I'd like to start just by praying, and
Almighty God, Lord, our maker, our father, who
is in heaven, Lord, I do adore you.
Lord, as I have come, Lord, with so
many others through, Lord, this veil of this
flesh and this life, the eternal throne of
your majesty, God, I worship you.
And I look at you, and I do
behold a beauty, a substance, and a life,
God, that I know created not only me,
but everything that my eye sees and every
eye in this place has seen, that you
are God, you alone are God, and we
worship you.
And I pray that just the testimony of
your work in my life, God, I pray
that it would, Lord, be effectual in the
life of many.
I pray for your spirit, Lord, who has
moved through my life, has moved through so
many men here, Lord, come and be with
us.
We invite you to move upon and across
our hearts.
Speak to us, Lord, and I just pray
that you would let me be your instrument
this morning.
Just to speak of the glorious things that
you do in the lives of men.
I love you, in the name of your
son, Jesus Christ, amen.
Amen.
Yeah, Andy had invited me to come and
share something with you all, and he just
asked me to really pray to God and
pray that God would put on my heart
what he would want me to share with
you all.
And I did, when I had thought about
it.
I'd really felt very stirred to share with
you all what God did in my life.
And I know in this room, where I
am right now, and looking across this room,
I feel like every one of you all
know me, and I believe that.
And I think by the time I'm finished
sharing this testimony, you'll understand why I said
that.
And I think my life is a very
generic life in a lot of ways.
As a young man, very early on in
life, justice was being breathed upon me.
A justice that I could have, should have,
and at any moment, I really do believe,
I can't believe it didn't happen, that I
did not get plummeted to a depth of
hell that would have tormented me for the
rest of my life.
And in God's justice, as he looked at
a young man who did not honor his
father, did not honor his mother, and the
mother and the father that God gave me,
as so many times they turned around in
my anger and my hatred, whether it was
my finger lifted up behind them or in
my heart, I'm despising and hating them, that
God in his justice could have and should
have at any moment, at that time, plummeted
me.
And how many times did I look at
God as I went to church with my
mom and dad and sat in such light
-hearted folly, scoffed at a word I was
hearing breathed from a book that a man
was speaking to me of the life of
Jesus Christ.
And as I scoffed in my folly, I
looked at him, and I did.
I just considered, what foolishness.
As I sat in that place and with
my friends, even as a young man, I
can remember so clearly who I was and
God in his justice could have and should
have plummeted me to a tormenting hell at
that.
And that was at a young age, as
I grew up, and again, I feel like
I'm probably, I can't be any different than
anyone else in this room.
I believe that.
Well, as I grew up, and me and
my pride, and again, I'm scoffing at God,
I'm laughing at him, well, I believe God
began to laugh at me as God removed
his hand from me and said, young man,
I will turn you loose to the end
of your ways.
And you show me who you are.
You show the world who you are.
Who scoff at your mother and father, and
you scoffed at me, and in your pride,
and in your anger, have lifted yourself up
to be somebody that I tell you, as
God is telling me, you are not who
you think you are.
You have taken for granted what I have
made you.
You have taken for granted that I have
stood before you, not only in my creation,
but through the life that I've given you,
I have extended more benevolence and more love
to you than any, as Brett was saying,
as any man could or would on the
face of this creation.
And now you're laughing at me.
And God cut me loose as a young
man to my own ways.
I, you know, as I look back, and
I remember, I'm just in fifth grade, I'm
a fifth grader in school.
I'm singing songs, bragging about the party that
I'll have in hell with all my companions.
And that's the highway I'm riding on, and
just utter boasting, I'm on a highway to
hell.
My friends are gonna be there too, I'm
not joking.
As I sang those songs, I looked at
these men who I idolized so much, that
in them I could see, ooh, they've got
what I've got.
They have what I've got, and that's this
power in me and this pride and this
anger, and oh, I loved them so much.
I loved the pride of men.
I gloried in it.
As that fifth grade kid who, before I
was even out of fifth school, my parents
are looking at this troubled child, long hair,
angry, coming, you know, even before fifth grade,
I had to go to a school counselor
every single week to meet with them and
have a note coming home to my mother
and father and saying, has the progress of
this child changed?
