it on another man's heart.
[15:41] Not in the United States. In Australia. He laid it on a man's heart to surrender to missions. And he surrendered to missions and the Lord showed him Thailand.
[15:53] And he moved to Thailand and he surveyed some cities and some towns and he found, like the other one, he found a place he felt like God was saying, here. And he began to set up and he began to preach the gospel and he began to get out and distribute gospel tracks and do just like every missionary does, trying to reach the people.
[16:10] And somebody got saved and another person got saved and another person. And they began to meet together and it began to continue and began to grow. And it began to teach them and disciple them into doctrine in the Bible.
[16:21] And they had a church. And he couldn't believe it. Things are going so well. And as years went on, it continued to grow and get stable and it stayed consistent. And one day as this church was growing, the missionary was off running some errands and he got a phone call from a man at the church.
[16:38] He said it was like his right hand man. And he said, Pastor, you need to come to the church. Somebody here wants to see you. It's an American. American. And he said, well, I don't know any Americans that would come to, I don't know what this is about.
[16:51] Who is he? I don't know who he is. And so the pastor makes his way back to the church. And he meets this older man. It was the missionary from the first round. And this is wild.
[17:02] The two missionaries meeting for the first time. And the one says to the other, he says, how long have you been here? How did this go? What is going on? God is doing a work.
[17:13] And after they talked, he said, well, who are you exactly? What's your interest in here? And he said, some 20, 25 years ago, I came to this very town. And I preached.
[17:23] And I preached. I couldn't get anything going. And I left. And then I catch word that there's a missionary in Thailand. And I look into it. And I find it's you. And I find you're here. And his mind is just blown.
[17:35] And they rejoice together. Because as they look back over the thing, God, God, in his infinite mercy and wisdom, looked down on a town in Thailand.
[17:45] Why? We'll never know. And said, let there be light. No, no, no, not in that town. That's where I want the light to shine.
[17:56] And that one came. He didn't know what he was doing. But he was plowing the ground. From centuries of darkness. Plowing the ground. Trying to put light.
[18:07] Trying to cast light onto a lost and dead culture. And he left feeling like he was a failure. But little did he know that God had a timetable. That he was working things.
[18:18] And he brought another man over and said, No, I said, let there be light in that town. And what the Lord God did was brought a work that's still going today. Healthy and strong.
[18:30] Christians are preaching the gospel all over that town and that region. Because at one time, God commanded the light to shine into the darkness. God commanded light to shine into a town.
[18:45] I was in Pennsylvania at the church. And in the morning, one of the mornings, it was probably a day of the week, that the pastor came up to me and handed me a paper with a man's name on it.
[18:56] And a hospital. And he said, I need you to go see this man. He's dying. And they give him a week to live. And he told me the connection. I don't recall what it was at all.
[19:07] I'd never heard the man's name before. I didn't even know where the hospital was. It was somewhere in Maryland. And so I cleared my afternoon. And I took a trip down about an hour drive to find this hospital.
[19:17] And I hated finding parking. And what entrance do you go in? And I don't know anything about the place. I finally get to the room. I find the man. He's not that old of a man.
[19:28] But he's dying. He is in bad shape. And he's kind of rough. Just a rough looking guy. And I remember introducing myself and making some small talk.
[19:38] And he was cordial enough to talk to me. And he's just laying there all hooked up. And man, it didn't look good. And so I began to transition the conversation to his soul.
[19:51] And to eternity. And to what's eminent for him, death. And being prepared to face God and judgment. And as soon as I turned the conversation that way, this man is obvious.
[20:03] He was shutting me off. He didn't want to hear it. He just kind of looked straight away, stared off, didn't care what I was talking about. Tried to just say, you know, preacher, I don't want to hear it.
[20:13] I'm fine. And as he pushed me off, I felt inside of me, I felt the urgency of the matter. This man doesn't know what he's rejecting. He doesn't understand what God has already said about him.
