Gospel Tracts

WHERE’S RICKY?
By Jim Robinette

Little 3-year-old Ricky was playing in the yard with his big sister. His blond hair reflected the light of that warm August morning’s sun and was ruffled by the sea breeze which flowed softly off Santa Barbara’s beaches. This was another usual day of play and discovery for Ricky who was a vivacious and out-going little guy.

Suddenly, out of nowhere it seemed, a drunk driver’s car came crashing into the yard. And all so quickly and finally the car struck and killed little Ricky.
An unspeakable pain and grief came explosively over Kappy, Ricky’s mom, when she was told shortly after this incredible event that her son had been killed in such a horrendous way. Kappy found it difficult to understand or really believe that Ricky had died in the following soul-numbing days as she coped with Ricky’s burial, the shock her daughter experienced and would experience for many years into the future and the thousand details that now intolerably had to be dealt with because Ricky’s life had been violently seized from him and her.

Kappy and I were not Christians when Ricky died but years later learned about Jesus and His love for us and we trusted Him to save us because of His favor towards us which we did not deserve. As Christians we had come to believe in the reality of eternal life and death, heaven and hell. We began to ask ourselves then: Where is Ricky?

We longed to know if the Christian Church had a definite and clear understanding of the destiny of children like Ricky who departed this world while very young. This led us to learn that many, many unborn, infants, and young children die in our modern times. Research enabled us to see that well over 40 million abortions have been committed in America since 1973 when abortion on demand was legalized and that yearly almost half as many babies are killed by abortion as are live-born. We learned that in the developing world more than 11 million kids die each year and that many die before the age of 5. Because of war, famine, natural disaster, disease (AIDS claims many millions of kids yearly) a countless number depart this world in infancy and childhood.

God’s Spirit led us to inquire, “Does God save uncomprehending infants and children from damnation, eternal death?” We want to share with you things we’ve learned about God’s treatment of “babes”, those who die in infancy and early childhood. We’ll use this word “babes” to refer to the unborn, infants, and very young children in the remainder of this piece. Our hope is that in reading this tract you may acquire a saving knowledge and therefore true comfort about God’s nature and about His gracious treatment of babes.

In the study of the Bible, God’s word, and in our examination of the thoughts of gifted Christian leaders we’ve learned some fascinating things. We learned that the Bible tells us that all men, including babes, are born with a sinful nature. Psalm 51:5 says: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” This verse means that children are sinners. Sin is a violation of God’s law and God’s law is summarized in God’s requirement that man love God and his fellow man with all his being. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Mark 12:30,31.

Though babes may or may not have committed actual sins (for instance, a babe in the womb cannot lie for he can’t yet speak) they are conceived with a sinful nature which has been passed on to all men from the first man Adam who sinned. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—” Romans 5:12.

The babe, like all men, must be forgiven of his guilt as a sinner (a result of his sinful nature) by a new spiritual birth which brings cleansing from guilt’s stain and forgiveness of the guilt itself. Jesus says in John 3:5, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Jesus says we must be born again, that is, we must experience a spiritual birth or the bestowing of spiritual life from God to inherit (receive) the kingdom of God. The babe’s need, as is everyone’s, is to receive this spiritual life from God. This receiving of spiritual life results in forgiveness of all sins—actual sins, thought sins, spoken sins, heart sins and the sin of a fallen nature.

Blessedly for us, God gives this spiritual life to all men who receive it by believing that Jesus Christ is God’s salvation, that He is God in bodily form (God became a Man! A perfect man without Adam’s sinful nature!) “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;” Colossians 2:9. Jesus, who is God and man lived a sinless life on behalf of sinners, died on the cross as a substitute for sinners who believe in Him to bear their sinful guilt—He died in the place of sinners! And because He is God in human flesh and was absolutely sinless in His own life He raised Himself to life from the dead after three days—“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John 2:19.

Death could not hold Jesus because God is just. Jesus was sinless and therefore could not receive a permanent death sentence—“For the wages of sin is death…” Romans 6:23. A sinless man cannot justly die. God’s word tells us that over 500 people at once saw Jesus Christ raised up (resurrected) from the dead—“After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once,” 1 Corinthians 15:6, and that His disciples saw Him ascend into heaven, “Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.” Acts 1:9, where He now lives with His God and Father and our God and Father. And because Jesus has done all this to save men from death’s judgements we have great hope that Jesus saves helpless babes from their sin’s guilt and takes them to be with Him in God’s paradise at the moment of their deaths.

