I want to read 2 verses with you as a setup for this. It's in Matthew 7:13-14. These are the words of Jesus Christ. He says, "Enter through the narrow gate, because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it." 'But the gate is narrow and the way is difficult that leads to life, and there are few who find it.' The question is today, are you one of those few who is finding that way to life? It is not hard.

It is not distant from you. Jesus Christ has done everything to open that way for you, to open that gate to you, to pave the path for you. That before Jesus came, there was John, his cousin John, we call him the Baptist or the baptizer. He prepared the way for the coming Messiah. He said, "He that the prophets have spoken of is right here among you." In fact, John said that he got this great honor because he got to not only baptize Jesus, but he got to point him out to all those who were there, and he says, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." And so the question is, today, are you on that path?

Are you on that narrow pathway? Scriptures talk about this. There will be a day when two books are opened. One of them contains all of your deeds, the things that you've done, both good and bad.

That's not a book that I want opened, to be honest. The good news is there's a second book that's there. And that second book just has names in it. But I wonder, thinking about that first book, it contains like all of the things that you've done. Do you want that book to be read out loud?

It's not a good bedtime story, is it? Some of the worst movies that have ever been made depicting certain things, some of those or like what your life might actually sound like if you were to have your deeds read out loud. But then also the thing is like some of you might skate along okay on that. You're like, "I've lived pretty clean on the outside." Okay, great. I believe it also includes the things that are in your mind.

All those things where you're like, you know, like the thoughts that are in your head, and guys, we're terrible about this. Like guys will have some of the just weirdest, thoughts. You know, I was watching this video on YouTube of a guy, and he's saying like all the thoughts that men have. He's like looking at a fly strip. He says, "They're kind of ugly, but I love seeing a fly strip full of flies." And then he's looking, he's like, "Man, I bet I could break this window out of the truck if I had to," you know, and just things that guys think about.

And he says, "I'd like somebody to come up that driveway right there looking for trouble. I got a spot right there that I could take him out," you know. And it's like all the things that guys think about, and he's sharing our secrets, ladies. Like, I wish he hadn't put that video out there, Because it's like, yeah, the mind of a man, like even the best of men, ladies, like, listen guys, if your wives knew everything that you thought, you probably wouldn't be married anymore, to be honest. You know what I'm saying?

Like you might not even have a pet dog anymore if they knew all the things you were thinking all the time. Like maybe you had that one coworker that you were like, "I bet I could set him up to get fired and then he's not in my way anymore." Oh, don't tell me you haven't had at least one that you wanted to get rid of, right? Those thoughts that you have about somebody from the opposite sex of what you might want to do with them if you had the opportunity. The things that you think maybe nobody will ever know about you that are in your head. The things that you, like, say, "Man, you know what?

In that moment, in that fight, I wish I would have said such and such. That really would have put them in their spot." You think of all these witty things that you weren't, like, smart enough to think of in the moment. Praise God that you weren't able to say everything that pops into your head at some point. You know what I'm saying?

All these things that play in your head throughout the day, I believe, are laid bare in this book that happens at the eternal judgment of all people. And by the grace of God, see, those things will judge us, unless in that other book, it's called the Lamb's Book of Life. And in the Lamb's Book of Life, it's just names. These are people who have been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. And if your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, it doesn't matter what's in that other book because it's all been washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ that's been applied to your life.

But make no mistake, that Day of Judgment is coming. That Day of Judgment will happen, and all people from all time will be judged by that. So I'm going to read some scriptures to you. I want to just lay a case out from scripture, and I've printed these so I didn't have to flip through my Bible. I want to read them to you.

The first one, we kind of read some of them, but I'm going to read more. Matthew 7:13-23, just some of the selected verses in there. "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Not everyone who says to Jesus, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Listen to this, "But only the ones who do the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" This is tough. I want to talk about every one of these scriptures, but my plan was to just read through them. But I want to say that some of these words are very, almost frightening at some point.

You might be sitting here thinking, "Will I be one of those people that said like, 'Oh, I thought I did all the right things. Like, they passed an offering basket, I put some money in. They said stand and sing, I stood and sing. They said show up every week, I showed up every week. They said help serve, and I served.

