Please, look at 2 Corinthians and chapter number
5, a very familiar portion of Scripture this
morning that we'll be dealing with.
And I'll just give you some things this
morning that the Lord's laid upon my heart,
something probably a little bit unusual that I'll
be doing this morning for Task Force Chapel.
But as I've prayed about it and sought
the Lord, I just feel like this is
the direction that God would have me to
go this morning.
2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse number 17.
I want you to stand, if you would,
please, out of respect for God's Word.
2 Corinthians chapter number 5 and verse number
17.
I'll read it two times and then we'll
pray and we'll have our message this morning.
2 Corinthians 5, verse 17.
The Bible says, Paul is writing, he says,
Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he
is a new creature.
Old things are passed away, behold, all things
are become new.
Notice it again, 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17.
Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he
is a new creature.
Old things are passed away, behold, all things
are become new.
This morning I bring you the simple message,
what in the world has happened to you?
Thank you very much.
You may be seated.
Let's bow our heads and hearts.
Let's pray and ask the Lord to bless
our time together this morning, shall we?
Lord, thank You for today.
Please help these young people now as they
listen to that which You've laid upon my
heart.
You've used the Bible in a very special
way.
And I pray, Lord, that when we leave,
we can know that we've been in Your
presence, that, Lord, You've spoken to our hearts,
and not only have You stirred us through
Your Word, but, dear God, may we see
that You also want to change us through
Your Word.
And so I pray that You'd have Your
will and Your way.
Empty me of myself, fill me with the
Spirit of God.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
I'm sure you're not a stranger to 1
and 2 Corinthians.
And last week when I preached on the
subject of separation, I told you that dealing
with the subject of separation, the Apostle Paul
wrote to these people, and on several occasions,
he told them that one of their biggest
problems was this, that after they got saved
by the grace of God, they had the
grand old idea that they could live any
way that they jolly well pleased.
And Paul said, listen, you will not be
perfect when you get saved.
You will not be sinless when you get
saved.
He said, but you will be made different
by the grace of God when you get
saved.
It's kind of like what John Newton wrote.
You know, John Newton was the writer of
Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound That Saved
a Wretch Like Me.
I once was lost, but now I'm found,
was blind, but now I see.
And everybody knows he wrote that, but many
people don't realize that he wrote this on
his deathbed.
I may not be everything that John Newton
wants to be.
He said, I may not be everything that
John Newton could be.
He said, I'm not everything that John Newton's
friends would like him to be.
He said, I am certainly not everything that
God would like John Newton to be.
He said, but I thank God John Newton's
not the man that he used to be.
And young people, in 2 Corinthians 5 and
verse 17, Paul said, when you get saved
by the grace of God, you are in
Christ.
Not in church, not in camp, not in
the task force, not in the waters of
baptism, not in communion, not in good works.
He said, but in Christ, that is obviously
a reference to salvation.
He said, when you're in Christ, He, the
word He there is generic.
It means he or she, humanity in general.
He is a new creature.
Talking about a new quality of creature, new
character, new desires, new goals, new ambitions, new
passions.
He is a new creature.
And the Bible says, old things are passed
away, behold.
That word behold is used several hundred times
in your Bible.
Most of the time we see it and
we say, what's the big deal?
So what?
So this.
The word behold means a declaration.
It means, hey, stick some toothpicks in your
eyelids.
Listen up.
Don't cross your arms and sit around and
not pay any attention.
Paul says, behold.
When He declares something to you, all things
are become new.
Now, what I've done at this camp before
in the past is I've shared my testimony,
but what I've never done in task force
chapel is shared my testimony.
Some of you know some of it.
Some of you know all of it.
Many of you know none of it whatsoever.
But this morning, I'm going to share with
you how this verse rings true in a
life.
Did you know if I did not have
a copy of the word of God, I
could prove to you there's a God in
heaven?
I can prove to you that that God
is trustworthy and I can prove to you
that that God could change your life without
even having a copy of a Bible because
this morning in this chapel assembly, you're looking
at a modern day miracle.
And I believe that although you'll not be
perfect when you get saved, you will be
different and God will change your life.
So I want to share with you, just
for a few moments, my personal testimony, that
which God has done in my heart and
in my life in the past nine or
ten years.
Now, please understand I put a preface on
this message.
I have never, and by God's grace, I
will never give my testimony with the intent
of wanting to let people know how glorious
my life used to be.
I'm not interested in glorifying my past.
I'm not interested in glorifying the devil.
I'm not interested in glorifying and uplifting and
exalting Gregory DeWayne Locke this morning.
I'm interested in letting you know that I
was a wreck.
I was wicked, I was vile, I was
ungodly, but I've been saved by the grace
of God and I did not clean up
my life and get saved.
I got saved and God cleaned it up
for me.
Young people, I believe in the testimony of
a changed life.
Now, there's much that I could say and
I'm not going to back up 15,000
centuries, all right?
I'm not going to give you a great
big dialogue and a great big discourse on
things that would bore you positively, absolutely to
tears.
I was like any young person.
I was like you and every other guy
and girl in America.
I went through certain stages of my life.
Went through certain degrees, certain things that I
liked a little bit more than others, but
let's jump all the way to the time
when I was 13, 14, and 15 years
old.
