Guest Speaker Reverend Will Graham

1:25 And we call him in the South. You're not allowed to call one of your elders by their first name. So we cheat, and we put uncle in front of it. So Uncle Skip, instead of saying Mr. Heitzig or something like that, Pastor Heitzig, we just say Uncle Skip. and you guys will know some of my other uncles, Uncle Dennis, Dennis Akajanian, and Uncle Greg, Greg Laurie. So I got a lot of uncles out this way. But it's great to be here. I appreciate Uncle Skip and his family. And what I really love about is this church. This is a church that opens up God's Word and studies God's Word. It doesn't matter what Will Graham says. it matters what the Word of God says. Amen? And you have two pastors that do a wonderful job. I'm sure all the pastors here, but thinking of Skip and Nathan, Lord's using them both in a mighty way, and I greatly appreciate that. Let's see what God continues to do. So today, oh, you saw that picture of us up there a minute ago with all the big noses, and that was in Charleston, West Virginia when I was in college during that time. And so, uh, got gray hair now, but, uh, not as skinny either as I used to be. So, but I'm grateful for my granddaddy and I'm grateful for, uh, my father, but I'm grateful to God on how God still brings people and draws people to himself. And, uh, we've seen that at every time we've had a service today and today, uh, I expect God's going to do the same thing and I'm going to give an invitation at the end of the service. So, uh, for those maybe have not made a decision to follow Christ, I'm going to give you that opportunity here in a few minutes. All right. And I want you to prepare your heart to make that decision. Even now, just say, Lord, uh, you know, I need you.

3:30 Lord, give me the faith and the trust to go forward and give my life to Christ. All right. So be praying that during the service. But I want to talk to you from here in the Bible. And we're going to look at, I want to use a place to jump off. It's going to be our jumping off place. And that's the book of Jude. All right. So if you got your Bibles, find the book of Jude. You're like, oh, where's that? Go to Revelation and go left.

3:58 But don't go too far. It's only one page. All right. I got to get to the right page too. For those who are having trouble, it's page 1086. I'm just making sure you guys are awake. All right. Now, Jude is the half brother of Jesus. Jesus has four half brothers. Jesus was the oldest. Uh, they share the same mom, not the same dad, obviously. And so Jesus is, uh, these are his four half brothers. He also has, it says sisters plural. So that means he's got more than there's two or more. We don't know, but that's all we know about his family. Mom and dad, Joseph and Mary, Jesus, his four brothers, James being one, Jude being one, Simon being one. And I can't remember the other one. And, but it had two sisters. And so, but none of them believed in Jesus when he was alive.

5:02 No one of them believed Jesus was the Messiah. They believed he had a brother named Jesus. They just didn't believe that he was the Messiah until the resurrection. And they're like, oh yeah, we believe. I'm sure they would say, yeah, he was dead. We were at his funeral. I put him in the grave and he's out. He's walking around. And that changed what they thought about their brother, Jesus. And that would forever change them. James, who was the second oldest child, Jesus being the oldest, James would become the head of the Jerusalem church. Jude right here, and the book of James in the New Testament, that's Jesus' half-brother, James. Jude is another one. And Jude is writing to a church and finds out that there's some bad things going on. there's some bad people that have snuck in with some bad theology. All right. Some bad theology.

5:59 And so he's trying to correct it. He said, you need to watch out for these men. All right. These are the characteristics. And we're just going to look at one verse here. And it says there in Jude chapter or verse 11, woe to them. Talking about these evil men that have come in. Woe to them for they have gone in the way of Cain. They have run greedily in the air of Balaam, Balaam for profit, and they have perished in the rebellion of Korah. Those three things right there. And those three things are incredible sermons on their own, but we're not going to have time to go through all three of those. I'm going to look at just one of those things right now. All right. And so, uh, Cain, we know is there in the old Testament. He was the first, we're going to see that in a minute. He was the first person ever born. Um, Balaam was a prophet during the time of Israel and that he took money to prophesy against Israel. In other words, he was greedy. Um, and then Korah, uh, led a rebellion against Moses.