What's going on?'" Jesus is saying there's deeds, and then there's the love of your heart. And if you just simply do the things in the name of Jesus, you're just acting a part. If you don't have love for Christ in your heart, if you haven't confessed your sins and allowed His blood to redeem you, then you are not a follower of Christ. You're not a Christian. You're merely acting the part.

Hebrews 9:27-28 says, "Just as people are appointed once to die and then to face judgment, so also Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly await Him, He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation. Jesus says in John 5:28-29, He says, Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when everyone who is in the tombs will hear the voice and will come out, the ones who have done what is good to the resurrection resulting in life, and the ones who have done what is evil to the resurrection resulting in condemnation. 1 Corinthians 15, a few verses between verses 35 and 44 says this: "Someone will say, 'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?' Fool!" I love the Apostle Paul.

"Fool! What you sow will not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or something else." In other words, he's painting a metaphor. Just a seed that grows on a plant, that seed has has to die and then be planted in the ground for it to spring up into a new plant. And so he's saying our bodies are the same way.

But he says, "That body that is sown," he says, "God gives us a body as He has planned, and to each of the seeds of the body its own. In the same, it is the same with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown," in other words, your earthly body, "what is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, and it is raised in glory.

It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. And if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Daniel 12, we're going into the Old Testament with a couple of these. Daniel says this in Daniel 12:2, "Many of those who sleep in the dusty ground will awake." 'Some to everlasting life and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence.' Another Old Testament passage, Malachi 4:1 says, 'Surely the day is coming.

It will burn like a furnace. All of the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,' says the Lord Almighty. 'Not a root or a branch will be left to them.' 2 Peter 3:10-13 says this, 'The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?

That's a good question, isn't it? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the resurrection— I'm sorry, that day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with His promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells. Back to the words of Jesus in Matthew 25, "When the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne.

All the nations will be assembled before Him, and He will separate people one from another, like a shepherd separates the sheep from from the goats. He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me food. I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink.

I was a stranger and you invited Me in. I was naked and you gave Me clothing. I was sick and you took care of Me. I was in prison and you visited Me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you?

When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' The king will answer them, 'I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.' Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared Listen to this: for the devil and his angels. Hell was not made for human beings, and yet at the same time, we'll see in our next passage that there is a time of judgment whereby those who have strayed from God, those who have not chosen to live for Christ, that they will find the same fate. He says, "I was hungry and you gave Me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink." Can you imagine looking Jesus in the face and saying, "No thanks. I don't want any part of this." He says, "I was a stranger and you didn't receive me as a guest.

I was naked and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison and you did not visit me." Then they too will answer, "Lord, when did we see you this way? When did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not give you whatever you needed?" Then he will answer them, "I tell you the truth, just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me." And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. And our last scripture of this morning, Revelation 20:11-15. This is John the Apostle in a vision in heaven speaking these words that he had seen happening.

He says, Then I saw a large white throne. This is what you might have heard, it's called the White Throne of Judgment. The One who is seated on it And the earth and the heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then books were opened.

And another book was opened, the Book of Life. So the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to their deeds. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them. And each one was judged according to his deeds. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.

This is the second death—the lake of fire. If anyone's name was not found written in the Book of Life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire. Death. Death. Yeah.

This word today is very strong, very forceful, and very real. There's nothing about this that invites us to waffle or waver or say maybe I'll— Maybe I'll think about this tomorrow. You're not guaranteed tomorrow. This is talking about things of eternity. And I want to tell you that when you die, you won't just simply be snuffed out or in some state of limbo or just kind of floating somewhere.

It's not just going to be like I've heard people say, oh well, if I go to hell, I'll party with all my friends that are there. No, you won't. They'll actually be trying to take advantage of you in the worst and most despicable ways for all of eternity as you will do to them as well. The eternity without Christ is the total absence of the presence of God, and when God's presence is removed, there's no restraint and people do the absolute worst things.

You will be raised again after you die on this earth to some type of everlasting existence. Some to everlasting death and destruction, and some that find that narrow path to everlasting life.