Who scoffs at the teacher in the classroom,
gets at fights in the playground and all
this, and by the time I'm in fifth
grade, my parents just thought, something's gotta change
in this kid, and my mom and dad,
they took every black shirt in my closet
and ripped it out, they cut my long
hair off.
My mom said, you will not be who
you wanna be in this house, and so
they ripped me out of the public school,
let's take him to a private school.
And on outwardly, clean cut, got the hair
parted to the side, looking good, going to
the private school.
I'm in a family, very preeminent family or
prominent family in the community.
My dad, a very righteous man, I really
do, I love him a lot, and my
mom.
He's a dentist, he was an elder in
the church that he went to, led worship
there, and my mom and dad, I think
all they wanted is like, I want a
son who we can love.
I'm sure they loved me in some way
or another, but I can't see it in
all honesty.
They would have said they loved who I
was.
So they're trying to implement these changes.
Well, nothing ever happened.
That kid, though, a shell got put on
me between age fifth grade until the first
drug overdose that I had at age 17,
where I fell to the floor flopping like
a fish in a grand mal seizure.
A lot had happened between fifth grade and
age 17, where this kid being cut loose
to his own way and his own pride,
just a, you know, it was like there
was two things people were looking at, and
I don't know how many of you can
relate to this in the own rebellion of
your heart that so many people couldn't see,
but on an outward appearance in my high
school, sophomore class favorite, great guy, Kenny Deason,
great guy.
Let's vote him sophomore class favorite.
Wrestling champion, championship wrestler.
You know, excel in that.
And behind the scenes, pot smoking, PCP smoking,
drinking constantly, fighting for money, getting arrested.
I got arrested three times in less than
a month as a freshman in high school.
On that third arrest, I remember my dad
in justice, as I sat in the vehicle,
he went into the police department expecting my
older brother to be there.
I was supposed to be at home.
Walks in and it's his son, Kenny.
You know, what are you doing here three
times in a month?
And my parents were just wondering what is
wrong with this kid?
Well, at age 17, after my first drug
overdose, I went into a hospital for the
seizure and then into a drug rehabilitation center.
And all of them, they told me, you
have a problem, you have a disease, what
they called it.
And they told me, we have these 12
steps that we'll give you and as a
part of that, we give you all the
gold you need to make the God that
you wanna make.
Make a God for yourself and do these
12 steps and you'll get healed.
And I honestly, by that time in my
life, I was broken.
I was coming to the end of the
terms that I hated who I was by
then.
I really did, I hated who I was.
And I went after it and I really
tried and I fabricated this God out of
gold.
I worshiped this God, this God I allowed
to teach me, which was still this God
of my understanding who I made.
And I began making me, just like I
told you, God let me do as a
young man, I began making me.
Things did not get better.
In fact, every time after this hospital, I
go in and go out and I'm trying,
trying to do my best and suddenly I'm
out again and this time plummeting even worse
and faster.
Living in downtown Oklahoma City, a group of
other people were selling drugs out of the
house.
Again, violence is still persisting in my life.
All the thrill and the addiction of adrenaline,
you know, I was living with.
I loved every minute of it.
Again, this young man just full of pride
and full of anger.
It's the pride keeps swelling and God's just
waiting.
What will the end of this young man
be?
After I graduated high school, my mom and
dad, they're about at the end of themselves
and just, you know, Kenny, we wanna bless
you.
We wanna do the best for you.
We hate what's going on in your life.
We'll give you one last chance.
We'll send you into a detox place and
we'll take you to Phoenix, Arizona to a
halfway house.
There's an art school there that wanted me
to go there and so I'm giving it
another shot and six months later, I'm out
again and by that time, last conversation I
had with my mom and dad, I'm threatening
them with a murder and suicide in their
house and telling them I hate them.
That was the last discussion we had for
two years.
And in the next two years of my
life, this proud young man was gonna plummet
fast and furious in it.
I kind of immediately was living on the
streets of Phoenix, Arizona, had a company of
companions that we were all in it together.
We were stealing together.
We're selling drugs together.
We're fighting together.
Just the whole love and the thrill of
it and I had determined every one of
us and we were so much better than
everyone else.
I lived by this motto of my own
righteousness that I upheld so much.