7:05 He was known for his rebellious nature. And these three characteristics that we're seeing of being like Cain, that's self-righteousness, greed and rebellion were corrupting this church. And so Jude was trying to give a warning to this church. Watch out for these three characteristics in these men. And so, but I want to look at this one about Cain, self-righteousness. Woe to them for it have gone in the way of Cain. Now, that was my jumping off point. So let's go to the story of Cain. All right? So if you got your Bibles, turn to the first book of the Bible.

7:46 Chapter 4. That's where we're going to kind of start. But I just want to give a little bit of a background what's taking place. All right? Genesis is the book of beginnings. I love it. It's the book of beginnings. I've been teaching the Bible study for the Billy Graham staff for, let's just say for a long time, all right? I don't know what the long time for you is, but this is 14 years. I'm in two books, 1st and 2nd Samuel. All right, that's how long, all right? I'm a slow teacher, slow learner, you might say. Now, I don't get to preach every Sunday. I don't have that opportunity every time to go preach every Sunday. And a lot of times I'm traveling, so I'm not with my staff to teach. So I miss a lot of opportunities to speak. So it's taken a long time to do this. The next book I'm going to be studying is Genesis. That's 50 chapters. I figure this will take me to my grave. All right. So Will Graham studied three books of the Bible in his lifetime. That's all I'm going to get. Um, so Genesis next. And I love the book of Genesis because it's the book of beginnings. It's the beginning of everything. All right. Um, it's the, how the world was made. We see the beginning of time, the beginning of seasons, the beginning of languages, the beginning of nations, the beginning of the nation of Israel, all these beginnings, The first, all these first things, all right?

9:14 And like Cain is the very first person to ever have a belly button. Did you know that? He's the first child born. Adam and Eve, they were both handmade by God. Now, I want you to stop and think of that for a second. God spoke everything into existence. He spoke the world into existence. He spent the universe. He put the stars, the sun, the moon, the sea, all the creatures by just literally speaking, boom, it was there. All right? It was there. But when it came to humans, we were handmade. He didn't speak us into existence. He got into the dust of the earth, and he formed man and breathed life into him. With Eve, he would take a rib from Adam, and from there, he would stoop down and form Eve and breathe life into her.

10:13 In other words, my friends, I want you to know this, that God, if there's one thing I want you to know, that God knows you intimately, all right? He knows you well. He handmade you. He knows everything about you. God is not, you may feel God is distanced. You're gone from God, but God knows everything about you. And God has a plan and purpose for your life. And he wants you to know him as he knows you. All right. And so today I'm going to give you that opportunity. I just want you to know that you're special in God's eyes. You're not an accident. You're not a burden. You're loved and created by God. And he knows your name. He knows everything about you. He knows what you cry about. He knows what you worry about. He knows what makes you laugh. He knows all those things. And he desires a relationship with you.

11:06 And I'm going to give you that chance here in a minute. But so Adam and Eve, they have their first son. And they have, matter of fact, they would have a second son. His name is Abel. Cain would be born first. He's the oldest. Abel was the second. And these were the first two births ever, ever. Not just recorded, ever. They were the first siblings.

11:34 And we're going to see here in a minute that we see the very first religious act ever performed by man. Cain offering a sacrifice unto God, verse 3. Cain was the first farmer. Abel was the first herdsman. We're also going to see the very first act of violence when Cain was jealous over his brother and killed him. We're going to see the first death in the Bible. And so what I'm saying is Genesis is just an incredible book of all the first that we'll ever see. It's an incredible book. And so what I want us to understand is that there's two ways of life. There's Cain's way and there's Abel's way. All right? Cain's way says I can work hard and do what I want and get to God. where Abel's way is I got to put my trust and do what the Lord tells me to do.

12:36 There's your two things right there. And everybody is on one or the other. Cain's way is broad. Abel's way is narrow. And I don't know which path you're on, but today, if you're on the broad path, you're on Cain's path, you can have a chance to change paths today. And I pray that you would do. But what does the way of Cain look like? What does this way really look like? It's really another way of saying self-righteousness. That I can do things to make God happy. That I can do things to earn my way to heaven. There may be some of you here today, that's what you're doing. You've come to church.