Because regardless of the stages that I went
through in my young life, I want you
to understand, when I was 13 years old,
I made a decision that changed my life
and that decision was not for the better,
that decision was for the worse.
When I was 13 years old, I got
heavily involved in what most of you and
I know today as the rap music industry.
Last night, whenever Brother Duffy was preaching about
the subculture that goes with music, I'm a
living testimony to that because my life was
sold out to the devil.
It was sold out to the world and
it was sold out to Greg Lotz for
the sake of rap music.
Now, you know, a lot of people say,
well, you know, I like rap music.
I like rock music.
I like country music.
I like this type of music.
I'll tell you something, I did not like
rap music.
I was desperately in dire love with rap
music.
Rap music ruled my life.
Rap music ruled my thinking.
It changed the way that I walk.
It changed the way that I talk.
It changed the things that I did, the
places that I went, the people that I
hung around.
And I was addicted, no doubt about it.
I was addicted like some heroine or some
cocaine or crack addict would be addicted to
drugs.
I was addicted to the culture and to
the relationship, to the bond, and to the
passion that I had for rap music.
So not only did I enjoy listening to
it, I enjoyed performing it.
I enjoyed singing it.
I enjoyed the rhythm and the beat that
Brother Robertson cultured out, that over-syncopation of
the drums and that great bass and sound.
And I enjoyed all of that because it
did something deep within inside of me cause
that little leg to begin to shake and
that eye to begin to twitch.
And I'm telling you, it did something in
my body, not for the good, but for
the bad.
And it completely, totally changed my entire lifestyle.
For those two and a half or three
years of my life, my friends back at
school referred to me as MC Locke.
I had one goal in life and it
was to be a professional rap star.
I didn't care who got in my way.
I didn't care how much money it took.
I didn't care how many people I had
to beat down to get on top of
the totem pole and be the chief among
the Indians.
I was going to be a rap star
and I was well-nigh going on that
way.
So on Friday nights and Saturday nights, I
would go to little state fairs and I'd
go to little county and community fairs.
We would go and rent out a little
skating rink center and we'd do these little
parties and things.
And I'd do these little talent shows and
I'd go over to some of my friends,
you know, that have these birthday parties and
they'd have me come and I'd get the
little bass drums and all this kind of
stuff.
And I'd get in there and I'd rap
and I'd dance.
Had a 355 pound bodyguard by the name
of Bubba.
Not somebody you want to meet on a
dark alley on a lonely road, that's for
sure.
A great big old guy.
We called him Eight Ball.
Here I was, I had one of these
great big old hairdos that kind of poked
up high like this, you know.
I mean, had more hairspray in it than
you'd ever be able to wash out of
your hair in a month.
I could have put a plate of spaghetti
on my head and ran the 540 in
about five seconds and I don't think it
would have fell off the top of my
head.
It was so stiff and that stuff would
stick up about three or four inches high.
I had these little lines and you know,
these little squiggles and words and stupid stuff
all shaved up in my head, you know.
I had one of them big old long
rat tails braided all the way down to
the middle of my back.
Had three earrings in my left ear and
I wore all kind of stupid fake gold,
you know and fake necklaces.
I wore them big old baggy pants, you
know.
You could fit about 25 teenagers in.
You could jump out of a Cessna airplane.
You could float to the ground like a
leaf and it wouldn't even hurt you, you
know.
And so I'd walk around like that and
you know, I'd sweat when I walked and
I'd talk funny and act funny and look
funny because I was funny.
I was stupid's what I was.
I had sold my life to rap music.
Somebody came to me and they said, they
said, you know, with the talent that you
exhibit, with the talent that you have, why
don't you try to do something and get
your name out there a little bit?
So when I was 14 years old, I
said, I'll do just that.
I went to a place that used to
be a nationalist called Opryland.
It's not there anymore and obviously that's where
the Grand Ole Uproar what we call the
Grand Ole Opry is and they sold it
now.
They put a great big old meal there.
Opry Meals Mall is there now.
And so, but they had some recording studios
that you could go to for pretty cheap
and I didn't have a whole lot of
money then.
I'd saved up some.
My friends had given me a little bit.
My mom had gave me some.
And so I went to one of these
little kind of semi-perfectional recording studios and
I took some tracks and some sounds in
there and I said, here's what I want
to do.
I said, I need a demo tape that
I can play on some radio stations to
try to get some air time.
I said, I need a demo tape that
I can give away to some people to
try to get MC Locke's name big.
And so I paid a hefty little sum
of money at that time and I cut
my first demo album, LAPDL, Lyrical Assassin Producing
Dope Lyrics.
I thought it was cool then, but I
think it's dumb as a box of rocks
now.
But anyhow, I cut my little record and
cut my little album, you know.
I took it down there and gave it
to a couple of my friends, couple of
the radio stations, gave it to the family.
I duplicated that thing, mass production, friends.
And I passed it around and everybody that
listened to that thing and everybody that watched
little videos from the talent shows and the
different places that I went, they said, oh,
man, you're going big places.
Man, you're going to go big places.
Things are going to go well for you.
You're going to make money hand over fist
and everything's going to be great.
Everything's going to be, as my little brother
says, hunky-dory in town.
And so man, my head was swollen up
like a watermelon and all I could see
was a star.
All I could see was the lights.