[20:28] And so I just, I felt green light. Just give it to him. And I don't remember the words I said, but I know that I went at him pretty hard. And just said, you don't understand.
[20:39] And I said, if this Bible's right, you're about to leave this earth and go straight to hell into eternal torments and flames. Because God said that's what he's doing.
[20:50] And I remember this part clearly. I came and I said, but because God cares for your soul, he sent some stranger that you've never met before in your life and you'll never meet again.
[21:02] He sent somebody with a Bible to tell you how to get out of hell. And he's given you an opportunity and you don't want to take it. And the man, he could take that kind of exchange and he just talked back a few things.
[21:17] We went around. And he kind of began to tremble a little bit and softened up, but he wasn't, he was very proud and he wasn't, wasn't breaking. And so I could tell the time was about up.
[21:27] And as it always happens, nurses flood into the room and do their thing. And, and I could tell our visits over. I did what I could do. And I had a gospel track with me and I gave it to him.
[21:38] I put it in his hand and I said, listen, I'm going to go. You'll never see me again. But would you please read what this says and consider this is the truth from the Bible.
[21:49] And this is how you can have your sins forgiven. This is how you can know that you go to heaven when you die and escape hell because of what Jesus Christ did. And he just kind of nodded with me.
[22:01] And off I went out to the car and sat there and prayed for him and just prayed that God would have mercy on his soul. And what was God doing there? There was a man that was days away from damnation, but God's not willing that any should perish.
[22:18] And he said, let there be light. Maybe one last time, let there be light in that man's life, whether he receives it or reject it. God commanded the light to shine.
[22:31] And it shone into that room. He had an option on his table. There was a woman in the hospital of our town, in the York Hospital.
[22:43] And in the afternoon, I got the call to go visit her. And I didn't know anything about her either, just a name on a paper. Go visit this woman. She had surgery. And so I go find my way into the hospital.
[22:54] And I don't know her from anybody. I don't know the circumstance, what the surgery was about. I find the room. I go in the room. And there's a woman on the bed. And she's middle-aged. And she's just kind of staring at me.
[23:05] Just no emotion, no nothing. And I introduce myself and tell her why, you know, from the church, this and this and this. And I came to see her, how she's doing.
[23:16] And she didn't answer. She just kind of glared at me. Just nothing. Nothing. And as she sat there for a while, she looked up and looked up. And then she leaned over and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and scribbled.
[23:31] And I came to realize she can't talk. She had surgery. It might have been throat cancer. It had something to do with it. But she can't respond to me at all. And she's devastated. She lost her voice, her ability to communicate.
[23:45] And she has a scratch pad. And this is how this is going to go. And immediately I just realized how awkward this was going to be. How do we communicate to each other? And how do I get anything out of her to understand where she's at?
[23:59] And so I began talking to her. And I began, I was able quickly to transition to the Word of God and to the Gospel. And she surprisingly started writing down little questions that she was in response to what I was telling her.
[24:15] And the questions that showed me that she had been to some church in her life and she had knew a little bit but not much. And she was confused. What I was telling her wasn't really what she understood. And so I began to show her the Bible verses.
[24:27] And it's kind of easy when they can't talk back. And they can't cut you off. And so I just went through the whole thing uninterrupted. Romans Road showed her sin, showed her hell, showed her judgment, showed her Jesus Christ intervening, and showed her how she can be saved.
[24:44] And I said, have you ever done that before? And she said, no. I said, would you like to do that? She said, yes. And she leaned over and started to scratch something out on the thing. And I don't recall how it developed there, but we prayed together.
[24:56] And just as we were finishing up praying, a friend, a sister, somebody came bursting into the room. What's going on? Hey, we want to see you. And they had flowers. They had gifts. It just totally disrupted this moment.
[25:11] And I could tell, like, this person tried to shoo me on out of there. And the lady wrote, just scratched one more thing. She wrote, thank you. And that was it. And I just said, all right, I'm going to leave now.