13:25 And you're going to listen to Will Graham. and that's got to count for extra credit because that's Billy Graham's grandson. We've had some baptisms. There's people that have gotten baptized just thinking, well, if I just get baptized, I get to go to heaven. Baptism, there's going to be a, you can go to church.

13:46 If you get baptized just to get wet, you're still on your way to hell. And listen to me, church, or for hell, Hell is full of church people. They think they're going to heaven because they went to church, because they joined a Sunday school, because they got church membership. They think they've done all these things to get them into heaven. They've checked off all the boxes, but they were all the wrong boxes.

14:20 Then there's Abel's way that put their faith and trust in God and does what God tells them to do. Which one are you on today? Which path are you on? cain could cain believed that he could come to god in in it in his own way through self-righteousness and cain god wanted a blood sacrifice but cain offered what he thought was good in other words he said i'm going to do it my way let's look at the text and see what he says now let me put this into some context adam and eve put in the garden they disobeyed god and they disobeyed God and God came looking for them in the garden. And he said, Adam and Eve, where are you? It's the very first evangelistic call ever given in the world. It was given by God.

15:14 He was calling sinful man, sinful woman back to himself. and finally Adam said I was you know he said where you guys been he said I've hid myself we were naked and we were shamed and we hid ourselves when we heard your voice and remember they had fixed their own little fig leaf outfits which didn't work too well and so God uh God God made tunics of skin now when you make tunics of skin what does that mean some animals had to die don't they in other words the very first sacrifice ever made was made by god and he made adam and eve watch as two innocent animals bled and died to cover up their sin it was the very first sacrifice and adam and eve that's what they had to wear that was their protection. And from then on, I think Adam and Eve taught their sons on how to offer sacrifice unto the Lord. And that's where we come in chapter four. Now, Adam knew his wife and she had conceived and bore Cain and said, I have acquired a man from the Lord. Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

16:37 In other words, we had the very first farmer. We had the very first rancher, all right? And one did animals and the other one did, you know, the vegetables. And I don't like vegetables. I know some of you guys do. I'm more of the, I like the able guy. And let me get back to the text.

17:01 That's what's really important, not my views. and in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought offering to the of the fruit of the ground to the Lord and also Abel brought the firstborn of his flock into their fat and the Lord respected Abel in his offering but he did not respect Cain in his offering and Cain was very angry and his countenance fell he was angry and it showed it basically he was mad so the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? And why is your countenance fallen? In other words, God is speaking. He's speaking to Cain. Cain, what's your problem, buddy? Why are you angry? I told you what to do and you haven't done it. And Cain, he's getting angry. He's mad. He's angry. He's already offered a sacrifice, but God rejected it. So see, he's not an irreligious man. He's a very religious man, but going about it the wrong way. He said, I'm making it my way. This is good enough, Lord.

18:09 This is what you get. And that's not what the Lord required. So the Lord said to Ken, why are you angry? Why is your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, then sin lays at the door and this desire is for you, but you shall rule over it. Just stop right there and we'll come back in a minute. So here we see that Cain's offered a sacrifice and, um, but he was going to do it his way. God required a blood sacrifice. There can be no forgiveness of sin with what? Without the shedding of blood. God required a blood sacrifice and he was not given a blood sacrifice. He was given the fruits of the ground.

19:02 And the Lord had rejected it. Said, no, that's not what I told you. He accepted Abel's, but he wouldn't respect Cain's. And Cain became angry. And the Lord warns him. He said, you're getting angry. Why? You need to be careful. Listen, you better be careful because it's about to take over your life. It's going to control you for the rest of your life if you allow it. there may be some of you here today that maybe you're angry you're angry at your parents you're angry at a sibling there may be some of you're older and you're angry at your children i don't know you're angry at work you're there's a lot of you here just angry at god you prayed for something that didn't come to pass and you're angry at god there's some of you here today that you're just angry with god you're bitter toward god and i'm here to tell you and warn you just like god warned cain that sin is going to destroy your life and today i'm going to give you a chance to repent of that and give your heart to christ and let him control that in your life, all right?