And I'm going to tell you something right
now, everything that glitters is not gold because
you're looking at somebody that had the glitter
and the gold and it never did me
good whatsoever.
Matter of fact, my Bible tells me that
riches make themselves as wings and they fly
away in the morning.
And as a 14-year-old teenager, I
know what it's like to make a little
money.
As a 14-year-old teenager, I know
what it's like to have people pat you
on the back.
And I know what it's like for a
man to come to you by the name
of Mr. White, Bill White.
And he said, hey, I'm a commercial producer.
He said, how would you like me to
fly you to Tallahassee, Florida and pay you
big bucks to do a commercial?
I said, big bucks to do a what?
He said, that's right.
He said, national television commercial.
He said, this will be your opportunity to
get your foot in the door.
He said, maybe then people will know who
MC Locke is.
And he said, maybe then when they see
you rapping and dancing on national syndicated television,
maybe then you'll get your foot in the
door and you'll get your opportunity to be
the big rap star that you want to
be.
My grades were a mess.
I didn't care anything about school.
I didn't care anything about work.
I didn't care anything about my family.
I didn't care a thing about one single
person in the world except for Greg Locke.
And I said, man, that'd be great.
Give me the details.
He said, I'll fly to Tallahassee, Florida.
I'll pay for your flight.
He said, I'll keep you down there for
a couple of weeks.
He said, your mom, I have to sign
some type of contract to get you out
of school for a little bit because it's
going to be during the spring.
It's going to be during the school year.
He said, we'll pay you big bucks.
We'll take care of your limo.
We'll take care of your clothes.
We'll take care of your food.
We'll take care of your hotel.
He said, we'll take care of it.
You can take somebody down there if you'd
like to.
Your mom wants to go, fine.
If a friend wants to go, brother, whoever
it is.
He said, that'll be fine.
He said, I'll pay you big bucks for
30 seconds.
That's it.
30 seconds of glory.
He said, for about 30 seconds, I want
you to dance on a commercial for something
that you and I heard of.
They're called hit sticks.
They came out in about 1990, 1991.
You wear this stupid little thing on your
side here.
It looks kind of like a lapel mic.
It's got these little drumsticks that are to
it.
You fix the pitch and the volume and
how much bass and how much treble you
want.
And you kind of beat them in the
air.
They make all these boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom type of noises.
Okay.
And I figured that'd make JK laugh.
That's why I did it.
He always laughs when I do that.
But nonetheless, that's what he wanted me to
do.
So I said, man, oh, what an opportunity.
Won't that be wonderful?
MC Rock, have my name in life.
Man, have my name on signs and have
my name on flyers.
And I'm telling you, that's what I wanted.
I wanted to get up there and I
wanted to be the white rapper of the
world.
The old vanilla ice geek.
I wanted to get up there and I
wanted to be just like him.
And I wanted to wear my clothes backwards
and get up there and rap and have
everybody just kind of melt in the aisles.
And then I had the sugar plums dancing
in my mind.
And that's all I could think about.
Oh, I'm going to do a commercial.
I just put out a demo tape and
I'm going to do a commercial.
And man, I'm telling you, I was living
high on the hog and I learned every
minute of it.
But I'll tell you what the problem was.
My life was in shambles.
You see, regardless of how much drive and
ambition, goals and passions that I had to
be a professional rapper, I wasn't going to
make much more than a professional nut and
a professional bum for the rest of my
life.
Because I'm not going to glorify sin and
I'm not going to be excited about this
because I'm not.
But I'm going to tell you something.
I know what it's like as a 15
-year-old teenager to wake up in the
middle of the night with your eyes flipping
back in your head and vomit on the
front of your clothes.
You've been out on one of your stinking
drinking binges with your buddy and you're out
smoking your marijuana cigarettes and thinking you're cool
because you're smoking your Marlboro and you're out
buying your stinking liquor and doing all this
kind of stuff or getting somebody to buy
it for you and having your six-pack
and your 24-pack and all that kind
of junk out there with your buddies and
tell your mama you're out with your friends
and you'll be home at 10 o'clock
and you come home 4.35 or 6
o'clock the next morning.
Hey, I know it's that slight young person
and my life was in shambles.
My life was absolutely, positively, totally a mess
and although I had these big ambitions and
these big desires and these big goals, there
is no doubt in my mind I would
be rotting in hell right now had I
never been saved.
I would not be on a stage rapping.
I would not be on a stage dancing
because my life was a mess and every
single time I got in trouble with my
friends or got high with my friends or
got stone cold drunk with my buddies, the
next weekend I was right back with the
same pack, right back with the same crowd
because those are the people whom I felt
accepted around.
Hey, I've been to church all my life.
I'm telling you, I went to a Southern
Baptist church that probably had almost 2,000
members in it.
I didn't care about the gospel.
I knew the gospel.
I knew for all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God.
There was no excuse.
God should have just thrown me away long
ago, but I'm glad He's long suffering.
I knew the gospel.
Hey, I knew Adam's sin caused the entire
human race to be depraved.
I knew that.
I knew I was lost.
I knew I needed to be saved.
Hey, I remember driving down the road one
day coming from a court case and my
mother looked at me with big tears in
her eyes and she said, you need to
give your life to God and He'll change
it.