[25:23] And I left her with a track again. And I said, you know, if you need some reassurance of what we just covered, repeat it. This will help you with that. And I left. You say, what was that? That was God.
[25:33] That was a woman who was at a low place in her life, who was now open. She was just sitting there, just a mute, literally. On her face was just no emotion, just dying inside to consider what her life's going to be like now.
[25:51] And the Lord brought some light into that room. He waited till she was low. And then he said, let there be light. And let that light dispel the darkness inside her.
[26:03] One morning, one Saturday morning, a couple of men and I, we went into a neighborhood, into the local city, where there were street blocks and doors were closed together, and the sidewalks and the houses were just slammed up to each other.
[26:20] And it's just not a great neighborhood, but we were going through because we have bus ministry. We had buses that drive through there picking up anybody to bring them to church. So we were visiting and inviting people out to ride the bus to church.
[26:33] And we pulled up to our first stop. We had all of our materials and things. And the man I was in the car with, I remember we were just chatting things up all the way into this place. We park, and we're right at this first door, and down the block it goes.
[26:47] You could see the block we were going to hit. And I remember opening the door, and this sense came over me. It just said in my mind, you didn't pray. And it wasn't this like, oh yeah, you know what?
[27:00] I forgot. We didn't pray. It wasn't one of those. It was like, you didn't pray. And I was going to just dismiss it, because I was already door open, getting one foot out. He was getting out. I wasn't going to, but I just felt it strong.
[27:11] It was just like, you didn't pray. You need to pray. And I said, hey, hold on. And I shut the door, and so he shuts the door, and I said, we need to pray. And so the two of us, one at a time, prayed and asked the Lord to guide our steps, and guide our mouths, and prepare them all, and just do what we knew to do.
[27:26] And we prayed, and probably four to five minutes later, then we opened the doors, got out, and we went to that first door, and knocked on that door. And a man about 30 years old came to the door, and he's just like, what's up?
[27:40] And so my partner I was with was in front, and he started talking about having buses come through, and it just seemed obvious, like this guy doesn't have kids, he's 30 years, he's not going to get on a Sunday school bus.
[27:53] And so he was just kind of like, yeah. And I remember interjecting there, and just saying, I don't know, but I tried to turn the conversation to you, buddy. We're not just here to try to get somebody to come to church, we're here to see you.
[28:07] And as we began to talk, his face started to change. And it changed to this face of concern, and then he started to tremble, and get teary-eyed.
[28:19] And we're just trying to talk to him about the Lord, and what Jesus Christ did for him, and try to understand if he's ever heard this before. And we had a Bible there, and I said, can I show you a verse?
[28:30] And he's agreeing, yes, and he starts, like more and more, it's coming on, emotions are overcoming the man. And after a while, he stopped me, he says, do you know what? He says, I have been praying for God to help me.
[28:45] My life's in a mess, and I just need some help. And he's just overcome, that here's an answer to his prayer, two men with a Bible, willing to give up their Saturday mornings.
[28:58] We'll say, what was that? Oh, you know what that was. That was God hearing a man's cry, and in the darkness that he was in, and he said, let there be light.
[29:11] I'll send the glorious light of the gospel of Christ, right to his doorstep. And that man, in five minutes or less, he bowed his head, prayed to receive Christ as his Savior, and we went on our way, just rejoicing, just glorifying God, that he used us.
[29:30] How often do you get to see that, going door to door? It's so rare. And it was the first door. We felt like, boy, this block doesn't know what's coming. We're going to get them all.
[29:41] There was a middle-aged woman. Her name was Margie. Margie was a college graduate, and she had several degrees.
[29:55] She took a job in New York City as an accountant, among other things. She had a career. But the Lord saw fit to allow her to get into a car accident, and it left her without both of her legs.
[30:10] Had them both amputated, in a wheelchair. And Margie was just devastated. She lived by herself. She moved back to the area with her parents, but that could only last for so long.