I don't want us to take this moment in a way— I feel like all of this series that we've been in as we've been looking through the Scriptures, I feel like a lot of it, and I kind of wrote it this way as I was praying over this and kind of scheduling out the different messages and the different sections that we would cover, this one was going to be the last one. It was going to be the final one in the series, and then I realized there's one more that comes after it. For those who are believers in Christ, there's work to do. We'll look at that next week. Don't miss it.

It's our epilogue. It's kind of the message after the final message. And the thing is, like, I don't want you to just kind of take this moment lightly and breeze past it. You might be saying, "Oh, well, I've been in church. I've grown up around Christians.

I've grown up doing all the right stuff." There might be 1 or 2 or 10 of you, I don't know, that have that, and you believe that, and you say, "Oh, well, I was baptized," or, "I was confirmed," or, "I was this or that." Listen, unless you've had that moment where, as Jesus was talking to Nicodemus in John chapter 3, you know, we get that famous, you know, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." Nicodemus, the religious leader that's leading the Jewish people, he didn't understand that. And Jesus says, "How is this so hard to grasp? You were born once, and you were born with the seed of mankind, and you were born into sin, and you have to be born again." This is a spiritual rebirth. It's not like you go back into your mother's womb. Nicodemus was confused by that.

He says, "I don't think my mom would like that too much. She's also dead by now. It's not going to work too well. How am I going to be reborn?" And he says, "You are reborn. It's a spiritual birth.

It's something that comes from above that God does for you. Your only job is belief. The only thing you can do—" See, you can't work for it. You can't earn it. You can't pursue the right things enough to obtain your own salvation.

It only comes through faith in Jesus Christ. For so long we've talked about it as belief, and a lot of you believe that Jesus is is the Savior. You say, "Oh yeah, I believe that. I believe that God loves me. I believe that Jesus died for my sins." But there are some who haven't believed, as the Scriptures say, unto eternal life.

In other words, you never came to that moment where you, whether you knelt, or sat, or lay down, or stood, whatever your posture was, you never had that moment where you got down before God, humbled yourself, and confessed, "Lord, I am a sinner. I have lived my life contrary to Your ways, and it hasn't done me very well, has it? Amen? Like, it hasn't gotten me to the place I need to be, and so, Lord, I recognize that I'm a sinner and that there's nothing I can do to dig myself out of that hole. I recognize that the hole that I'm digging is actually one that leads straight to hell and damnation for all eternity apart from Your presence.

And until you actually have that moment where you reach up and you say, Lord, Save me from this. There's a book that I love, a couple books written by a pastor named John Burke, who studied people that had near-death experiences. And there are people who, they maybe died in an accident or on an operating table, and they were medically dead for a little while, but then they came back to life, some of them without explanation, humanly speaking. God did a miracle in their lives and brought them back because He had a continued purpose for them on this earth., and that God— there were times where these people, they had lived their lives apart from God, and in this experience, they find themselves in a place of torment and suffering. And it's not quite hell.

They're not talking about flames and lakes of fire. They're just in this place where people are all taking advantage of one another. They're mistreating one another in the worst, most despicable ways that we can't even imagine here on this earth. And there's some of these people, they said, "I remember having heard people say to call on the name of Jesus, and I'd never done that before, but even in that moment, I just Jesus. I felt like I wasn't even able to say it, but somehow I thought it, and then I was able to start speaking His name, and that really made them angry that were there.

And yet they didn't have a grasp on me anymore. They couldn't hold me there, and Jesus reached out and pulled me out of that. Now, I don't know, some of you statistically have had an NDE, a near-death experience, and I love hearing those stories. And a lot of you are saying like, "Yeah, I had that, but I don't talk about it because people think it's weird, and they're going to tell me that I'm crazy." First of all, you might actually be crazy. Statistically speaking, at least a couple of you are.

But that doesn't mean that that's the evidence you're crazy. You know what I'm saying? I see a row right there, you guys are pointing fingers at each other like, "It's you!" You know? But anyway, I didn't say it, you guys said it.