God used the tragic occurrences of Ricky’s death to teach Kappy about His love that saves the soul, of His love for her—“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. Kappy learned that in Jesus she would find all of her needs met, even the need to accept Ricky’s violent and senseless death and truly forgive the driver who killed Ricky. Ultimately she found the meaning of life, little Ricky’s and hers, in Christ Jesus the Son of God and Son of Man. Kappy saw her sins for the evil they are, confessed them to God as the evil they are and turned from them to live in a way that pleases God. She trusted Jesus and repented of her sins and came to love God, as He always wanted her to!

Some of you who are reading this piece have lost babes and some of you have aborted your children. May God lead you, dear ones, to find forgiveness in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. There, where Jesus was crucified taking the place of sinners, my wife and you too will find love, peace, righteousness, grace and the knowledge of God that makes a broken sinner whole.

Look by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ to save you from the tragedy of your babe’s death and from the reality of your own sin and death. Trust Christ and repent of your sins, believing that He died on the cross as your holy sacrifice, that He was buried, and that three days later He arose from the dead, and you will find Christ’s life and victory over death and you will live and never die— “And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.” John 11:26.

Because Jesus is the loving, kind and compassionate Savior we have great hope that Jesus gave Ricky spiritual life through the spiritual birth prior to Ricky’s death. We believe and hope that Ricky was born again and that he was cleansed of all his sin’s guilt because Jesus gave Him the gift of eternal life!

We also learned from the Bible that David had hope that he would see his dead son again—“But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” 2 Samuel 2:23.

David’s resignation to his child’s death is evident in this verse. David was a righteous
and godly man in spite of a great lapse into sin which resulted in adultery, murder, and the death of the babe conceived in wickedness. David had a knowledge of God and His nature and so was resigned to God’s judgements. It may be that David’s peaceful resignation was based on a hope that his child was regenerated (born spiritually) before his death. “I shall go to him” may mean that David hoped to see his child again in God’s presence as David knew himself to be a child of God and would be with God upon his departure from this world.

In Matthew’s gospel Christ sets a babe in the midst of the disciples and tells them: “Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (18:4). Christ likens those who enter the kingdom of heaven to the babe. Christ tells us here that a childlike humility is a characteristic of people who have trusted Him. He warns of the sin of causing His little ones to stumble by enticements to sin and He tells us not to despise humble believers like this babe. He tells us that He came to save these little ones and that the Father has willed that not one will perish.
In Luke 1:11-17 the angel of the Lord tells Zacharias that Elizabeth will bear a son and that he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb. This means that John was regenerated (spiritually born) while yet in his mother’s womb and prior to his physical birth.
Also, Jesus says in Matthew 19:14—“Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” C. H. Spurgeon, a Christian pastor, comments about this verse: “Jesus tells us that children are admitted into the kingdom; nay, not only that some few are here and there admitted into it, but of such is the kingdom of God. I am not inclined to get away from the plain sense of that expression, nor to merely suggest that He merely means that the kingdom consists of those who are like children. It is clear that He intended such children, as those who were before Him, babes and young children,‘of such is the kingdom of God’.

“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look on me, a little child!
Pity my simplicity;
Suffer me to come to Thee.”

John Calvin, a Christian teacher wrote: “Truly, Christ was sanctified” (set apart to God) “from earliest infancy in order that He might sanctify in Himself His elect” (chosen ones) “from every age without distinction. If we have in Christ the most perfect example of all the graces which God bestows upon His children, in this respect also He will be for us a proof that age of infancy is not utterly averse to sanctification.”

George Whitefield was a great Christian preacher who in the 1700’s said: “What an awful proof are the sufferings, that children come into a world with a corruption that renders them liable to God’s wrath and damnation; but the blood, the precious blood of Jesus Christ, it is to be hoped, cleanses them from guilt and filth of sin. So that any of you who have got children dead in infancy, O may you improve what I shall say by and by from the next, and pray endeavor to go to that place where I hope you will see your children making a blessed constellation in the firmament of heaven: in this respect all go to the same place, some at beginning of life, some at middle, and some at decline, and happy, happy they who go to bed soonest if their souls are saved.”

Pastor John MacArthur offers helpful comment here—“The kingdom of heaven is the sphere of God’s rule in Christ through gracious salvation. For those who have reached the age when personal saving faith can be exercised, the kingdom is entered only by a divinely illuminated understanding of what it means to trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The implication of such as these is that for those, who because of young age or mental deficiency, are incapable of exercising saving faith, God grants them in the event of death entrance into the kingdom by the sovereign operations of His grace. When children die before they reach the age of decision, they go into the presence of Jesus Christ, because they are under the special protection of the sovereign King.”