[30:25] They couldn't take care of her. She couldn't. This was so new to her. She ended up finding her way into a local nursing home and rehab center. It was owned by the county, and it just so happens that it's a place that our church went into once a month to hold a church service on Sunday afternoon.
[30:44] And I was in charge of this ministry, and it was my duty to get a group together and to go in there. Some days I took a whole youth group of 12 teenagers to go in and do things.
[30:55] Some days it was just my wife, myself, and my four kids. And the kids were all tiny, and little kids just make those places come alive, and everybody smiles, and they love it. And those kids would get up and sing, Walking down the heavenly road, I'm gonna lay down my heavy load.
[31:12] And they'd get up, Samuel had his guitar, and he'd just pluck one note at a time and make his way through it. And Maddie played stand-up for Jesus for the first time in public on a piano at the nursing home.
[31:23] And those folks just glowed. They loved it. They could care less about me preaching. They just, That's just part of it. Many of them were on their way out. And so we were in there just ministering to them, singing songs they loved to sing.
[31:37] And one Sunday in the very back of the chapel, very similar to the size of this room, in the very back doors, right beside the door, was a woman in a wheelchair that just didn't look like she belonged here.
[31:52] She was much younger than the rest of them. And I could see it. She just had a hard look on her face. Something was, this was new. I'd never met her. And I went through and I preached.
[32:04] And throughout the message, who knows what it was. It was just a message that ended with the gospel of Jesus Christ and how you don't have to go to hell, but you can be saved and go to heaven. And after that day, everybody was, we had to wheel them out and take them to the elevator and get them back.
[32:20] It's a whole process to get this thing wrapped up. And Margie stayed in her place and she never left. And she just said goodbye to the people as they went by, goodbye, and she stayed there.
[32:31] And I remember coming up to her at the end and saying, can I take you to your room? And she just had this cold look on her face and she looked at me and I didn't know her. I never talked to her before, but I just sensed that we need to talk.
[32:43] And I began to talk to her and she kind of questioned me about what I was saying about Jesus and about heaven. And she was, I think if I recall, she had grown up in a Lutheran church and she had never heard this before.
[32:56] And she didn't even know if she was buying it. But I was able to, she was very open, very candid, just spoke her mind. She, you know, a strong woman. And so I was able to just meet her right where she was and tell her exactly what the Bible says about this thing.
[33:13] And I could tell she was hard. She wasn't going to budge, but she was, she was listening. And so when I ended the conversation, I got out of gospel track and I handed it to her and I said, Margie, would you do this for me?
[33:24] Would you please read this from cover to cover? And you just determine, it's going to match what I am telling you. It's going to give you the verses from the Bible that I'm telling you and it's going to lead you to the end of how you can receive Jesus Christ by faith.
[33:40] You can believe on Him for eternal life. And she took it and she took off. Well, I decided just to let that sit and the next time around, I recall that we were in that nursing home and we were ministering again and there she was.
[33:57] And she still, she was kind of softer, but she still was kind of tough and I got to talk to her again afterwards. And this time, she was far more open to listening and to hearing me and it made more sense to her.
[34:09] And she still, I tried to lead her all the way up to receiving the Lord personally as her Savior. And she just, she kind of froze. I said, all right, Margie, look, I'm not going to press you anymore.
[34:21] This is your decision to make. But here's how I ended it. If I were you, when you leave here and go up that elevator and go back to your room, if I were you, when I get into that room and nobody's around, I would bow my head and I would say, God, I'm a sinner and I believe you sent your son to die for my sins and I want you to be my Savior and forgive me of my sins.
[34:49] I believe on Jesus Christ. If I were you, Margie, I would pray to God and ask him to save your soul. And she just kind of looked at me and I could see she was listening.
[35:01] And she turned and left and I waited about two or three days. Maybe it was Thursday. It was Thursday night. We'd meet at the church. We'd go out visiting. And I decided, I'm going to go visit Margie.
[35:12] I'm going to follow up on her now because I think she's ready. And I went into that room and I said, May Margie remember me? And she said, blankety blank I do and you know, just herself.