I'm going to tell you something, that is
exactly, young person, that is exactly why I
would not give my life to God because
I did not want to change.
I enjoyed my lifestyle.
I enjoyed that rap music.
Hey, I enjoyed the opportunity to be able
to fly down to Tallahassee and do a
30-second national television commercial.
Hey, I enjoyed those opportunities.
I enjoy all of that stuff that I
was steeped in and when my mother told
me, hey, give your life to the Lord,
He'll change you.
That is precisely why I would not.
I knew the gospel.
There was no excuse.
I knew how to be saved, but I
was not about to get it.
And so here I was in the midst
of getting ready to fly down to Tallahassee
and do this commercial.
Here I was.
I just put out this demo album and
then everybody was all excited about it.
14 years old, big bodyguard, making money, hand
over fist, and loving all the attention, loving
all the approval, all the appraisal, all the
applause, loved every bit of it.
My grades were straight to the bottom.
You know, I spent nine years in K
through sixth grade, if you can believe that.
Nine years in K through sixth grade.
Kindergarten, first grade, first grade, second grade, third
grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, fifth grade, sixth
grade.
Nine years just to get out of sixth
grade.
It took me nine years to figure out
that F meant failure, not fantastic.
You know what I mean?
Some of you need to figure that out
when you go back to school this fall.
But nonetheless, my life was in shambles.
All the desire that I had to be
that professional rap star, all the people I
had, even my family pushing me into that
industry, all of the help, all of the
financial support I had, it was all nullified
by the fact that my life was in
shambles.
From the time I was 11 years old,
and I realize that's young and I'm not
a bit proud of it, there are some
people, young people, who have lived, I'm only
25 years old.
I'm going to be honest with you.
I believe in 16 years, the years it
took me to get saved, I saved a
month for my 16th birthday.
In those 16 years, I believe I lived
more of a life in those 16 years
than a lot of people live in about
50 or 60 years.
And I'm not a bit proud of that.
But I'm going to tell you something, from
the time I was 11 to the time
I was 16, six different times in the
same courtroom with the same lawyer and the
same judge, Haywood Barry.
I remember they pulled me out of school
one day and mama said, well, it's time
for your court case.
That was no big deal.
I'd already been on probation several other times.
They just slapped me on the wrist and
said, now, bad, bad little boy, don't go
out and do it again.
And I'll tell you why I went out
and did it again.
I'll tell you why I did vandalize.
I'll tell you why I did steal guns
and why I did steal go-karts and
why I did rob shopping malls and all
that kind of stuff.
I'll tell you exactly why, because I knew
all I was going to get from them
was a bad boy and all I was
going to get from my mama was, hey,
don't do it again.
Hey, it's right in the Bible when it
says, spare the rod and spoil the child.
I remember one time in my life when
I was about eight years old, my mama
slapped me in the face.
I was never spanked.
And I'll tell you, because I was not
whooped, because I had no discipline, because I
did not have a good Christian home, I'm
telling you, I was as rotten as an
old dozen eggs.
I was stinking.
My mama said, time to go to court.
So I remember I went there.
I'll never forget it.
Life-changing experience.
I'm sitting here, about 300 people in this
courtroom outside of Nashville, Tennessee, a little town
called Lebanon.
Here I am in the little judicial court
system here, you know, sitting around watching these
people.
And this guy got a speeding ticket.
This guy's getting a divorce.
This guy's breaking and entering.
This guy's vandalism.
So finally they called me, Gregor DeWayne Locke.
So I stood up, you know, you're supposed
to dress up real nice, you know, and
here I was, all rebellious, and I had
them old airbrushed brood jeans, you know, I'm
old tank top, and I come walking up
there, I'm old Nike tennis shoes, you know,
like I'm something big and special, like everybody
owes me a favor or something.
So I walk up there and there's my
mom, and here's my lawyer, Mark.
I don't know how many thousands of dollars
my mama sank into that crazy guy trying
to keep me out of some reformatory school,
but this is the last straw.
So I'm standing up there, and that judge
looks at me, and, you know, he's got
his big robe on, he's got his nice
little gavel, order in the court, order in
the court.
I had to step up on a little
box, you know, it's probably not much higher
than a couple little steps there, and I
had to step up on a little box,
and stand there, and here's my lawyer, and
here's my mom, and here's the little bailiff,
police officer, all the people, had this big
old wraparound pulpit.
I stood before this guy five times since
I was 11 years old, five times.
I mean, we was on a first name
basis.
All the probation reports, the certificates for getting
off, yee-haw, and all that kind of
stuff.
But now's the sixth time.
I stand before him, he takes his gavel
and lays it down, and he stands up,
and I don't know if there was a
little step back there behind him, I'm not
sure, but he leaned up over the pulpit,
little area there, and he stuck his finger
right in my face.
He said, son, 20 years ago, I locked
your father, Steve Lock, up in the state
penitentiary.
He said, if you ever, in front of
300 people, he emphasized in big bold black
blazing letters, the word ever.
If you ever stand before me again, he
said, you will not see the light of
day until you're 21 years of age.
He then turned to my mother.
My mother's name is Judy Sumner.
She was remarried when I was five to
a man that I never could get along
with, and we never did get along until
the day I got saved.
He still needs to be saved.
You pray for him, and there's a lot
of areas and questions and things that he
has in his life about the gospel, but
nonetheless, we never got along.