20:18 God can change your life. God doesn't promise to give us everything that we want. Thank goodness, right? Thank goodness. We've asked for stupid stuff, a lot of stupid stuff in our lifetime. Like the old country song, thank God for unanswered prayers, right? but here we see that Cain,

20:40 very much like a lot of people today, people try to offer to God what they think God wants. That's not what God wants. You know, I'll sacrifice and go to church. I'll sacrifice and give some money to God and I'll be okay in God's sight. See, a lot of people believe that there's multiple ways to heaven. in other words there's Abel's way and there's Cain's way I'll do whatever I want I'll do my best and God will accept me that's not what God said these people say that you have to have your way to God and I have my way to God you got your way I got my way no there's one way to God and it's and the Bible says narrow is the gate broad is the road unto the destruction or some people say all religions are the same. No, they're not. My friends, there's only one person, one God who died for his people. That's Jesus Christ. He died for you. He died for you.

21:49 That's how much he loves you. And guess what? Three days later, he died on the cross. Three days later, what happened? He came out of the grave and he's alive. All right. He's not, You can go to all the other people's graves. You can't go to Jesus's grave. He doesn't have a grave. He's alive. That's the person I'm following. The man who came out of the grave, I'm going with him.

22:13 So not all religions are the same at all. But Cain was an unbelieving man. What do I mean by that? Now, his parents were sinners, but they believed God. His brother Abel was a sinner, but was a believer in God. Cain was not an atheist though.

22:33 You know, he... he was not necessarily an irreligious man. He had a God that he would bring sacrifices to. He believed in God. He talked to God. So it wasn't like he's an atheist. He didn't believe in God. He believed in God. He talked to God. He just, but Lord, I'm going to do it my way. I like this. This is easier. but and then Cain because of his anger he would commit the very first act of violence he would rise up against his brother and kill his brother the very first murder ever recorded in human history Cain murdering Abel. but Cain said he would not bring a sacrifice to the Lord. It was not a blood sacrifice that God required.

23:27 No lamb, no substitute, no blood. And as we said before in Hebrews, without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of sin. So his sins were not forgiven. And that made him mad for him to kill his own brother. Now I got two brothers. I can maybe understand some of his frustrations.

23:53 But I love my brothers at the same time. I think we were, most of us all have families, right? We got siblings, most of us in here. I'm sure there's some only childs in here, but we get it. It's tough at times. But I would never raise up to kill my brother. But he did. but Cain represented being a self-righteous man. He would build, he said, Lord, look what I did. I would build a great city. He'd built an incredible city called Enoch. He would name it after his son. His descendants would make tools and become inventors. He and his family would represent progress and enlightenment and they were achievers. He could say, Lord, look what I've all done. Look at all these great things I've done. But in God's eye, that means nothing when you disobey them.

24:44 Cain would become a wanderer, a vagabond. He was an outcast later on. So many people have money, success, titles, degrees, possessions, but they are spiritually wandering about. And maybe some of you here today are spiritually wandering. You're here to church here today, maybe trying to, man, I got to find something that can anchor me down. I can anchor my faith in. It's Jesus. It's not your money. It's not your success. It's not in your titles. so that's what he thought i do all these great things god's got to let me in but he was a wanderer a vagabond now let's look back at the text verse 8 now Cain talked with Abel his brother and it came to pass that while they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him then the Lord God said to him Cain where is Abel your brother he said I don't know am I my brother's keeper well he lied right he knows exactly where his brother is i lost my place here that's what happens when you get old my eyes are going bad all right verse 10 and he said what have you done god says what have you done the voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground so now you are cursed from the earth which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand no longer will yield its strength to you.

26:19 Or I'm sorry, when you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond, you shall be on the earth. And Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. He complained about his own punishment. Cain was a man who didn't want to take responsibility for his actions.

