Is Jesus Inside or Outside!

Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments. They shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life.

You believe in eternal security? Read that verse. He that overcomes the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out your name from the book of life. But I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.

He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. I want to read also what the Lord is saying to the church in Laodicea, verse 14. Under the angel of the church of Laodiceans write these things, says the Amen, the faithful and the true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, I know your works.

You’re neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one. So then because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth.

Because you say, I’m rich and increased with goods, I don’t need anything. And you don’t know that you’re wretched and miserable, poor, blind, and you’re naked. I counsel you to buy of me gold dried in the fire, so that you may be rich, white raiment that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness will not appear.

And anoint your eyes with eye of salve, so that you might see. As many as I love, I rebuke and I chasten. Be zealous therefore and repent.

Behold, I stand at the door and I knock. If anyone hears my voice, open the door. I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me.

To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. I go back to verse 20.

Behold, I stand at the door and I knock. Why did he have to stand at the door and knock? Because he was not welcome in. And this is a church of Laodicea.

This is one of seven renowned churches. So I dare to, I dare to ask us this morning, is Jesus on the inside or is he standing outside? Now that’s a very in-your-face question, but that’s a question that was asked the church of Laodicea, who were thoroughly convinced he’s among us. They believed that, and if anyone else had ever said it, they would have been considered smug.

They would have been considered given to allegations. What kind of a thing is that to say to us? But it’s the Lord who said it. It’s the Lord who said it.

I’m on the outside. Will you let me in? Two quick little stories. I’ve told you the one.

I went to China by invitation, and I landed in Hong Kong. I boarded a boat, and I sailed to the mainland. It’s not very far, and having arrived on the mainland, I then went by bus, and having gone through security, I smuggled in about 20 Bibles in my coat and in my jacket.

I weighed about 25 extra pounds. There’s a story about how I got through. The guard was there going through people’s luggage and checking them all out.

I’m a visitor. I’ve never been to this place before, so I just walked through, and I saw the guard there, and I just kept on going. I walked right outside.

I was never checked when I got in. Here I had all these Bibles all over my coat, and whatever. I met a spy, a Christian spy, in a hotel.

We had this place where I was told, you sit on this chair, and he will find you. Sure enough, I sat on a chair in the lobby of this ornate hotel. I mean, hello, five star plus stars.

A man came and stood before me. He just gave me a nod like this, and I followed him out of the hotel. He says, give me the books.

So I took the Bibles into him. Later that day, I ended up in a hospital as a guest speaker. I was announced as a teacher.

I don’t claim to be a teacher, but I was announced as a teacher. So I stood before this classroom. There were at least as many doctors in the room, this lecture room, as there are people in this room here today.

So I said to them, you’ve been studying English, and let’s see how good your English is. So I’m really not going to teach you English. I’m going to test your English.

So I want you to, each one, tell me your name and ask me one question, and I will give you a very brief answer, and that will tell us how good your English is getting. The very first question from one of the doctors, he told me what he did. Amputees, he bragged to me that he can take your toes and put them on your fingers, or he can take your fingers and put them on your toes, depending on what you’re missing out.

And he actually insisted on taking me down the hall after the meeting and showing me some of his beautiful sewing. I pretty much fainted by what I saw, but he was very proud of his work. But his first question was, what do you teach? You’re a teacher, what do you teach? I said, I teach religion.

Oh, the next doctor was intrigued, said, of all the religions that you teach, which is your favorite? I said, I pretty well focus on one. It’s my favorite. It’s Christianity.

Next person. Why do you like to teach about Christianity? And the questions just kept on going. They’re just kind of loading up, and I thought, somebody in here is a spy for the Communists.

I’m going to get arrested before I even leave the place. But the good thing was, I wasn’t pushing anything. I was simply answering questions.

So eventually, I’m saying, well, it’s all about Jesus. And a person said, tell us more about him. I said, well, he lives in my heart.

And the next question was, how did he get into your heart? And I quoted this verse. I said, each one of us is like a house. You live inside your person.

You live inside your house. And Jesus knocked on the door of my house. I said, I didn’t hear a noise, but I knew that I knew it was him that was knocking.

And he called me out. He wanted to come in. And I said, I found out something.

There’s no hardware on the outside of my door of my person. The hardware is on the inside. I said, I had to unlock the door, and I let him come in.