And so, hence my mother's name is different
than mine.
But he looked at her and did not
say Miss Sumner.
He did not address her as Judy.
As nice and as cordial, this Mr. Judge
was.
He did not even call him.
In front of all of those people, with
me shaking in my tennis shoes and my
mother standing there with a nice dress and
high heels, he stuck his finger right in
my mother's face and said, lady, your son
is a menace to society.
And you will find a place to put
him or the state of Tennessee Juvenile Department
of Corrections will find a place to put
him.
My mother broke down in that courtroom like
I've never seen her break down before.
We got in the car.
She wept and squalled and cried like a
baby.
She called my grandmother, who in 1992, three
months after I was saved, she went home
to be with the Lord and I believe
the Lord left her around just so she
could see me get saved by God's grace.
She had prayed for me for years.
Really the only spiritual influence I ever had.
My mother and her began to pray that
God would open a door whereby I could
go to a place that would help me.
Little did we know there was an independent
Baptist church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee called Franklin Road
that had a children's home.
First of all, they called a place outside
of Chattanooga, Tennessee called the Calhoun Boys Ranch.
They called them.
They said, we can't take him, but we
know a place that will.
To make a long story short, they sent
me to the Good Shepherd Children's Home in
February of 1992, not to live, but for
a visit.
I remember I come walking in that place
and honestly, I thought these kooks and retards
fell off Mars long ago.
I thought, what in the world?
Look at these guys, the way they're dressed
all night.
Look at these girls.
The guys sit at one table and ate.
The girls sit at another.
They prayed.
They quoted verses.
They sang.
They had devotions in the morning.
Sometimes devotions at night.
All the girls were nice.
They went to Christian schools.
They went off to camp in the summer.
I thought, this is ridiculous.
They're going to stick me with a bunch
of David Koresh's.
They're going to bring out the Kool-Aid
like they did with Jim Jones over in
Jonesville and make me drink something.
And I'm telling you, I thought these people
were crazy, but obviously the way that I
was dressed and the way that I was
acting going through their mind was they were
saying, hey, this guy is crazy for sure.
And so I'm walking around.
Mike Granzer, who had just graduated the master's
degree from Bob Jones University, took this place
right out of college.
I mean, just kind of, just a young
buck, boom, just took the place.
He comes over to me.
I'm his first prime candidate.
Now, there were other kids that were there,
but I'm the first one that came since
he was there.
And so he says, well, I'm not going
to have any problems.
He says, I'm going to ask you this
right the get go.
Do you want to be here?
Well, I said, that's kind of a silly
question.
I said, obviously in my heart, I don't
want to be here.
I said, you know, I want to be
the big rap star that everybody's pushing me
to be.
And I'm going to go out and do
all this and I want to go out
and be with my friends.
He said, if you don't want to be
here, I'm not going to make you come.
I said, listen, I call him brother Mike
now because he's like a dad to me.
I love him.
But then I said, Mike, I said, Mike,
I'll tell you something.
I said, I'll come to your little children's
home for one year.
I said, I'll sign my little John Hancock
on your paper.
It doesn't cost anything to go.
It's not state provided, just funded by independent
Baptist churches all around the world.
I said, I'll come and I'll sign my
little John Hancock.
I said, you got one year.
One year, you got me.
That's it.
I said, after one year, I'm going right
back to the house, go right back to
my public school, doing everything I've always done
before.
He said, that's fine.
We'll see what the Lord will do.
I said, Lord, nothing.
I said, I've been around the war business
all my life.
I said, I'm not interested in that.
I said, Lord, nothing.
I said, you got one year.
That's it.
Little did I know, I'd get saved by
my wife there, end up living there for
four years, get called the priest there, graduate
from high school there, go off to Bible
college from there.
So God knew exactly what he was doing.
He had a plan for my life.
I said, one year's all you got.
He said, okay, in April, I want you
to come.
I went back to my friends.
My mom's giving me up.
I've got to leave.
And I wept and squalled and cried and
packed all my bags.
April the 7th, 1992, smoked my last cigarette
on the way there.
Stomped it out.
Had to cut my rat tail.
Had to shave my head down.
Had to get rid of all them words
and stupid things that was around the back
of my head.
Had to rip my earrings out and I
had to do all this kind of stuff.
Packed my clothes up.
I go to the children's home.
April the 7th of 92.
My mom signed some more papers and she
drops me off and she drives out of
the driveway.
And I told the young people the other
day, that's the first day, by the way,
that I realized how much I love, needed
and respected and wanted my mother to be
back the day she dropped me off when
I didn't have her anymore.
I realized, hey, I've been messing around too
much.
I've not been respecting her and honoring her
and loving her the way that I should.
And I cried myself to sleep the first
about two and a half weeks, three weeks
I was in that children's home.
Buried my face in a feather pillow every
night and cried like a baby.
Because I had no friends then.
Had no family then.
Had no fellowship with those outsiders, if you
will.
And here I was in a children's home
where I could visit my parents one Saturday
every month.
Now things are a little bit different now
the children's home.
Things are a little bit more lenient, but
this was right still then when it was
just real strict.
The previous director had just passed away.
Uncle Fred, his wife Aunt Martha is now
our secretary for our evangelistic ministry.