26:43 Cain never thought what he did was wrong. When God asked him about his brother, he lied. When God punished him, he complained. See, he thought he could do whatever he wants and be okay. And he wasn't. All the choices he was making in life were taking him further and further away from God. and I'm here to tell you that there's decisions you've made that taking you further and further and further away from God some of you but today my friend is the great u-turn all that can change when you give your life to Christ and I will give you that opportunity in a minute he was a man that listened he failed to listen to a strong warning he said why are you angry the Lord asked why do you why do you look dejected God was warning him says if you don't change, sin's going to grab ahold of you. In other words, God was giving him a warning, a great big warning light. Now, my friend and I, we landed here the other day. We got a rental car and we were driving around. And while we were driving it, all of a sudden, something happens.

27:49 Alarm goes off. And we're like, what in the world is this? What an alarm? And we're looking, looking, and we look and found out one of our tires was getting low. And so we went by a a gas station. I'm not going to tell you which one. And, uh, they had a pump there and it did squat zip. It, I'm like, it did nothing. All right. It was horrible. And you know, they charge us $10 or something for it. You know, air used to be free. Remember, remember those days when air used to be free? Yeah, they're gone. and we paid for this machine that didn't work. So we called the church. One of the guys at the church said, yeah, we got someone, he can help fix it. So his name was Brandon. I think his name's Brandon. And Brandon came and he's in part of the maintenance team here. And he gave us enough air to, just gave us enough air to where we had it fixed.

28:47 He didn't have the right air chuck, but we had enough air get into it. So that was good. so we could drive on without any more alarms. But if we didn't listen to that alarm, we could have, tire would have gone completely flat. We could have lost control of the car and turned over. Something else could have happened. Or if anything, we ruined the tire and the tire company charges us twice as much. What I'm saying is, we had to listen to the warning. And if you don't listen to a warning, then you're gonna have consequences. Usually not good ones. And Cain here, he would not listen. God is good in the morning and he did not listen. He allowed his anger and disappointment to turn into murder. but let's look at abel the way of abel what does that look like it's obedience to god god doesn't really care about your sacrifice god's worried about your obedience that's what god was really wanting it's about the heart it's about the heart not necessarily your actions it's your heart. And this is what it says in 1 Samuel 15, 22. This is Samuel who was talking to the first king of Israel, Saul, that is. Samuel's talking to Saul. And so Samuel said, has the Lord a great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

30:12 Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. See, Saul thought he could do whatever he wanted to do, and then he'll just have a sacrifice and everything's going to be okay. It was the heart that was the problem. And here, there's some of you here today, you got bad hearts. I'm not talking about physically, I'm talking about spiritually. You got bad hearts.

30:39 You think you can do whatever you want and just, you know, I'll go to church on Sunday and everything will be okay. That's going to be your sacrifice. But that's not how it works. God's worried about your heart and God's giving you a warning today. Come back to him today. He's waiting on you. And here in a minute, I'm going to give you that opportunity. but Abel would give a blood sacrifice. He obeyed the Lord and God performed, as I said, God performed the very first sacrifice when Adam and Eve were in the garden and Cain and Abel learned that and Abel continued it. He realized that an innocent animal had to die and he would sacrifice an innocent animal that had nothing to do with his sin to cover his own sin. According to God's way. and Abel understood there could be no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood this is what God prescribed them to do to have a substitute but Cain never did that the Bible says that Abel acted by faith by faith Abel to offer to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain through which he was commended as righteous that's what it is that's God's righteousness, that means God's perfection.

32:02 it was commended to him by accepting his gifts and through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. God accepted Abel's faith, but rejected Cain's. Cain thought he could do it his own way. Like church people. Sounds like church people sometimes. They'll live one way during the week. And when they come to church, they act different, but God sees it. God's given you a warning today. Change direction. Change direction while you can, my friends. as I told you, hell is full, full of church people. Hell is. They think they can just do what they want, live the, any way they want. But if they join a church, get that membership, they're going to heaven. Nothing could be further from the truth. My friends.