We must mention now that abortion or intentional murder of the unborn is a sin that God forgives. But He gives us stark warning in 1 John 3:15 that the unrepentant murderer is lost—“Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

If you have taken part in this sin, repent and find His sufficient grace and forgiveness of sins. Christ receives everyone who truly believes and repents. Remember that the murderer David was forgiven, but the murderess Athaliah who sought the babe Joash’s life never repented and so she was lost.

In light of Christ’s love and sacrifice of Himself for sinners, come to Christ trusting Him in repentance that He will save you from your sins, dear one. And you shall be saved.
The Bible tells us about God’s nature— He is a helper to the helpless. “But You have seen, for You observe trouble and grief, To repay it by your hand. The helpless commits himself to You.” Psalm 10:14. God is merciful to the afflicted. “So that they caused the cry of the poor to come to him; For He hears the cry of the afflicted.” Job 34:28. God is compassionate. “So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.” Joel 2:13. God is just. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9.

Pastor Ichabod Spencer from the 1800’s relates the story of a Christian woman whose babe had died and of her hope of the babe’s salvation.

The Lost Child—not lost, but gone before

‘Twas a gem fit for love,—’twas the gift of her God,
But no thanks did the gift e’er excite;
Death snatched it away—she sunk under the rod!
All her world was a chaos of night!
Then there whispered a voice from the land of the blest,
Oh my mother, my mother! on high
I wait to receive thee to this land of sweet rest
Oh, my mother, prepare thee to die.
I’m not in the dark coffin—Christ spread his arms around me,
I awoke ‘mid this light and this love,
Where the bright beams of heaven spread their glory around me;
For I died to allure thee above.
She heard it; she felt that attraction of heaven,—
It was peace: she can now kiss the rod;
She flew to her Christ—she’s a sinner forgiven,—
They shall all meet in the bosom of God.”

Praise the Lord!!!

CYNDI
By Jim Robinette

“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5: 20,21

Cyndi’s home-coming from the hospital in Mom’s arms was a time of unusual warmth, happiness, and promise in our home. “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward.” Psalm 127:3. Cyndi was born as the last child in our family which also included two sons. I’m her oldest brother and I thank the Lord Jesus Christ that I can share with you, friend, about my baby sister and her short and tumultuous life.

It seemed that her coming into our family ushered in a season of hope as Mom and Dad were delighted to have a daughter together and we all felt that perhaps now the pain and sense of alienation that we all experienced in our home would be over. Mom and Dad drank alcohol heavily, usually beer, sometimes wine or whisky, and it was often that their drunkenness erupted into physical violence after a period of verbal insulting and taunting. “The mouth of the righteous is a well of life, But violence covers the mouth of the wicked. Proverbs This sinful intoxication damaged each of us severely.
righteous is a well of life, But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.” Proverbs 10:11.

I followed the example my parents set for me and first drank alcohol as a young child of perhaps six or seven as I was given ‘tastes’ from their drinks. I became very drunk and passed out during a drinking episode when I was thirteen as a friend and I took vodka and other booze into a movie theatre and I managed to consume most of a quart. I suffered greatly because of my foolishness. “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” Proverbs 14:12.

My life and drunkenness worsened and led to heavy drug usage and greater misery until by God’s grace He saved me from my hell-bent life when I was thirty-two. “Good understanding gains favor, But the way of the unfaithful is hard.” Proverbs 13:15. I haven’t drunk alcohol or used drugs for the seven-teen wonderful years now that I’ve walked with Jesus. “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified,” (set apart to God in holy living, that which pleases God and doesn’t violate His law) “but you were justified” (declared to be right by God the Judge) “in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

My brother, too, began drinking heavily at an early age and continues to this day as far as I know and he does not believe that he has “a problem with alcohol.” “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing , whose minds the god of this age” (Satan or the Devil) “has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” 2 Corinthians 4:3,4. Those of us who drink excessively and so commit this sin of drunkenness are many times slow to confess to ourselves much less to others the truth. We often refuse to see and confess that we are lost in our sin and are powerless to turn from it in our own strength. “ By transgression an evil man is snared, But the righteous sings and rejoices.” Proverbs 29:6.