Ooh, I hated this capitalist civilization that we
live in and I hate this Christian church
that surrounds me and I'm an anarchist and
I hate police and all these things and
so we ran around with piercings through our
face and dreadlocks and mohawks and just really
were the rough and the tough out on
the street and again, my pride's just swelling
and we're all in this together.
Well, I began that God that I created
in that hospital as I kept pursuing, there
was something that I was chasing after spiritually
and this is what was gonna take me
by surprise that it began with just sweat
lodges and worshiping.
I'm after this primitive state of spirituality and
I'm chasing after this spiritual dream that I'm
after.
I'm feeling there's gotta be more to life
than this.
Well, from a sweat lodge in Oklahoma with
another recovering alcoholic or what have you, that
God that I began chasing suddenly took a
transformation at this time of my life on
the streets as I start taking blades and
cutting the flesh of my body and spilling
blood and other body excrements, worshiping blatantly demons.
That is no game.
It is no game.
And this young man was taken by surprise
as suddenly something started happening to me that
there's already enough shame and ignorance that I'm
already embarrassed looking at who I am up
to this point, but suddenly things are gonna
change.
At this time as spiritually, not only is
there rebellion, there's drug abuse and all these
things, I'm literally pursuing spiritual principalities that they
were bigger than me.
They were sharper than me and they were
quicker than me.
And I don't know if you've ever been
conned, taken advantage of, and you're led down
a city street sidewalk and you're hoping to
get one thing and you wind up with
nothing.
In that, I got taken.
My reality that I began living at at
this point, and I wanna just paint this
picture of who I was at that time.
And again, I told you I'm ripped up
with piercings and wouldn't bathe for three months,
really.
And was proud of that, whatever that might
mean.
Proud of the fact that I wouldn't bathe
in three months.
Shiny pants, we called vegan leather, vegetarian leather.
Our denim pants are full of body oil,
that they're shiny in that.
Go figure how somebody gets proud of something
like that.
But I've got lice, I've got scabies, I've
got a needle in my arm, I'm shooting
heroin, cocaine, and crystal methamphetamines by this time.
I'm doing things right now in my life
that I'll tell you if somebody would've asked
me as a young man, I would've chosen
death before I would've done any of the
disgraceful things that I'm doing in my life
right now.
At that time in my life, I would've
chosen death.
I would've told somebody I never would do
that.
I never would do that to somebody and
I never would do that to myself.
And suddenly the decisions that I'm making, they're
beyond the capacity of normal human reason.
I am what I began creating, which was
an animal of my understanding.
I was a monster of iniquity.
I mean a beast of sin.
Unreasonable, unsensible, it's beyond comprehension what I suddenly
became in that.
And the whole while I'm proud of it
in that.
And God, I can't imagine what I could've
looked like as He began looking down on
me and I inside, and this is no
exaggeration, if anybody's ever read in the Bible
and they hear about a child who the
father's grieved because his son kept falling to
the ground, convulsing in that.
And I'm not exaggerating, I've been in hospitals
with grand mal seizures that I would fall
to the ground flopping like a fish.
My lungs would get just compressed in fears.
Voices were roaring through my head, screaming inside
of me.
I'm trying to turn them off.
And I would ask them, what are you
doing?
They would just scream at me.
What?
I'm terrified inside.
I am terrified.
People, conversations going on, people don't even know
me and I'm thinking they're talking about me,
speaking of secrets about my life they shouldn't
even know and suddenly I'm in this reality.
It's like a nightmare.
I'm a demon-possessed maniac.
I am out of control.
I'm scared to death.
I couldn't trust anyone.
There was no one I trusted.
And in all that confusion, I'm pumping my
body full of more drugs, more alcohol.
Violence is accelerating.
I'm finding myself in situations where, you know,
I remember the fear and I sometimes would
call my mom.
And, you know, I needed, you know, hoping
I'd get into a situation on the streets
of New Orleans.
I gotta get out of this town.
I don't wanna risk hitchhiking, getting out of
here.
I gotta get out now and calling my
mom and pleading, I gotta get out of
here.
You know, no, Kenny.
Just off the phone.
My mom and dad, they would have nothing
to do with me.
But they were doing everything for me.
My mom, she took a vow on herself
during this time.