33:00 you got to have faith you gotta have faith what is faith is it belief that's part of it you got to believe but faith is more than that it's belief plus action like, uh, I'm a pilot. I didn't fly myself here, but you know, um, when I, when I used to fly airplanes, I would go around, check the elevators and check the rudder, check the air pressure in the tires. I checked the fuel, check the oil, check all these things. And then I would warm up the engine, make sure everything sounds right. Then I would take off. In other words, I would check everything, make sure it's right. But I believe this airplane would get me off the ground by getting everything ready. And I took off, I believed in it took me off. Now I didn't, I didn't fly myself here. I had to, thanks to Delta, I got here, Delta got here, but you know what? I couldn't check the rudder. I couldn't check the tire pressure. They won't let you outside to do all that stuff. I can understand why, but I had a trust that they had. And I put my trust in those pilots that done all that work and the mechanics that have done all that work.

34:20 And I believe they, and I believe that they had the ability to get this plane off safe and sound and bring me here safe and sound. And I did. That's what faith is. Faith is believing and acting. Now I have a, I have two girls and then I have a son. Both my girls are getting married this summer. well thank you slightly like do we clap or do we are we excited i don't know it's one of those awkward claps right there it's a thank you for clapping i know what you mean it is a time of rejoicing amen it's a little boy it's a lot of a lot of heartache some and a lot of stress at the other side of it but I'm excited for my two girls, all right? I'll give you a quick thing. One is Mary, a Nephilim.

35:14 what does that mean? Tall. He's a giant. Sons of Anak, right? My other one is marrying Zacchaeus' twin brother, all right? So my one son-in-law is going to be six foot nine. The other one's like five foot six. So I think I'm on the opposite ends of the... But they love the Lord. I'm grateful for that. and my kids love the Lord too. Marriage is a wonderful thing, amen? It's also one of the toughest things we'll go through, amen?

35:51 And so I'll be praying for them, but I'm excited for them. But my little girl, I want to choose my middle child, Rachel. And because I had Rachel at my office one day and I put her up on a filing cabinet and I was going to have her to jump to me. you know i stood back said all right jump to daddy now she's jumped in my arms many times so she knows i have the strength she sees me pick up heavier things than her she was a little baby you know toddler at the time and uh she know i'm she you know she's seen me be coordinated enough to grab things in midair and hang on to it and stuff like that and so she believes all that stuff all right she knows it she's seen it she's experienced it how I can pick up heavier things than she can and I can hold them and be secure in them.

36:44 She knows all that. All right? But that's not faith. that's not faith the bible says even the believe even demons believe in god and they shudder in other words that's not faith it's not faith until what? she's in midair. As soon as her feet leaves that safety of that platform, she's fully committed for her dad to catch her. That's faith. You're totally committed. There's no back door to go through. You're totally committed to God.

37:34 That's what I'm asking you to do today. You're going to believe and then act on that belief. Thank you. that's what you have to do. The way to God is through faith, believing in God and asking for his forgiveness. It is something so easy to do, but people don't want to do it. Sometimes it's pride. Sometimes it's you're scared. but here my friends, every one of us, we're here to cheer you on. What do I mean by that? Every one of us, all right, for those who put their faith in Jesus Christ, believers here, we've all had to do exactly what I'm asking you to do.

38:23 Listen, I grew up in a Christian family. All right. Franklin Graham's my dad. My mom's a Christian. My dad's a Christian. We went to church. More church than I could imagine. And I'm very thankful for church. And how many of you, I'm 51. How many of you grew up using flannel graphs? Remember flannel graphs? All right.

38:50 There's a few of us in here. Flannel graphs is the way they told stories in Sunday school. And that's how us kids, we learn. You know, all the different stories in the Bible. and on this particular day, I had to go to grown-up church, and they were serving communion. I'd never seen communion before. I just thought it was grown-up snack time in church, and when it came by, I was going to try to grab some, right, because I literally thought it was snacks, and my dad slapped my hand and told me I couldn't have it, and I didn't, not don't think it was abusive, just, no, something, and I didn't think anything about it. I just figured he thought was going to drop it on the floor, you know, which I probably would have. But later on after lunch, he took me to my room and explained to me why I couldn't have that bread and that grape juice because I had never asked Jesus Christ in my life. Now, listen, I grew up in a Christian home. I went to church, but I was not a believer. Did I believe in Jesus? Yes, but I never asked Jesus to come into my life and forgive me of Will Graham's sin.