She lives across the street.
We built her a home and she takes
care of all of our mailing, all of
our checks and bills and love offerings and
things like that.
And so nonetheless, here I am with a
bunch of people I don't even want to
be around.
Brother Mike came to me the very next
morning, early.
I was enrolled to be at an A
.C.E. Christian school.
I was so many years behind when I
got saved.
I had to get caught up, obviously.
And so they put me in a PACE
program whereby I could work at my own
pace.
The Lord used that after I finally got
saved and right with God in a wonderful
way.
And I caught up several years then transferred
to a traditional Christian school and graduated by
the grace of God.
But nonetheless, he came to me that very
first morning I was there which would have
been April the 8th.
And he said, Greg, he said, listen, I
don't want to have any bad blood here.
He said, but you know, you can't have
these things that you've got.
You know, I'd already stuck my posters all
over the wall and stuck my stuff all
over there and already lifted up the mattress
and shoved some stuff under there.
It didn't take them long to find that.
They must have had some kids like that
before.
And I already had my clothes all the
way that I wanted them.
You know, he said, listen, if you're going
to live here for a year, he said,
you have to live by our standards.
He said, I know you're not going to
understand this right now.
He said, but I love you and I'm
praying for you.
And he said, you're going to have to
get rid of this.
He said, the children's home will buy you
all new wardrobe.
He said, we'll take you to the shopping
mall, take you to Walmart.
We'll get you some new things.
So I didn't argue.
I mean, we took a big UPS box,
great big thing.
And I put all those clothes in that
I could not have all those CDs, posters,
books, everything that I had.
After I got saved, right by God, I
burnt every last bit of it.
Got rid of all of it.
But at that time, we boxed it up.
And that morning, we went to the UPS.
We wrapped it up, paid a hefty sum
of money and shipped it 45 minutes away
to my mother in Mount Jillett, Tennessee.
I couldn't go to school that day because
I did not have blue pants for what
I had to have a red, white and
blue uniform.
Didn't have the blue pants.
They were still coming in the mail.
They had ordered them for me.
They had to have them tapered or something
like that.
And so I got to skip school the
first day.
I was used to doing that.
So I thought, hey, this might be a
good year.
Yeah, I don't have to go to school
first day.
Amen.
And so here I was, I went back
to the children's home.
We had lunch.
I went into my bedroom.
Brother Mike said, you need a new thing.
And I said, well, to be honest with
you, I said, I just think I need
to be left alone.
So we walked out.
I shut the door and I stood there
as a 15 year old teenager, one month
from my 16th birthday.
If I've ever told the truth in the
pool, young people, I'm telling you right now,
I looked into my closet and there was
one outfit hanging there.
I came there with more clothes than Donald
Trump.
I came there with more clothes than all
them kids combined.
I was a spoiled, rotten brat with a
silver spoon in my mouth and everything I
ever wanted, I had and that was my
problem all of my life.
No restraint whatsoever.
But all that was gone now.
And in my closet, I had one outfit
hanging there.
Ugly, I wouldn't even wear the thing today,
but it was one outfit that they let
me keep.
They said was reliable enough to wear to
church.
On my body, I had a brand new
pair of red, white and blue 1992 Michael
Jordan tennis shoes, had a pair of stonewashed
blue jeans and had on a white T
-shirt and a 1992 red Chicago Bulls championship
basketball cap.
And I was not saved.
I knew the gospel frontwards and backwards.
I was lost as a ball in high
weeds and with big tears dripping down my
face out loud.
I said to myself, Gregory Dwayne Locke, you're
a fool.
You are a fool.
For almost 16 years of your life, you
have served the devil with every bit of
them vigor and vitality in your body.
With all of your sweat, with all of
your energy, with everything you got, you have
served the devil.
And when he dropped you off without your
fame, without your fortune, without your friends, family
and pat on the back, the only thing
he left you with was the clothes you've
got on your back and one outfit hanging
in the closet.
And for the first day in my life,
utter despair entered my heart.
And I realized out of all of the
fun so-called that I thought I had
after that last conviction of stealing that go
-kart, that $5,000 diamond ring and that
black 357 Magnum.
After all of that, I realized how foolish
I had been to follow the crowd.
Let's suppose I said to you now, and
I'm not going to, so please do not.
Let's say I said, okay, heads bowed, eyes
closed, you're going to pray and we're going
to be dismissed.
You know what you'd say?
You'd say, whoa, wait a minute.
Aren't you leaving something out?
Man, you've dealt with a lot of things
and all the things that you used to
be in.
But wait a minute, does the story stop
there?
Thank God it does not.
Nine days later, on April the 16th of
1992, I attended, an evangelist was preaching.
I attended one of his meetings.
His name was Evangelist David Benoit.
He was holding meetings at the Metropolitan Baptist
Church in Nashville, Tennessee.
Bellwood Christian Academy, Franklin Road Christian School and
the Children's Home all got together.
We got on several buses.
They took us there.
I sat in about, I don't know, maybe
the third or fourth row from the back.
There was about five or 600 teenagers there.
He preached on the corporate tendencies in rock
music.
I'll never forget it.
Didn't bother me one bit.
I did not budge.
After the service, I went to him.
I had a little name tag on and
I said, Mr. Benoit, I said, I appreciate
what you're trying to do, sir.