Baby Cyndi brought a lightness and life to our desperate family held in dire bondage to pride, fighting, and lust for drink. “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” Ephesians 4:17-19. “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war.” James 4:1,2. We all made much of her and she grew up expecting and demanding everyone’s praise and attention. We tried to guard her from the frequent fights but she also became involved and would cry screaming that the bloodshed would stop. She many times mouthed the words that she heard-”I hate you!” and cursed. “Jesus answered him, “The first” (foremost) “of all the commandments is ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself .’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:29-31. “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” Romans 3:14.

Cyndi lent some normalcy to our home-life as she attended dance lessons and became friends with neighboring children. She grew and learned quickly and did well in school-someone in our family nick-named her ‘Cinders’. Our hopes failed as time ran on-we saw that Cinders couldn’t hold the family together. Our many sins in unbelief caused family and personal disintegration. “The righteousness of the blameless will direct his way aright, But the wicked will fall by his own wickedness. Proverbs 11:5. It was inevitable that she would follow suit in her family’s ways and she became quite self-focused, proud, and sought to commandeer her childhood friends.

Mom and Dad split up when Cyndi was about nine years old and this was very hard on my kid sister. Cyndi became more troubled as she grew older and though she tried to cope with life she became increasingly drawn to a counter-culture that exalted evil and she rebelled from any appearances of a traditional family life. Loud clothing expressed her inner turmoil and a fascination with the occult led her to abandon herself to young people who sought darkness. “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.” John 3:19,20.

Cyndi began using alcohol and eventually marijuana in her early teen years. She became promiscuous and by her late teens was addicted to heroin which she injected. She abused other drugs especially crack cocaine and alcohol. “And the person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute himself with them, I will set my face against that person and cut him off from his people.” Leviticus 20:6. “And they did not repent of their murders, or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.” Revelation 19:21. Cyndi, unknowingly in some respects and because of the evil one’s seductions and lies, had cultivated a love for death. She was enamored with images of graveyards, the dead, and spirits. She had tatooed much of her body with representations of demons and ungodly and sensual figures. She saw life through distorted and darkened eyes which she had created by the sins of her sorceries and immoralities. “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Romans 1:20,21.

When I became a Christian I began to pray for my little sister that God would save her from her sins and this life of slavery to alcohol, drugs, and immoral sex. “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.” Romans 6:5-7.

Cyndi went to live with our Dad in another state—this began her final descent into depravity. She was yet in her late teens. After a few years Dad again moved away but Cyndi continued to live there in what we later learned was the drug and street culture. I had lost contact with her. She was living with a young man, a fellow drug user, in much turmoil and their ill-founded relationship broke apart. “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:20-23.

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rains descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. “But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” Matthew 7:24-27.

Alone, in confusion and much fear she prostituted herself. She sold herself shamelessly to obtain heroin fixes. “I have seen your adulteries And your lustful neighings, The lewdness of your harlotry, your abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! Will you still not be made clean?” Jeremiah 13:27. Mercifully, she was arrested and jailed for her illicit activities. Cyndi tried to contact our Mom at this time. I was led by the Lord to understand that Cyndi was in great danger. I feared for her life because she was so given over to her devilish addiction-she didn’t hold back in her worship of evil. In answer to prayer I traveled to her city and after one week of searching found Cyndi on the streets. She was afraid to come with me but was convinced by a drug counselor to go home with me and to attempt to clean up.

Cyndi and I traveled many hours to our home and during the trip I began to tell her about Jesus, the Savior of the world. "Then they said to the woman, 'Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.'" John 4:42. Cyndi arrived at our home and was warmly and lovingly welcomed by my wife. We began to teach Cyndi about Jesus and she detoxed from heroin in our home. She was open to learn from us-she had seen the profound changes Jesus, who is the eternal God who became a man, had made in our lives. "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;" [in a human body] "and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power." Colossians 2: 9-10.

We taught Cyndi as ambassadors for Christ. We pleaded with her to be reconciled to God and no longer be estranged from Him (“as though God were pleading through us”); we implored her to trust God—the Father, the Son of God Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit—He is the one true God who exists as three Persons. “For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.” 1 John 5:7. We taught her that Jesus is sinless and that to make sinners right with God He died for them (“to be sin for us”). We told Cyndi of God’s limitless love for sinners and that He would deliver and free her from death and sin if she were to trust Him and repent (turn from her sins). “For God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8.