And I said, when he came in, I said, we sat down in here, and we became friends. And I said, he’s never left me. So I went on with a little bit more about that.

And then the time was finished. And I said, is there one last question? And a doctor raised his hand, mentioned his name. And he said, I have not a question.

I want to say something to you. I’m very moved by what you said about Jesus knocking on the door. I think I hear him knocking on my door even now.

If you come back to this country and you look for me, I will have the same story as you. I want him to come into my heart. I said, is there anyone else who feels that way? At least a half a dozen doctors raised their hands.

The important thing to me is that I did not preach. There was no choir. There was no piano.

I simply was telling them the simplest story. It’s the gospel. And when I told them the simplest story, apparently as I was telling the story, the doctors responded to this particular text.

I stand at the door, and I knock. If you hear my voice, open the door, and I will come in. The unique thing was that if I were to go into another church within, say, a 20-mile radius, if I was invited to go into a church, and if I were to say, Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart and your life, there would be people upset with me even saying such a thing.

There are people who are so gospel-hardened. They know the book off by heart, but they are resistant. One night I was in the streets of Montreal.

I used to work as a worker, not on like, oh, Teen Challenge. I was involved in the ministry, like downtown in Montreal, speaking to people. And a drunkard came along and spoke to me right downtown in Montreal, and he said, what are you doing out here? I said, I’m out here to talk to people about Jesus.

The man stood there and quoted a long list of gospel verses. He blew me away with his knowledge, but he had never opened the door and let Jesus in. He had head knowledge, but he had no heart knowledge.

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock. So the message was to the church. Remember the wording? To the church of Laodicea, write these things.

Behold, I stand at the door. So the door of the church, that was the door that this is speaking of. It was a message to a particular church, the church of Laodicea.

But the church is comprised of individuals. So the message is not just to the whole corporate body of the church, but the message is to individuals. And this is what’s so unique.

The Lord is knocking. Does anybody here in there hear my voice? And then it goes, if one of you hears my voice and dares to open the door, I will come in. I want to suggest to you from that little nugget there, it’s possible that one or two people could take the burden of the church on and begin to pray through.

And through the prayers of very simple, sometimes single people, revival has been inspired in a local church. Does anybody hear my voice? Obviously, they thought everything was fine. If you’d passed a little memo through to them and said, please fill in the dots here.

How do you feel the church is going? Lots of churches are asked that. They’ll have an annual meeting or something to say to the people. Well, how do you think we’re going? And the people say, that’s wonderful.

There’s more people coming than ever. And the music is wonderful. The offerings are great.

And they will say on the basis of what they see, what they observe, everything’s great here. But the real question is, how are we doing indeed? How are we doing? And are we fulfilling the call that God has put upon our hearts? We’re rich, we’re increased with goods. The annual meeting concluded, there isn’t anything that we need.

And the Lord Jesus said, I have a little different assessment. You’re impoverished. You don’t even have any clothes on.

You should be embarrassed. You’re impoverished. You’re lacking strength, and you don’t even know it.

This is a hard, this is a hard message for, for me to take, I would think for all of us to take. I’m asking the question this morning, and only you can answer that, I suppose. How are we doing? But he said, if any man hears my voice, so how are you doing? How am I doing? Jesus was excluded from that church, Laodicea.

He was excluded from heaven because the Father sent him. He was excluded from heaven because of love. But when he came unto his own, his own received him not.

Excluded from heaven because he loves us, and excluded from among us because we hate him. But here’s one more category, excluded because we’re lukewarm. We’re not excluding him because we don’t love him, and we’re not excluded because we hate him.

We’re excluded because we are lukewarm. He says, I wish you’d be either hot on fire for me, or I wish you’d just freeze to death. But don’t dangle around in the middle trying to decide what are you going to do about this.

They did not know. They had to be shocked. They actually received this.

This is a letter to the Church of Laodicea. John sent the message, this is what Jesus told me about your church. Some years ago, it was, I was part of a little chat this past week.

One of the fellows sitting in the circle used to be the president of the Queensway Cathedral in Toronto. So he was there, and he told us about a preacher who came from the United States. I wasn’t present for that meeting, but he said that man came with a message for that church.

They had a wonderful time of singing. Apparently everything was just wonderful, and now this illustrious world-renowned preacher is coming to speak to us. And they, and the fellow who was the president at the time, they had a pastor, but you see they were incorporated.