Some people share an experience where they were carried to a place that was just full of light, and they see They see the city, the city of light. They see what they believe is heaven, and yet they weren't on the inside because they hadn't fully died yet, but they were experiencing this. And as they are in that place, they're greeted, some of them say, by Christ. He still had the nail prints where they had nailed Him to the cross. They're still visible.

People that don't even have Christian faith, people that weren't believers, they just, they had that experience. Now I can't tell you, like, theologically, biblically, how this all fits and works out. A lot of it makes sense when you kind of read these stories that they've shared. But I'm telling you, it's beautiful to read some of these books. I think one of them is called "What's After Life?" and John Burke is the author.

I just— it's so great. I got actually a little shortened version that he does. I carry them in my backpack, and when I travel, I find that I get to have conversations with people that have had these experiences, and I pass one out to them because I say like, "This might help make sense of what you experienced." You're not the only one. You know, there's a lot of these people. And so, you might have— you know, there are people that have had those experiences and they come back to life on this earth and they say, "I was given a chance that most people don't have.

I saw how bad it could have been, or I saw how great that it actually is, and I didn't even taste the fullness of that. And I for sure don't want to be there, or I for sure do want to be there." And so, It changes the way they live here on this earth. Yeah, yeah. You might not have an NDE opportunity to show you what life is like on the other side. And so today, if you haven't claimed Christ's sacrifice on the cross, His death that was died in your place for your sins— you see, Jesus was sinless.

He had never committed a sin on this earth, and yet He walked in our shoes. He lived as one of us. And then He allowed human beings to do the worst and most despicable thing, to put Him to death in the most heinous and gory and demeaning ways possible. And they put Him to death on the cross, and He did that willingly for your sake and for mine. And He did that, as He did that, He took upon Him your sins.

He took upon Himself the sins of all mankind. All those things that are written in that book that you don't want anybody to see, Like, you don't want them to make a movie out of the thoughts that are in your head, I promise you that. And all those things, Jesus took that upon Himself for you. He bore your sins so that you don't have to carry them any longer. He rose again to new life so that in that way, you can have His new life given to you.

So in this Book of Life, the names are recorded for all those who have received Christ as their Savior. And I want to tell you, this isn't just in Revelation that it talks about this book. It's all through Scripture. Listen to this, one of my favorite verses about it is in Exodus 32:33. Moses is talking to God, and he's leading the people of Israel.

He's led them out of Egypt by the mighty hand of God. He's leading them through the wilderness. They're really stubborn. I mean, they're really trying Moses' patience. They're really trying God's patience.

And God says, "Moses, step aside. I'm going to wipe them out. I'm going to start over with you, okay? You're a good dude. You have some kids.

I'm going to make a nation out of you." And Moses is like, "Let's back off on that one a little bit, God." Can you imagine telling God to chill out a little bit? That's what Moses did. He said, like, "Hey, let's take a breather, you know, like, let's think about this a second, God. If you do that, all these other nations that have heard what you did in Egypt and decimated Egypt's power to lead your people out, they're going to say, well, he could bring them out of there, but he couldn't bring them to fulfill his promises. And God said, you're right, Moses.

I will contend with them a while longer. I will give grace to these people a little while longer. And so Moses tells him, he says, God, in this verse in Exodus 32, he says, if you don't, like, come with us, if you don't lead us yourself, he says, then go ahead and just take my name out of the book that you've written. The Book of Life. Moses was talking about the Book of Life that he understood that God had, that had the names of those that He had brought salvation to.

And Moses says, "If You won't save these people, then I don't want to be saved either. If You won't save them, then I want You to erase my name from this book." The Apostle Paul actually said, "For my own people, for the people of Israel," he said, "I would myself take on the curse. I would become accursed myself," if it meant that it would bring salvation to my fellow brethren in Israel. He cared about them that much. There's another scripture, King David writes about the Book of Life in at least 3 different Psalms: 56, 69, and Psalm 139.

The prophets Daniel and Malachi in the Old Testament talk about the Book of Life. In Philippians 4:3, the Apostle Paul talks about it. Several places in John's Revelation talk about it. And notably, the words of Jesus in Luke 10:20 talk about the Book of Life. So it's not just a New Testament thing, it's not just something that, you know, early Christian doctrine talked about, or the Apostle Paul wrote into his theology, or anything like that.