I said, but that didn't bother me a
bit.
I said, I don't care anything about rock
music.
I said, I'm a rapper.
What do you think of that?
And I should have kept my mouth shut
because that man of God told me what
he thought about it.
He looked at my name tag and he
said, Greg, he stuck his finger right here
at me.
He said, Greg, son, if you can listen
to that type of music and it doesn't
bother you, he said, you've got a black
heart and you need to get saved by
the grace of God.
Man, it was almost like he just lit
my dynamite, buddy.
Oh, what do you mean?
Get paid, got a black heart.
I mean, I gave it to him.
Bus out there just waiting.
I'm here giving it to the man of
God, buddy.
I'm running up side and one down, one
side and down the other.
I mean, smoke barreling out of my ears,
nose, eyes and everything.
And I'm telling you, I said, I will
not be back tomorrow night.
He said, son, that's all right.
He said, I'm gonna pray you do come
back.
But if you don't, he said, I got
600 other teenagers here I can preach to
who need the gospel.
I got on that bus and buddy, I
was mad.
They stopped at McDonald's.
I didn't even go in.
The girls were talking to me.
I didn't even talk.
Now, when a 16 year old teenager don't
go to McDonald's and don't talk to girls,
you know, he's mad about something.
Amen.
And so I stayed there on that bus.
We got back to the house and I
ran in there and I sold my stuff
on the bed.
I am not going back to hear that
man preach tomorrow night.
He said, is that right?
I said, that's right.
He said, oh, yes, you are.
Put us on the bus.
April the 17th, 1992.
We stopped and got gas.
Five minutes late.
That's it.
Five minutes late.
Are you five minutes late in the Baptist
church?
Tough luck, pal.
Your glory comes down.
If you ain't getting a backseat in the
Baptist church, if you're five minutes late, you're
getting down front.
There was a couple of spots right in
the third row.
Guess who got there?
You got it, me.
The lights went down.
The screen came down.
He opened up his Bible.
He read his text.
And he began to preach.
And I'm going to tell you what he
preached on that night.
I don't even think I have to tell
you.
Rap music.
Man, he preached me up one aisle and
down the other.
I mean, he preached me through the Baptist
streets.
He preached me to the front.
He preached me to the back.
You know, about 35 minutes into the sermon,
I wanted to stand up and say, hey,
why don't you just go ahead and call
my name?
Because everybody in this whole auditorium knows exactly
who you're talking about.
And I'm telling you, he gave it to
me with both barrels.
I mean, he shot and he shot and
he shot and he preached and preached and
preached.
And he gave the invitation.
I'm telling you, young person, for one of
the first times in my life, the Holy
Spirit of God showed me that I was
a hell-deserving sinner, showed me that I
was lost.
There was no hope without Jesus Christ.
Big watermelon tears welled up in my eyes.
And if I wouldn't have went forward, that
would have come out of my nose and
mouth.
I guarantee you.
I ran forward.
I got down on my knees at the
altar because I grew up in a Baptist
church.
And that's what I've seen people do.
You know what he did in front of
600 people?
He said, get up.
Scared me to death.
I got up.
I turned.
And there was probably 20 or 30 young
people on either side of me doing the
same thing.
He said, turn around and face the audience.
Now, wait just a minute.
Everybody knew why I was turning around and
facing the audience.
And I'm telling you, my knees began to
shake.
And I stood there and I thought my
eyes were going to roll back in my
head.
And I thought to myself, somebody better leave
me to Christ quick because I'm about to
drop dead of a heart attack right here.
I mean, I was getting all sweaty.
He said, we need some personal workers.
Like frogs on lily pads, buddy.
They began to hop all over that place.
Jump here and jump here and jump here.
My basketball coach, Mike Harris, took me in
a side room.
He opened a King James Bible and got
me down on my face and showed me
I was lost.
Showed me I needed to be saved.
Showed me there was nothing I can do.
And he said, Greg, you want me to
pray with you?
I said, Mr. Harris, I've grown up in
church all my life.
I said, I believe I'll just pray myself.
A young person.
I prayed that night, 8.30 at night,
April the 17th, 1992.
Say, why do you remember it so well?
Because God changed my life that night for
time and for eternity.
Young people, I was on my knees and
I'm telling you, I had so many tears
in my eyes I couldn't have read my
name in boxcar letters.
But when I got off my knees, I
could read my Title D dimensions in the
sky just as clear as I could read
my name on my driver's license.
Young people, I'm going to tell you something.
That night, a 16-year-old teenager did
not just get saved by the grace of
God.
That 16-year-old teenager got changed by
the grace of God.
And no, you will not be perfect when
you get saved.
You will not be sinless, but you will
be different and you'll have a desire to
sin less.
And Paul said, if any man be in
Christ, he is a new creature.
If I didn't even have a Bible, I
could prove to you there's a righteous, holy
God in heaven because that God has changed
my life.
Now, I'm going to tell you something.
Whenever a person gives their testimony in such
a way, somebody, no doubt, always says, oh,
what a glamorous, glorious testimony.
How God can so greatly use somebody like
that.
Now, you hear me?
You hear me well.
We close.
Two years ago, I was preaching in a
camp meeting in Franksville, Alabama at the Anchor
Baptist Church.