So they had a pastor and deacons, and then they had an incorporated board who would look after the business of the church. And he reported that the preacher stood up to the pulpit. Now I remember that preacher’s name was David Wilkerson, and I’ve been in meetings where David Wilkerson has gone to a pulpit, and this is the first thing you heard, and you knew you’re in for a scorcher.

I wasn’t there, but David Wilkerson spoke in the Queensway Cathedral. That’s a big church down in Toronto. Seats about 4,000.

And he said, the Lord has shown me what’s going on in this church. And he dressed it down, and I won’t report to you what he said. I think some of you would be aghast, but he actually named it.

God has shown me. And you know what? Within about the next 24 months, what David Wilkerson spoke of came to be. It was discovered that the thing was broke wide open, and it became a national story.

It was publicized in the Sun newspaper in Toronto. But their finances were perfect, and the crowd was huge, and the preacher was on national television. He was preaching this message about the remnant, and how God is going to send a glorious revival.

But there was a word that came from the Lord, you’re sick, and you better straighten up your act. And the last words that that preacher said, before he gave them a wonderful passage out of the Word of God, he said, if you don’t, he turned and said to the preacher who was sitting on the chair behind him, and he said, if you don’t do something about it, God’s going to put an incubate over the door of this church. Pastor Dave, that’s a scary story.

It’s scary to think that Jesus would die on the cross, and that God’s people would hang on to the things that he went to the cross to take, that we would hold them on to more dearly than we would respond to his care and his love. Beloved, there’s a threat in that I read to you just a moment ago. If you don’t straighten up your act, he says, I’ll blot your name out of the book.

When I was a young fellow, the preachers that came to our church as evangelists, they loved me. Every preacher that had half of a message, the first altar call he gave to get saved, I got saved every time that a visitor preacher came because I got under such conviction. But so many pulpits these days in our own denomination are silent with any kind of a, I’m going to use the word threat.

He’s a holy God. We just sang it, holy, and the people cried, you’re holy, and forever God, you are holy. What does that mean? They assumed they were fine, because the books were in the black, because the choir was illustriously famous.

Friends, are you watching the news? Some of you, I think, have turned off the news, and I don’t blame you, the negative stuff. Do you know how many pastors of mega churches in the United States have gone down in flames in the last 24 months? It’s huge. It’s absolutely huge.

Do you know so many of the songs that the churches are singing today, and maybe we sang one or two of them today, were written in a church that was known as the biggest, most aggressive, most powerful church in the world, and they became famous for their songs, and we were singing their songs. But the pastor had to step down, because he was found wanting. Other huge pastors, huge.

They’re falling like timber. This is an hour when I think the book of Hebrews is coming full force, where it says, the day will come when I will shake everything. I will shake everything.

And I think there’s a smug concept among the church today, because of the things that we’ve been taught, conferences that, and books were written. You’re a king’s kid. You’ll be denied nothing.

So we’ve come to the place where we’re quite comfy. We feel like just everything’s fine. I’m a king’s kid.

And we also hear, well, once saved, you’ll never have to worry. You’ll always be safe. There are churches who believe that if a child, that if you’re a mom and dad, and if you bring your child to the altar, and that child is christened or baptized, that child is safe and secure for as long as they live.

They don’t have to repent of their sins. They are already part of the family of God. It’s announced at a church.

The whole church celebrates it. Folks, that’s not a small denomination. That’s a lot of people.

I’m not going to name it, because I don’t want to get into that. But beloved, we have really been gone into a slumber. The church is prosperous.

He said, your bank account’s full. Therefore, you believe that God’s on your side. And so there are people who go to conventions now by the thousands, and they’re told, you deserve prosperity.

Here’s a church that had prosperity, but they were lacking Jesus. But they had his name. This church in Laodicea was an organized church.

They had leadership. They had deacons. They had elders.

They had it all. They might have had a brand new sign sitting out in front of their building. I don’t know.

They identified with the name of Jesus. That’s no guarantee. They professed to live by the word.

That’s no guarantee. They instituted rituals. They instituted rituals according to the word of God, and that’s no guarantee.

The apostle warns the people who gather at this table about inconsistencies, and he says, some of you are avoiding the topic, and for that reason, many of you are sick, and many of your people have already died because you were careless about how you entered toward the table. This isn’t a happy message this morning. I’m sorry.