Cyndi entered a Christian women’s program and professed faith in Christ. She stopped using drugs. She looked like a new person—I remember with joy one Sunday in which Cyndi worshipped God with my wife and me and our Mom!

After about a year and a half Cyndi used heroin once and died of an overdose. We trust that she is with Jesus. We loved her deeply. And because we love you, friend, we implore you to be reconciled to God. You will be at peace with God and made alive spiritually and forgiven of all your sin the moment you truly believe that Jesus Christ suffered, died, was buried and is resurrected from death for you. Turn to Jesus, your Lord, beloved.

A Sinner’s Story
By James Robinette

In a drug-induced state, my friend and I shouted out to the cosmos, “I’m Lord of the Universe!” This blasphemy took place by the riverside where we had come to practice sorcery amidst the beauty of the true Creator’s handiwork. Eastern religion and its doctrines of demons had enchanted me and taken me captive.

Family violence, drunkenness and immorality had led me to become very fearful and fragmented. I sought some release and connectedness in the occult and by indulging my fleshly desires with no self-restraint. My idolatry was real and devastating.

Later at the age of 30 years, after many years of decadence, I was reaching a point of final desperation in my life.  Things just never seemed to work out and always went from bad to worse. My pride and paralyzing fear with its resulting depression characterized my godless and self-destructive ways. My depressions were severe and sometimes lasted over a year...I found myself totally unable to cope with these times of blackness that powerfully controlled me.  I lost relationships and jobs. I slept on the sofa most of the day when I wasn’t drinking or gluttonously eating.  During these times, my immorality had no limit.  I retreated shamefully from people and wouldn’t speak to them. I didn’t bathe, sometimes for many days. My drinking was getting worse.  My drunken stupors and the terrible hangovers that resulted were leading to more and more confusion.  I was brought into a condition in which the only shelter I could acquire was in a flophouse hotel which was the home of prostitutes, drunkards, the mentally ill and homeless who might reside there when they could. The bar next door was a stronghold for the worst possible activities which I greedily gave myself over to.  I took drugs seeking a paradise but found myself just further broken apart after my reveling.  I stole and drank in public and went to jail, which I feared and which contributed to a growing sense of failure and hopelessness.

Brushes with homelessness which were usually a result of my out-of-control gambling habits had taught me to fear the final abandonment that the street people somehow existed in.  I was bitter and angry, isolated myself from others and many times stepped across the line into insanity.

My loneliness was overwhelming and I sought some sense of intimacy in wickedness and sexual sin with my illicit partners. There were many women. There was much sin and abuse.  It wasn’t possible for me to maintain normal relationships for very long. I was without God and without hope in my black and pain-filled world.

I contemplated suicide often and planned how I would purchase a gun, shoot myself in the head, perhaps with the gun in my mouth and finally, I thought, escape my miserable life, which was filled with fear, defilement, hate and violence. Strangely, I obtained some comfort in these self-murderous thoughts as I considered my mock-mastery over my life, but which in reality, was controlled by another. That other was my master, Satan. I served him for the wages of fleshly pleasure, sin, misery and death that he paid me.

I lived in grinding poverty. This was a result of my selfish, grasping, insatiable ways.

Galatians 5:19-21 in the Holy Bible is a description of my life then. I wonder, friend, does the Word of God in Galatians 5 describe your life also? There the Book of God says: “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambition, dissensions, heresies, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”  The Bible also says in 1 Corinthians 6:9: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived.” It then lists sins that the wicked live in.

In God’s plan for me, the sinner, He brought a friend my way.  And God worked through that friendship to change my life.

Tony had been a drinking buddy but had been saved through his family’s witness to him. The change in him was striking and convincing. I had heard about salvation at times before but didn’t really understand it and didn’t believe that there was a God. Tony’s friendship had been a source of hope in my despair and when I saw the evident change and happiness in his life I began to wonder if there possibly could be some hope for me.

Though I had earlier joined a religious group, I didn’t live for God and had really rejected Him from my heart.  I lived in my evil ways but went to mass on Sunday. At one point I confessed to the priest what I was really like and he responded by saying, “Don’t trouble me with that.”  I finally despaired of finding any truth in religion when once again I became severely depressed and prayed to Jesus for help. When He didn’t answer my prayer I decided to never try religion again and concluded that it was a story for the weak and foolish as my Dad had taught me to believe.  I remember during those days that as I knelt before a statue of Jesus with His red bleeding heart exposed, I wept and thought, “Jesus loves me so much!  Look how He bleeds for me!”  I learned then that I could even weep because of the goodness of Jesus and yet not really trust or know Him. My unbelief and self-righteousness blinded me from the reality of the love of God.