This is all throughout Scripture that there is a Book of Life that God has prepared for those who have received His salvation. And in that Book of Life, once your name is written in there, I don't believe it ever gets erased. Now you can get into a doctrinal argument that says, Well, do you walk away from salvation? Can you somehow lose it by giving up your faith in God? I don't know.

Maybe. But why would God let go of you once He's got a hold of you? You might try to run away from God. Some of you might have left God. Some of you might have said, "You know what, God?

I've had enough. I don't need You anymore. I'm doing okay on my own." First of all, that's a lie that Satan wants you to believe. You're not doing okay on your own. You can't make it on your own.

You can't hardly make it a single day on your own. And then there's another thing though that you have to understand, that it's not just you can't make it on your own, but you are not truly yourself. You're not the person God created you to be when you're living your life in this world on your own apart from salvation that Christ offers you. The salvation that He's given you is to make you, to build you, to form you into the very thing that He had initially desired humans to be when He created us in the Garden of Eden, to be this these perfect humans that lovingly served and followed God. Sin got in the way, we decided to rebel against God, to leave Him, to run far away from Him, and Christ came to call us back to Him and to restore our relationship with Him.

I want to be as crystal clear as possible. If you have approached Christ with a humble heart and said that you you confess that you're a sinner, you accept His sacrifice on your behalf, that His death was in your place, that His new life is to give you new life, that His rebirth is your rebirth, and you believe that His entire life, death, and resurrection applies to you, you confess your sins, you believe those things, then you have received new life in Jesus Christ. And as you receive that new life in Jesus Christ, you're a new creation, the Bible tells us. Your name is also written in the Book of Life, and that other book with all the stuff that is in your mind and on your hands, the deeds that you've done, all that doesn't matter because your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. So every— but there's some, I want to be clear about that, but I also want to be clear about this: there's not enough good things you can do on your own to earn or obtain salvation.

If you could have done it on your own, then Jesus never had to come. We just put Him to death for nothing. But if you understand and if you admit that you are a sinner who has lived your life contrary to the things of God, in opposition to Him, and you recognize now that you need salvation from the way that you've been living, and you recognize that Jesus Christ offers that, you confess your sins, and you receive Him. That is the only way through which you can receive eternal life. But just as I wanted to be clear on that, I want to be clear on this: it doesn't matter how many times you sit in this pew.

It doesn't matter how loud you sing, how many hands you raise while you're singing, how much money you give. It doesn't matter how many good deeds you do, how many times you serve in the bridge ministry to our homeless community, or whatever it might be. It doesn't matter how many good things you do. How many right things you do. It doesn't matter how many people in your family line attended church, or people— I can't tell you how many people it seems lately I keep talking to people and they say, "Oh, my grandfather was a minister.

Oh, he was this pastor or that kind of pastor." It doesn't matter. See, what matters is you. God only has children. He doesn't have grandchildren. It doesn't come generationally just because your daddy, your grandfather, your grandmother, your auntie, it doesn't matter how many of them were believers.

Unless you yourself receive the sacrifice of Jesus Christ confessing your sins and believing unto eternal life, none of that history matters. None of your good deeds matters. None of your good thoughts matters. None of your prayers matters unless you prayed the prayer of salvation to receive Christ and confess your sins.

You might even just believe, as I said earlier, that Jesus is the Messiah. You might have this mental assent to this concept that says, "Oh, you know what? In the sea of world religions, the one that makes the most sense is the Christian faith, and I think that's the right one." That's great. We've got billionaires and a trillionaire in this world that believe the same things. I can't tell you where their heart's at, but I'm just saying, just believing that doesn't achieve anything.

Just believing that In the scope of the logic behind the religions, you can poke holes in all of them, and you say, "Well, the one that has the fewest holes is Christianity and the Bible, and that makes the most sense." But then you start going like Thomas Jefferson and cutting out the parts you don't like, the parts that you don't want to live by, the parts that you don't believe. See, that's not the belief we're talking about. The belief you have to have is the belief that changes your life. The belief that says, "I know that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and unless I I have submitted my life to Him and allowed Him to be the Lord of my life. See, He's your Savior, but now He has to be your Lord.