I’m always, you know, frothing at the mouth and telling you how wonderful everything is, but every once in a while, I come upon a verse where it says, whom he loves, he chastens. Now, it’s not my job to chasten you. Do you know who I’m chastening the hardest this morning? My name is David, and I’m not perfect.

Ask my wife. She couldn’t make it today. Don’t talk to her.

Thank you. My wife knows my inconsistencies. Nobody’s perfect.

They observed all of his ordinances. They were fully organized as one of the great churches of the day, and Jesus had an issue to take up with them. I was at a conference in Winnipeg.

I’m going to bring up the name of a particular preacher again. Forgive me. No, don’t forgive me.

Just take it. Huge conference, and I was the worship leader. I had such a wonderful opportunity for so many years, as they would say, David, will you come? Will you lead our worship? I used to love to do so.

Oh, I love to do that. Not because of being an important place, but I just love to worship, and I love to lead the people in worship. So, I was a part of that service.

The guest speaker David Wilkerson. David Wilkerson walked up to the pulpit. He was welcomed with a huge applause.

David, do you know who this is? He wrote a book called Crossing the Switchblade. He started a ministry called Teen Challenge down in the heart of New York, and he saw thousands of people saved. Some of the people that got saved through that ministry, I’ve known personally.

Nikki Cruz. There was a time when he and our friends, but he won’t even remember me now. And David Collado, who was in college with me, he was also a respondent to that ministry.

They’ve done so many wonderful things, and they’re still functioning here in Canada. So, David, you see, was famous because he was taking on the drug lords. He was taking on the mobs.

He stood down in the streets of New York, and I believe it was Nikki Cruz pulled out a knife and said, you say that name one more time, and I’m going to slash you into pieces. And David said, if you do so, every piece will cry out, Jesus loves you. And on that day, Nikki Cruz knelt on the pavement, surrendered his heart to Jesus.

Nikki Cruz in the streets of Brooklyn, New York, heard a voice, heard a call, and Nikki Cruz got saved. We have churches today that won’t mention his name. They had his name, this church in Laodicea, they had his name in the church, but he was not in their midst.

They were not guilty of horrible sin. The church in Corinth at one point was guilty of filthy sin, rotten to the core, sexual improprieties, and Paul called them out on it. This church, that’s not named.

It’s not like they were a bunch of reprobates. It’s not like they had potty mouth. It’s not like they were stealing.

It’s not what they were doing. No, this was their guilt. They were lukewarm.

They started off on fire, but they became lukewarm. They saw themselves as rich. He saw them as poor.

They saw themselves as healthy. He saw them as sick. They believed that their eyesight was clear, that they had a clear vision.

He said, no, you’re blind. They thought they were clothed in his righteousness. He said, no, from my vantage point, I see you naked.

David Wilkerson in that service read one verse, and I just read it to you. This is the only word. David didn’t read that whole chapter.

He read these words. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. This is what he did in that conference.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice, let him open the door. David Wilkerson quoted it again and changed one word.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any pastor hears my voice, let him open the door. And then David Wilkerson came down. I was a pastor of a church in Toronto.

I felt a fire coming around my feet as he preached, and he said, how sure are you that your church is on fire for God? And what about you, pastor? Are you getting your sermons off the internet, or are you getting those fresh coals off the altar of fire? Do you know what you’re doing in your singing of the songs? Is it coming from your heart, or do you love the melody? Finally, David Wilkerson said, it’s time, pastor. If he’s knocking at your door, I think you need to come to this altar. David Wilkerson walked away from the pulpit, and he stood, and his head bowed, and I thought, oh my, what’s going to happen here? And then I heard something.

I can’t explain what I heard. It wasn’t anything unique or whatever. What I heard was the rustle of somebody’s coat or their pant leg.

I don’t know, and I lifted my eyes and looked, and there were pastors and their wives streaming down the aisles. The pastors that day heard the call, but I went to a restaurant after. I went to the altar.

I went to the altar, cried my guts out to the Lord. There’s far more to that story that I won’t go into, as God met me in a very special way at that altar that changed the course of my life. We’ll leave that alone.

Pastors after a conference like that will often go to a restaurant, order a piece of pie, or order something with white flour and fatten up in the restaurant, and here’s the things that I heard at tables around me. There were pastors disgusted, and I heard them saying, I walked out. Who does he think he is? Who does he think coming in from New York City? So he wrote a book, so he’s seen so many people get saved.