39:52 that was the moment, January 11th, 1980, or 1981, I gave my life to Jesus Christ and my life was changed, but I grew up religious. So I'm not asking if you're religious and you come to church and you believe all this stuff. No, you got to have faith and you have faith when you ask Jesus Christ to come into your life and forgive you of your sin.

40:16 And there's some of you here that you haven't done that. I'm going to give you that chance literally here in a few seconds. The way that God is through faith. Will you do that today? My friends, I told you from the very beginning we're going to have a time of decision. That time is now. And I can't make it for you. Your spouse cannot make it for you. Your parents can't make it for you. Young kids, you need to make this decision. If you're in here and you're young and you've never made this decision, I want you to make this decision today. It's the most important decision you can ever make. Husbands, wives, listen to me. If you're not sure if you've given your life to Christ, you need to know for sure. Your kids depend on you knowing Jesus. If you're going to be the better mom, a better wife, or a better husband, a better dad, then you need to give your life over to Jesus Christ.

41:13 We need more Christian moms and Christian dads in this world. and if you don't know you can know for sure today all right but some of you know that you're you've been doing it your own way like Cain woe to those who've gone in the way of Cain go in the way of Abel by faith surrender your life to Jesus Christ see my friends the Bible says that we've all sinned we've all fallen short look at Will Graham right here. I am a sinner. the thing is we're all in the same boat we've all sinned we've all broken god's laws whether we realize or not we've broken god's laws we are sinners we all have sinned but there's a payment for that sin. It says, therefore, we're under God's judgment.

42:06 Romans 6, 23 says, for the wages of sin is death. You and I, we deserve eternal death, a place called hell for our sin. That's what we deserve. But I didn't read the whole verse. What's the next part of the verse? But the free gift of God is what? eternal life. It's a gift to my friends. When I travel about, I like to bring my kids back a gift from wherever I've been. So I was up in Canada and what do you think I brought back to them? Huh? Maple syrup. Brought back some maple syrup. Apparently Americans, we don't have a maple syrup. We have to get from Canada. So I brought some maple syrup, but I'm traveling in an airplane when I, I can't take liquids, right? I can't take liquids on the airplane. So I have to get to duty free. Then I can buy liquids and in duty free, it's really cheap, isn't it?

43:08 They rob you and it's like $5 an ounce, right? You know, so, so I get like little bottle, little bottles of maple syrup. And I give it to my kid and I get it and I take it back to my kids and they say, oh, dad, dad, dad, what'd you bring? Now, my kids are older. I don't do this anymore, but as little kids, they say, dad, you know, what would you bring us? What'd you bring us? I said, I got you some. Oh, daddy, what is it? What is it? Here, I got you some maple syrup. Oh, daddy, I love this. I can't wait. Look, it's in the shape of a maple leaf. I'll use this on my pancakes. All right. That was CJ, my oldest. Here you go, Rachel. And oh, thanks, dad. I love this. is great. I'll use this on my waffles. All right, great. But you know what I do? I don't say, all right, now pay me, pay me back. Honey, that was $50. You owe me $50. You owe me $50.

43:56 There's no parent that does that, do we parents? Parents, raise your hand. Would you ever do that to your kid? No, we wouldn't do that. We want them to have it. Grandparents, we definitely don't want the money. Like we, we just want to bless them, you know, spoil them. We want them to have it. now it costs me a lot of money amen i mean that's relative right with maple syrup but it's expensive but i want them to have it the same is true spiritually jesus paid the price he gives it to you freely all you have to do is receive it and so i came down to my son said son here you go. You want some? No. What do you mean? No. I don't like maple syrup.