[35:23] And I got to sit down and I said, Margie, did you do what I asked you to do? What I told her? She just looked at me and she goes, I sure did. And I began to take her through the Bible and show her how she can be assured that she has that free gift of eternal life.
[35:39] That she can go to heaven and she doesn't have to fear losing it. I began to, the next Thursday come back and the next Thursday come back and began to disciple her and take her through Bible doctrines little by little.
[35:51] And it's, what Margie did was, she got it. and she was a younger woman than most of the people in that nursing home and she began to just read that Bible.
[36:04] And she began to find other ladies in the nursing home that loved the Word of God and that loved the Lord but they didn't really, weren't able to read anymore and she began to sit with them and read the Bible to them.
[36:16] And then they began to get a group coming and she said, we meet over in this room at this time and people come in and Margie sits and opens the Bible and just reads. And they're going through the whole Bible.
[36:28] Day by day by day Margie meets and reads the Bible. They got through the whole thing and started going back through it again. And she said to me the one time, the room's too small, we can't even meet in the craft room, we have to go find somewhere else.
[36:43] Now we're meeting down in the chapel which is this big. And I thought, oh man, the Lord's going to make a preacher out of you, yeah. But she just read the book to these people and she kind of got, there wasn't really Bible studies but they started calling that Bible study with Margie.
[37:00] And I'd feed that woman and she'd spend her time meeting with other women and just giving them the book. Yesterday I was thinking on her. I didn't plan to but she came into my mind and I thought, when I left Pennsylvania, COVID was on and strong and the nursing homes were all closed.
[37:21] I never got to go back in there. I don't know when the last time was that I was in there to see any of them or hold services and so for the last six months of my time there, it was all closed up and I never got to say goodbye.
[37:32] As far as I know, none of them even really knew that we were leaving or moving and I thought, I wonder what ever happened to Margie. And so I looked up Margie Looking Ball, York, Pennsylvania and the first hit on that from Google was Margie Looking Ball Obituary.
[37:50] Two years after we moved here, Margie passed away and I looked and read down through this obituary and came to the part where it described her time at the home, at the rehab center and it says that at Pleasant Acres she sang in the choir and served at the chapel services.
[38:09] She was very involved in the Redline Bible Church ministry there, leading Bible studies and reading the Bible daily to interested residents. It goes on to say that her faith in Jesus Christ enabled her to so forth and so on.
[38:25] You know what happened that day or happened in that woman's life? A lost, stubborn, proud woman was brought all the way down to a place she despised.
[38:39] But God was moving and the Lord said in that chapel to Margie Looking Ball from heaven. He said, let there be light. She's sitting in darkness under condemnation but God wasn't happy with that.
[38:55] That's not why he made her. He made her to receive eternal life, to live eternally with him. And so he said, let there be light. There's people all over the place that are in need of the light of the gospel.
[39:11] people. They're your family and they're your friends. And they're the people that you work with every single day or that you wave to or drive past in your neighborhood.
[39:23] They're in need of the gospel. Maybe they're in hospitals and jails and retirement homes. Those people are filled with darkness and under condemnation.
[39:36] And God desires to send the light to them. And I believe that God will use you. I'm telling you of a time when God used some missionaries.
[39:47] I'm telling you with the few stories where God has put me into that place to be the light. God just the same wants to use you. Would you picture this? You have the light of the world.
[40:01] The Lord Jesus Christ. And God has placed you in this world in a unique position that you meet people I'll never meet. You are in places that I won't be, that others won't be.
[40:14] You're in a unique place God knows and you know. And he commands by your presence and he commands by your life, let there be light.
[40:27] This doesn't mean that you have to shout it from the housetops or scream it into people's faces. But he does want you to shine. He does want your life to reveal Jesus Christ.
[40:38] Would you turn one more place with me in the Bible? Philippians chapter 2. Philippians 2 and we'll be finished.
[40:57] Before any life arrived on this planet God said let there be light. in Philippians chapter 2 I want to read verses 12 to 16.