What right does that give him to come and talk to us? David Wilkinson was quoting this book. Behold, Jesus is standing at the door, and there were pastors who would not take it. I just bring your attention before we move to this beautiful ritual, this beautiful place of the Lord’s Table.

You’re visiting among us this morning. You probably didn’t expect to hear some pastor frothing at the mouth like I did today. I just told you what the book said and a couple of stories that I’ve seen this book exemplified in real time.

You’re visiting us today. We’re about to serve from the Lord’s Table. We do not judge you.

Whether you take or part, don’t partake. The Bible does say, in essence, in essence, I’m short-forming it. I’m giving it the David’s paraphrase.

If you’ve given your heart to Jesus and you’re walking with him, the elements from this table are for you. If you don’t even know what that means about surrendering your heart to Jesus, if you don’t understand it, you’d best not do this because this is a testimony. This, to partake of this, you are announcing to the enemy of your soul, to all the angels of heaven, and everybody in this room, I have decided to follow Jesus, and I’ve surrendered my heart to him.

So I’m participating. You’re making a declaration, and I’m making the declaration as I participate, and you’re welcome to do so. But before that, Isaiah 57 verse 15, for thus says the one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy.

I will dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. That declaration, Isaiah 57, is stating this. God chooses to dwell in two places.

Eternally he inhabits the heavens, a holy place where you and I want to go. If you want to get there, you got to go with fresh clothing, not from the dry cleaners. It has to come from the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus.

So that’s our eternal home, forthwith. But at this moment he says, I inhabit the heavens, and I inhabit the life and the heart and the lifestyle of those who are humble and who choose to walk with me. The good thing, the good news is this, that at the close of that chapter the Lord is saying to him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on the throne.

He’s chastising them. He’s putting them down. He’s thumbing down on this, but then he says, but if you will choose to be an overcomer allowing me to work freshly in your life, you will join with me on my eternal heavenly throne.

It’s not a total put down. It’s an evaluation moment. The Lord says as of right now you’re heading for a train wreck, but if you’ll change your ways, if my people, help me, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, turn from their wicked ways, seek my face, then I will hear from heaven and I will heal their land.

I finish with this. Servers come and help me, won’t you, right now? When a church catches fire and walks with God, it affects a whole community. I’ve been kind of looking into the history of this church.

This is a positive word. This church has been known historically as a house of fire. This church had a wonderful name in this community.

Apparently, maybe all, certainly most of the volunteer firefighters of this community sat in this room. One of them had a little pager on his belt, and if there was a fire, he got the motion. He got the thing, and I don’t know what kind of announcement he made.

Joan, can you help us? What kind of an announcement? If one got the patch, he had this little thing on his belt, right? And he got a message, the house is on fire. How did everybody else know? Did he shout? Fire! Everybody would leave. You don’t remember? You do remember that? When the fire bell rang downtown.

It’s a picture that’s, it’s a wonderful picture. When the fire bell, apparently it was a big bell, could be heard all through the village. So when the bell was ringing, half of the men in the building jumped to their feet and ran out.

That’s not just a good thing, but that told the whole community, we’re not a bunch of holy joes here. We walk in proper shoe leather, but you won’t catch us using foul language. You won’t catch us carrying on.

We wear our Christianity on our sleeve, which is something that somebody else does, only wears it on his coat right here. And there’s people visiting our church because somebody, somebody let it be known in the Canadian tire, I walk with Jesus. And there’s people here today because they got a hold of that message.

We have been a church that had been totally on fire. David, are you saying we’re not on fire? I’m not the judge. I’m not the judge.

I am responsible in some measure for wherever we are at. You can say amen. Pastors are responsible for what goes on in their church, and they will be held responsible.

So why did I get up and give a hot burning message this morning? Part of my responsibility. Go ahead, brothers. Can you help me, sis? Thank you.

If you’re visiting us this morning, it’s our habit that you take a piece of the bread and you take the cup and you hold it, and we’ll partake together as a family, okay? I visited a couple that have recently decided to fellowship with us. I’m leaving names out of the question right now. They’re not here today, so I feel perfectly at liberty.

And they said, they’ve only been coming for a few months, and they said, we can’t get over the sense of love. That’s the word they used. We can’t get over the sense of love that this church has for one another.