44:46 You don't want waffles. I don't like waffles or pancakes, dad. So you don't want it. Nope. Okay. No, no syrup for you. God's not going to force you to come to him. You have to receive that gift freely. He's paid the price. It costs God his only begotten son. That's the cost. It costs God his only son. But are you willing to come to him and to receive that free gift of salvation, forgiveness of sins, a new start, purpose and meaning in life? That's all found through him. But you've got to be willing to come to him. Come in the way of Abel.

45:34 Romans 5, 8 says, But God showed his love for us that while we were still yet sinners, Christ died for us. He died for us. and if you confess with your mouth it says in Romans 10 9 if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead then you will be saved in other words my friends you have to receive it if you confess with your mouth that's how you receive it to confess it that's what I'm going to ask you to do right now I told you from the very beginning, the whole moment of this is coming to this one point to make a decision. I'm going to give you that opportunity right now. I want everybody to stand right now in this building. I want everybody to stand. Just go ahead and stand where you are. I told you from the beginning, you're gonna have to make a decision, the way of Cain or the way of Abel.

46:31 There's some of you here today, you need to do a U-turn in life and come back toward God. Come to him, let him change your life. I cannot change your life, only Jesus Christ can change your life. This church will not save you, Will Graham cannot save you. Jesus Christ's blood saves you. You've got to be willing to come to that and confess it before the Lord and to receive it as a free gift by asking Jesus to come into your life and forgive you. All I want to do is have a word of prayer with you. I'm not here to embarrass you. You're going to say you're going to make us walk down in front of everybody. Yep, I sure am. Why? Because Jesus hung on a cross publicly for your sin and my sin. He did it publicly. He didn't hide in some closet in a far off place. He did it in front of the world with his arms stretched out, welcoming everybody to him who would receive him.

47:33 And no one can force you to do it. But there's husbands and wives, there's young people, grandparents here, single people, married people, it doesn't matter. There's a number of you that need Jesus Christ. all I want to do is have a word of prayer with you and so as the band plays they're going to be playing right now I'm going to ask you to get out of your seat and come and stand right down here in front of me I just want to have a word of prayer with you so as the band plays you come and I'm going to have a word of prayer with you in a second alright you come right now Thank you. Thank you.

49:04 Whoo!

49:34 we're just going to wait a few more minutes or another second or two any more people want to come you come right now i'm going to be talking to the people down here in front of me but i want you to come this is god's knocking on your heart don't delay just come see what god's going to do in your life from now on and so as i'm speaking to these people i want you to come right now you just get out and come Thank you. Thank you. for those who are down here i want you to look at me real quick all right i know it's hard to see this skips pulpits like the biggest pulpit in the world which i kind of like but i just want to say one i'm proud of the decision that you just made and i know it's not always easy to come down here in front of other people but it's a day that you won't regret. All right. And that's why I'm so excited about your life has changed. I want you to know right now, as you stand, your sins are forgiven. All right. You say, well, we haven't done anything. You did. You believe sitting in your seat and then you acted on that faith by walking forward. You acted. I mean that you believed in, you acted on that belief. That's called faith. Faith is what saves you. All right. And so I want you to know that God has forgiven you of your sin. You're or a new person right now. All right. And that's why we're all rejoicing.

51:33 And, uh, so all we're going to do right now is just have a word of prayer and thank the Lord what he just done in our hearts. All right. That's all we're going to do. And you say, well, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do next. Well, we're going to have a word of prayer. I'm going to say in short little phrases so we can all say it out loud. We're going to have Everybody in the church say it together. All right. We're going to encourage these people down here that just made this decision. And we're going to say it together. And then we're going to have that prayer. And then they're going to take you into another room. And they just want to help you get to know you better. And so they can help follow up with you. And just to make sure that you can grow in this new relationship with Jesus Christ. All right. So they're not taking you off to a bad off place or anything like that. All right. They just want to get to know you better. And they're going to bring you right back out here. All right. But let's say this prayer together. All right. Close your eyes and we'll say this, all of us together, we'll just repeat it after me. Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner and I am sorry for my sins.

52:33 I believe that you died for my sins and that you rose again from the grave. I want to turn from my sins and I invite you to come into my life. I want to trust and follow you as my Lord and Savior.

52:56 In the name of Jesus.