[41:13] The apostle Paul says, Wherefore my beloved, as ye have always obeyed not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence. Here's the command.
[41:24] Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Salvation, if you're born again, you have it. It's in you. Christ is in you. He says, Now work it out, outwardly.
[41:38] Verse 13 says, For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. And just as God does not desire to see that earth without form and void and in darkness submerged in judgment, God didn't leave your life in that condition either.
[41:58] and the Lord God now that you have that light is telling you it's time for you to work it out. Because God has a will. God has something for you to do that would please him.
[42:13] And he wants to work in you to accomplish it. It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings and disputings that ye may be blameless and harmless.
[42:26] the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation notice the last part among whom ye shine as lights in the world holding forth the word of life.
[42:41] The Bible says in John chapter 1 it speaks of Jesus Christ it says in him was life and that life was the light of men. And now that life is inside of you.
[42:54] it needs to shine forth and be the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. That light is in you and it can be preached with your mouth.
[43:08] That light that's in you can be lived by your life. The people in your life have been under condemnation long enough. God has no desire to send them to hell.
[43:20] It doesn't please him though he will do it because he's holy and righteous and just. He will judge sin but they can be saved.
[43:31] They need the light. Will you let God use you to bring the light to let there be light into someone's life? Will you be available?
[43:43] Will you be seeking? These stories I tell you they're exciting but they're just like one out of a hundred visits to the hospital or more.
[43:55] It doesn't happen all the time but when it happens you get to see that God is not willing that that soul perish in hell. God is giving them one more opportunity. You may say well I try and they just reject me every time.
[44:10] So what are you going to do? What should you do? You need a job? You put in one application and be like well fine I didn't get the job and done I give up or do you go try again?
[44:22] You try again. If you want it you try again. I want to encourage you and I want to charge you that God is going to send light.
[44:33] He'll use you to do that. And there's people lost. Oh my. And you know who they are. You know their names. And they're going to face the judgment they deserve.
[44:47] But it's also the judgment that Jesus Christ already paid for. So they need to know that. God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts.
[45:02] It was in the face of Jesus Christ that he did it. So now let's take Jesus Christ let's preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord. You don't need to tell them about all the things you know in the Bible you just need to tell them about the Lord Jesus Christ preach Jesus preach Jesus come back again and preach Jesus to them the doctrine will come later the errors the truth give them what the Lord did for them let's pray let's pray together Father I thank you that you didn't leave me in my sin I thank you that you didn't leave these to rot in hell and pay Lord you've been very very good very very patient very merciful thank you for loving us and sending your son and Lord I pray that these stories and this truth within the New Testament would prick our hearts and would call us and drive and cause us to open our mouths and tell somebody about
[46:08] Jesus Christ to shine as lights in the world and the prayer here God ends with my request that whatever happens that it would bring glory to Jesus Christ that he would be lifted up that we would not be lifted up but that we would be humbly!
[46:28] seeking to be ourselves servants for Jesus sake this morning I wonder if you know somebody right now the Lord brought them to your mind perhaps because you know they're on their way to hell and you're not doing anything about it would the Lord have you try to strike up a conversation with them would the Lord have you try to invite them to church where they can be around other Christians and realize that they're missing something in their life would the Lord have you pray for them every day pray for an opportunity to get the light to them stop praying for God to send somebody else if he wants to send you is not the eternity of their soul worth it is not the fact that
[47:29] Jesus died for them too worth it I want to charge you this morning to take it serious God did pretty serious when it came to your soul and he doesn't see them any different than you he loved them enough to die for him you say they've rejected him they don't want to hear it and such were some of you father help us to be diligent help us to be faithful help us to be conscious of souls and to be willing to do the work please use us please give us opportunities and open doors to witness and to tell them of the hope that lies within our hearts and I pray that Jesus Christ would be satisfied with what he suffered for and that souls will be saved and may he get the glory in
[48:37] Jesus name Amen