In my final desperations, I thought of myself as a dead and dying man—and this terrified me!  I saw myself to be a man of the tombs... but I didn’t know the Bible truth that I was spiritually dead because I was without Jesus Christ.  “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now  works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also once conducted ourselves in the lusts of  our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”  (Ephesians 2:1-3, of the New Testament). I see now that I was like the man described in Mark 5:2 in the Bible: “And when He [Jesus] had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.”  And the Bible says the unbelieving love death, as I did then.  “But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul; all those who hate me love death.” (Proverbs 8:36).

Though I had confused Christ and His grace with Satan and his evil and though I had terribly blasphemed Christ countless times, I fearfully began to read about Christ and His mercy, kindness and limitless love. The light of God began to shine in my midnight-like heart.  Though I had suppressed the knowledge of God before, the wonderful grace of God was becoming more understandable! His persistent and unrelenting love became the subject of my thoughts!  I learned that according to Romans 1:20-21, we (all men) all know that there is but one true, good, living and all-powerful God that we must give an account of our lives to.

And that God, wonderfully, was drawing me to Himself! I had learned so well that I could not trust myself or other people.  I saw that God had allowed me to wander in excessive sin for so many painful years so that I would see that I could not control my life or desires.  He was teaching me that I could only find peace, satisfaction, self-control, meaning, companionship and real love and joy in Him.

I remember as though it was but yesterday the moment that God saved me, the sinner. One night the things I had been considering became instantly and powerfully clear.  I knew in a spiritual way that Christ Jesus is the Eternal God!  I understood that I could trust Him.  I reasoned that because He is God and also a perfect and sinless Man, He was, therefore, absolutely trustworthy and that He, alone, of all persons was trustworthy.  I saw His goodness in a moment and realized that He alone is good and that He was calling to me to entrust my burdened and broken life to His control and care. I saw that Christ Jesus is truly raised to life from the dead and that He lives forevermore.  I knew then that He loved me with a love that words cannot fully describe I understood that He was very near me, I sensed just above me, and that the life He gives is abundant and never ending.  Somehow, I knew that He died for me and that He was giving me His blessed and eternal life.  I knew then that I must no longer disbelieve God; indeed, I sensed that if I rejected Him yet again that I would only perish in my sins. I could see that if I trusted Christ I would receive God.

I fell to my knees in the presence of Christ my God and Savior.  I began to weep and for hours knelt and wept before my forgiving and saving God. I began to experience a blessed sensation. I began to feel God’s love in my heart!  My heart seemed to be glowing and strangely warmed. God loved me!  I felt purified and cleansed in my soul.  I felt that the scales had been removed from my eyes and that I was seeing Christ Jesus, the Man who is God, from my heart, by faith in His glorious and merciful name!

I knew then that God had given this exceedingly sinful man His precious gift of absolute forgiveness of sins and eternal, blessed, and abundant life.  I was empowered by God to repent, that is, to turn from my sin and turn to God.  I knew that He required that I stop the many sinful things that I habitually did and I trusted Him that He would enable me to do that.  I could never do that before.  His Spirit showed me that eventually I would be with God and Christ in His true paradise.  A deep peace and joy began to well up in my heart as though from a fountain.  I had an overpowering sense of satisfaction, contentment and acceptance by God.  In a moment, the old life had ended and a new and glorious life began.  I was born again!

I had been reading Bible verses like the following, and these became real and true to me, in fact, I see these Words to be the very breath of God:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  John 3:16

“But God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

“But when the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration [the giving of spiritual life to those who are spiritually dead] and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace [unearned favor that saves us from death] we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:4-7

God saved me, a sinner.  And while my desire for evil was perhaps more excessive than yours, my friend, God’s word says that we are all sinners. The wonderful fact is that the God who created us loves us with all of His heart and desires that we should receive His gift of salvation from sin, guilt, misery and death.  There is mercy for every sinner who comes to Christ.  Every sinner who comes to Jesus shall be forgiven and shall not be cast into hell but shall dwell with God forever in blessedness.  God gave His Son Jesus Christ to bleed and die on the cross in the place of sinners.  Friend, believe in the crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved!  And you shall rejoice to be a sinner forgiven!

 “Also to You, O Lord, belongs mercy!”  Psalm 62:12

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