They said, it’s so obvious. It’s so clear. It’s so there.

And what a privilege is ours to be a part of that. This is part of our, this is part of the covenant that keeps us together. Because when we eat this bread and drink this cup, we’re saying to everyone else in the room, you can trust me.

Pastors are being dispersed. They’re being tossed out of their pulpits, pastoring thousands of people, and they find out, to me today, when I eat this bread and I drink this cup, I’m telling you, I’m one of you, and I don’t have another agenda. Why do I even have to say that? Because there are some great soldiers that have fought the good fight, and the day came when everyone discovered they had not been oiling their shield.

Steel shields have to be taken care of. Their swords were not wooden sticks. Their swords were made of steel.

They had to be oiled. Pastors are falling because there’s no oil on their shields. Pastors are failing because their swords have gotten rusty.

So I’m making a commitment to you, Fresh. I’m with you. I’m with you.

Ah, we have come into this house, gathered in his name to worship him. We have come into this house, gathered in his name to worship him. I have come into this house, we’ve gathered in your name to worship Christ our Lord.

We worship you, Christ the Lord. So forget about yourself. Concentrate on him and worship him.

Just forget about yourself. Concentrate on him and worship him. So forget about yourself.

Concentrate on him and worship Christ the Lord. Worship him, Christ. The very night Jesus was betrayed, it was the night of Passover.

It was a thing that was done all over, certainly all over Jerusalem. Most people would go to Jerusalem for the Passover, but it did happen in other homes here and there throughout the country. Every Jewish person, out of respect and out of honor, out of loyalty and out of commitment to Jehovah, met with a group of others.

They broke bread and they drank the wine. It was a process called the Passover Supper. But on this particular night, Jesus was the host.

During that time, he took the bread and he said something that had never been spoken heretofore. It had never been spoken at the Passover before. He took the bread.

It would be like a big disc of bread, I suppose, kind of like a big chapati, and he tore it. And he said, this is my body, which is being broken for you. Take, eat.

He wasn’t saying become cannibals. He was saying, receive from me what I’m about to offer to you. Tomorrow, he was going to the cross.

He said, I’m going to be torn asunder, but it will be a healthy thing for you. Death for me, but life for you. So he said, take, eat.

It’s been broken for you. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus, for your broken body, broken for me, broken for us.

Thank you, Jesus. Amen. In much the same manner, he took the cup and he said, this is the cup represents my blood being shed for you.

The Bible says in the Old Testament, without the shedding of blood, there’s no forgiveness of sin, only the blood. That’s a deep theological question. What I won’t try and deal with today, you know it well.

There are those who hate Christianity because of the blood. Without the blood, there is no Christianity. Without the blood, there’s no forgiveness.

Jesus said, don’t back away now. Receive my blood. Amen.

If there’s anyone in this house today, I don’t know everyone here. So there’s anyone here today who has a question about anything that I said today, and especially when I spoke of the need to surrender your heart and your life to Jesus. If you have not done that, if you haven’t committed your heart and your life to him, he said here, if you don’t follow through, I’ll blot your name out of the book.

If you haven’t given your heart to Jesus, your name isn’t even in the book yet. Your name isn’t even there. It’s a heavenly book.

The record of my salvation has been there now for over 70 years. My name is there. The Bible says at the end, at the judgment, the books will be opened and whosoever’s name is there, hallelujah.

But if your name is not there, you’ll be cast away. Is your name in the book? Heavenly Father, as this service closes, I thank you, Lord, that my name is in that book. And the majority, if not all who are in this room today, our name is in that book.

That’s not something to be proud of. It’s by your grace. It’s by your mercy that our names have been entered there.

It came about, the writing of our names, when we said, Jesus, I want to admit that my failures, I’m like everybody else in the world, I have failed you. But I acknowledge, Jesus, that you died on the cross for me, and that you rose again to be my friend and my savior. I receive you into my heart and life.

I want to walk with you from today on. That’s how it began, Lord, and I thank you for it. But whoever today is in need of that, I pray that they’ll make this day the day of decision and not put it off one more hour.

I ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen. I’m coming to the door.

I’d like to say, God bless you. Look in your right in the eye. Here I come.

Be kind to one another. You’re known for your love. So don’t get carried away now.

Don’t get carried.