Now, camp meeting is kind of what a
lot of preachers get together in the mornings.
They have kind of what they call popcorn
preaching.
They just call you from the floor and
you get them to preach about 15, 20
minutes.
Well, I was preaching one of the mornings
and I was supposed to preach on Wednesday
night and share with them exactly what I
just shared with you.
There were two preachers that night and there
was going to be several minutes between them,
kind of an intermission.
Pastor Casey Poole said, Brother Locke, my church,
by the way, when I was on staff
at this particular time at a church in
Alabama, my church was meeting just down the
road.
It wasn't very far, maybe seven miles away.
So I went to our Wednesday night service
while the first guy was preaching and I
got to that service and I preached between
those two.
He said, take about 15 minutes and share
your testimony.
He said, I believe it'll help the people.
About 300 people were there.
I got up that night.
I shared with him exactly what I just
shared with you from 2 Corinthians 5, 17.
And obviously, I condensed it just a little
bit.
Young person, I got through preaching.
I sat down in the front row.
Pastor Casey Poole got in the pulpit and
he said, Brother Locke, I appreciate that.
And he said, praise the Lord for a
changed life.
He said, we got a missionary that's here
tonight going to Micronesia.
He said, that missionary has about five minutes
according to my watch.
He said, Brother Locke, it didn't go very
long.
He said, got about five minutes according to
my watch.
He said, Brother, why don't you come up
here?
Why don't you come up here and tell
us about your family?
Give us a quick five minute testimony and
tell us what you're going to do in
the mission field.
And God is my witness.
I sat down and here he was with
his wife and had two beautiful little baby
kids right there on the front row.
He got up in the pulpit and walked
over here and he took his Bible about
like this and just kind of plopped it
on the pulpit.
Brother Shetlow, I'll never forget what he did.
He looked all those people in the face.
He gripped both sides of the pulpit and
here's exactly what he said.
Well, I guess after hearing that tonight, I
don't have much of a testimony to share
with you.
He said, I was raised in an independent
Baptist preacher's home all my life.
He said, I was saved when I was
six years old.
Remember it like it was yesterday.
He said, my daddy baptized me.
I became a member of the church.
He said, when I was 12 years old,
I surrendered to the mission field and that's
why we're going off to Micronesia with some
island I believe was Micronesia.
He said, I've never seen my mom and
dad curse one another and smack one another.
I've never been drunk.
He said, I wouldn't know what a marijuana
cigarette was if you rolled it up and
dropped it in my lap.
He said, I wouldn't even smoke a cigarette
if you lit it and stuck it in
between my lips.
He said, I've never been to a movie
a day in my life.
He said, I've never messed around and flirted
around and petted around in the backseat of
a car.
He said, that lady right there is the
only lady I've ever been in bed with
in my life.
He said, there's never a time in my
life when I ever remember looking at pornography
in a magazine or on the internet.
He said, I've never chewed a bat.
He said, I've never done anything behind my
parent's back that I can think of.
He said, I haven't been perfect.
He said, but I'm gonna be honest with
you.
He said, after hearing that tonight, he said,
I just don't know if I have much
of a testimony.
He said, we're going to Micronesia.
Pray for us.
God bless you.
And as a 23-year-old evangelist at
that time in my life, big tears welled
up in my face and I began to
weep on that front row and I thought
to myself, dear God, we've not been blessed
to have any children yet, but if we
ever have the opportunity, the privilege and the
honor to bring children into this world for
the glory of God, that is exactly the
kind of testimony that I want my boys
and girls growing up around.
And we've got this low-down, dirty, filthy,
wretched, cotton-picking idea that the worse you
were when you get saved, the better God
can use you.
And I've got a good Tennessee word for
that, young people.
It's called Tommy Ross.
There are scars, although I am saved, that
I will live with the rest of my
life.
And the best testimony is not that God
pulled you out, but that God kept you
from ever getting into it to begin with.
And I meet some of these young people
in schools, and I meet some of these
young people at camp.
I'll tell you what, I met one of
them at a college.
I won't name the college, but last year
I met one of them at the college.
He came to me after I preached and
said, I want to tell you something about
the Lord.
He said, the only reason I'm here is
because Mom and Dad are splitting the bill.
I want to tell you something.
It grieves my heart when a young person
that has a good, solid, Christian family that
they grow up in, but they rebel against
it.
And honestly, I want to take a young
man or a young lady like that and
just pull them up real close to my
face and maybe even grab ahold of their
jugular vein and let them know I mean
business.
And say, buddy, what is wrong with you?
You better thank God you've got a mom
and dad that love you.
You better thank God you've got a dad
who will open the Word of God and
be the priest of your home and pray
with you.
You better thank God that you've got a
mom and dad who will put you in
a Christian school.
You better thank God you've got a mom
and dad who have standards and convictions and
laws and rules and regulations, because I didn't
think of that and I look back now
and wish to God that I did.
Young persons, the best testimonies are not those
that God pulled out of the gutter and
wants to parade around and say, look at
my trophies of grace.
No, I believe true trophies of grace are
those who've never even gotten it to begin
with and they have no scars and they
have no regrets.
But regardless if a person is kept from
it or regardless if a person is saved
out of it, I still believe that God
changes lives.
So as we begin our sermon, so we
end our sermon.
What in the world has happened to you?