He has to be the One through whom you take your daily marching orders, the One that you listen to, the One that you follow each and every day of your life. Unless you've done that, your belief is pointless. You have to believe unto eternal life.

Last week we had an invitation for salvation. We had one brother come forward, receive Christ. Several of us gathered around him and prayed, and we celebrate that. It wasn't even like the point of the whole thing. I mean, we hadn't necessarily planned an altar call, and yet as I was preaching, I felt that that was necessary.

But today we will have an altar call in a couple moments. Because if you pass this moment up, you're not guaranteed tomorrow to make that decision again. You're not guaranteed a lifetime of opportunities to say, well, I'll just, yeah, I'll kind of phone it in right at the last second just before the buzzer, you know? Like you don't get that last second, I'm not good with sports, but you know, in basketball, I think if it's in the air before the buzzer goes, you know, it doesn't matter if it's hit the hoop yet or not, just as long as you, You don't get that. You don't get those chances in life.

I mean, a couple people have. Maybe they have that last moment, you know, where they're like, "I think I'm dying. I'm ready to accept Christ now." That is the epitome of foolishness to decide to wait. To decide to say, "You know what? I'm going to see how a couple other things kind of pan out in my life.

I'm going to see if I can figure it out on my own. Maybe I can coast through this hurdle, this struggle, this trial that I'm in, and once I get beyond that, maybe the feeling will pass and I'll realize it was just an emotional feeling and I didn't have to listen to that pastor. I beg you, I implore you, I plead with you today not to do that. For those of you who might have spent some time around religion, around Christianity, but you can't honestly say that you've ever actually confessed your sins before Jesus Christ, that's the important thing. You see, we miss that so often.

We say, Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and believe, and then everything's going to be great. First of all, no, it's not. I'm not going to stand up here as a pastor and say as soon as you receive Jesus Christ, everything is perfect, everything is fixed. No, it won't be. I didn't hear you say an amen.

It's okay to say amen on that. You're going to have some problems still. You're still going to have some struggles. My daughter last night prayed that she wouldn't have any bad dreams. I don't think she did, but she sure kept waking up, and then— She has this thing where when she wakes up, everybody has to be awake.

She has to call, which we're working because she would just come up into our room and stand beside the bed until I scared myself awake from feeling her presence right there. So I was like, honey, don't do that anymore, please. Just call from your bed if you really need us. And she does that. And so it's like, oh, I'm awake again.

Okay.

Sometimes those prayers don't seem to get answered. Like, I wanted— she prayed from her soul last night that God would give her this sleep. I don't know why that prayer didn't get answered. There are sometimes we pray a prayer to our Heavenly Father and it doesn't get answered in the way that we asked for it. I can't tell you why that is.

Maybe we don't have enough faith. Okay, sure. I heard faith in that child's voice last night. Sometimes it's not about our faith. Sometimes I can't even tell you why it doesn't happen.

I have had some of my most heartfelt, faithful prayers get seemingly, what it seemed to me, unanswered. Amen. It happens. That doesn't change the nature of the God who loves you. That doesn't change His character any.

It might change your understanding of Him, and maybe sometimes that's what God is doing because, like Job, He wants you to get to a place where even through your pain, through your loss, through all the worst things in life, you get to a place where you understand God more. Perhaps that's what He's after, because He wants your heart more than anything. See, God's not just trying to say, "Oh, I want to get more names in this book than I have bad stories in this book." Yes, He wants all to be saved. The Scriptures are clear that it is the will of the Father that none should perish, but all should come to everlasting life. That's the only reason I'm standing here today is because I don't want anybody that's in here, I don't want anybody that watches later online or listens to it, I don't want anybody that hears this message to take this opportunity and let it pass by and say, "You know what?

I'll deal with that later." I don't want anybody that's in here to say, "You know what? Maybe I'll just kind of like go home and in the privacy of my own home where it's not embarrassing, like, then I'll just kind of have a conversation with God and we'll get it out of the way there." Listen, there's something important about coming to these altars and saying, "I'm going to make my declaration of faith that says today's the day of salvation for me." Today is the day that I'm going to come and get on my knees before God. And listen, I know sometimes the knees don't work like they used to, so if you got to sit in the front row, we're good with that. In fact, the churches used to do that 100 or more years ago. They had a couple rows up front.

They actually faced the people, and it was usually the young men because they were the worst, you know? And they would have these young men come up, or young ladies, whatever it was, they would have the people come up, And it was this, like, hot seat where you were, like, kind of, like, fighting it still, you know? You're saying, like, "Ah, I'm almost there, but I'm just still fighting it because I want to live my life my way. I'm a young man. I still want to do stuff, you know?

There's stuff that I want to do, and I still want to live in this world. I want to experience the best things of this world." And they would come up front under compulsion and sit in that seat, and everybody's looking at them like, "You gonna go kneel or not? You gonna get up at that altar or not?" It's worse to sit there knowing that you need salvation and to sit there and say, "No, you know what? For lack of embarrassment, I'm not going to go up front. I'm just going to do this on my own time." Folks, there's somebody around you that knows you need Jesus.

I guarantee that. And if you haven't accepted Him as your Savior, if you haven't taken that step, we're sitting there begging and pleading God right now for your soul, that you would not leave this room until you've received Jesus Christ as your Savior. You can't imagine though how much God has in store for your life, the plans that He has for you, the things that He wants you to do for His name's sake and in His Kingdom. And yet, if you won't take that first step, if you won't receive the salvation, the gift that is so freely offered you, you'll never know what He has in store for your life.

One last push that I want to give you, and maybe Elaine, if you would come up and play. There's some of you, you've had loved ones that have died and they've gone to be with Jesus. And you haven't made that step. You haven't committed your life to Jesus Christ and you hope one day to see them again, and yet you're not certain of that because you haven't received Jesus Christ. They're waiting for you.

It's not just the loving hands of your Savior who gave His whole life for you, it's those that have gone before you, your relatives, your friends, your loved ones, that have died before you, and they're waiting for you to make this decision for Christ. They're right now, they're probably approaching the throne of God in heaven, if it works that way, I'm not sure, but they're approaching Him and saying, "Lord, my loved one doesn't know You, and I tried, and they never listened, but maybe today they'll listen to that preacher." It ain't my words that are that important, it's the Word of God. That's why I started reading those scriptures. I want you to hear from Scripture the heart of God for you. I'm not going to delay anymore.

I'm going to call you to come up in just a moment. Hold off a second.

The first thing I want you to know is there's no shame in it. The only shame is in not receiving Christ. The only shame is to one day have to stand before everybody that's ever lived and have everything you've ever done read out loud. Everything you've ever thought, all of your deeds and your actions read out loud, and know that you had the opportunity to have your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life, but you said, "No, God, I don't want anything to do with you on this earth." Second thing I want you to know is if you don't ever receive Christ as your Savior, your experiences on this earth is the closest you'll ever get to heaven.

Even this earth is the closest thing you'll see to the paradise of God. But for those who are believers, the worst things of this world. This is the closest you'll ever have to see to hell. You'll never have to experience any more pain, death, or suffering, because in God's new heavens and new earth, He removes all of that.

The third thing I want you to know is we don't have a place where we're just recording numbers and saying, "There, we got another one." We're going to walk with you. We're going to walk with You. We're going to do what Christ says, and we're looking at this next week to make disciples of the nations, to make people who are followers of His. So I'm going to give you an invitation that you would come forward. If you can't ever remember a moment where you confessed your sins before Christ and received salvation, if you can remember that, but you say, you know what, I'm not sure that I really have meant it for the last few years, then you're also part of that group.

And then the other one is there are some prayer warriors here that are praying for the souls those who are hanging in the balance, and I want you to come forward and pray with them. So on the count of 3, I'd like for you to come forward. Let's close our eyes. 1, don't hesitate. 2, God's calling you right now, come forward.

3, don't wait another moment, come forward and receive Christ this morning.