She's not even gonna cut her hair.
She's praying unceasingly for her child.
She's driving down the road and God's telling
her, Barbara, pull into this church.
Get on your knees and pray.
Pray for Kenny.
She would go into the church and she's
praying and she's telling other people, please pray
for my son.
All these churches all over the area, they're
praying for her son.
Missionaries in Ecuador, they're praying for her son.
The saints of God's kingdom are interceding on
behalf of this demoniac, this maniac out on
the streets.
And I started having these, you know, again,
I'm in this world of confusion and terror
and suddenly, this other interruption.
And this is all spiritual.
There are very few men or women who
on a face value were involved in my
life as God was gonna come in and
change me.
But suddenly, inside of that world I'm living,
and I remember the first time it happened.
I'm in San Francisco.
Anybody ever been to San Francisco?
Streets of San Francisco?
All right, familiar with the zones.
Well, I'm on Hayton-Ashbury District and we're,
you know, involved in a drug deal, me
and Max, and we got burned.
It was a partner on the streets of
mine and we get burned and so, you
know, we're looking for somebody.
It's three o'clock in the morning and
we're running up and down Hayton-Ashbury and
through Golden Gate Park, this really big park
where you got more needles in the bushes
than you do bark.
And we're looking for this guy and suddenly,
we're walking down the sidewalk and I get
seized with fear and panic.
I fall to the sidewalk.
Max is right beside me and I'm panicking
and my vision just turns to black and
I see like this picture, two beings embraced
around each other, spinning and I hear all
this roaring and suddenly, I hear somebody say,
high five, smile.
And it's just a wingnut on the street.
Anybody know what a wingnut is?
All right, it's a nickname that we give
to guys and this is exactly where I'm
heading in my life is right where they're
at and they've hit a point of no
return in their insanity and this is what
the guy looked like to me.
It's just a typical wingnut on the streets.
He's saying, high five, smile and I curl
under again and I hear it again, high
five, smile and he comes up and he
takes my hand.
We start walking down the sidewalk and he's
just saying what seems like obscure things but
where I was at at the time, he
said, I have friends in high places.
Look, you can see they're looking at us.
I'm walking with him and I'm terrified and
all of a sudden, I hear this voice
and everything just stops and something very clearly
says to me, no.
That's all it said, no.
And it seemed like time stopped when that
word was spoken, no.
Why was it said or what did it
mean and who is this guy?
He's talking about friends in high places and
I remember we sat in front of this
bagel shop and by then, the people are
coming in the morning to get started with
their bagels and we're sitting down outside and
he looked at me and he said, it
hurts, doesn't it?
And all I knew is he's talking about
what's happening to me inside and that was
the beginning of something that started happening to
me.
That same city, San Francisco, I'm sitting around
a group of guys and I'm lying to
them, telling them stories I never did and
you know, anybody ever done that?
And I'm in the middle of this and
God is suddenly, I started, I am now
articulating this was the voice of God and
the conviction of my maker coming to me
but that same voice came to me in
the middle of that and said, tell the
truth, just very clearly and again, it was
like time stops and suddenly I'm just panicking
and guys, I'm lying to you all.
That never happened.
I never did do that and just even
start opening up about other things and everybody's
looking at me like, Kenny, what's the matter
with you?
And in that same city, San Francisco, Scooby
and Scrap go out one night and they
jack a heroin dealer.
They rob a heroin dealer on the street
and come back with a bunch of dope
and for whatever reason, Kenny's a close friend
and we'll give him some.
They give me a CC of dope and
I get it in my hand and I've
been on a binge and it's not like,
I don't know if anybody ever did needles,
don't do it but I'd been on a
binge.
I'm doing stuff again and I'm telling you,
I would have chosen death before I would
do the things I was doing then and
they give me a CC and I wanted
it, I needed it and when it hit
my hand, that same voice that said no
and here comes the purpose of it, it
says no and I took it and I
just busted all of it to the wind.
I never picked up a needle again from
that point on and again, I didn't get
saved at that point but something began happening
inside of me.
After other courses of events, I'm having these
experiences inside and it was a powerful authority
coming upon me, a presence of authority coming
upon me that I'm in terror, I had
no idea what was right, I had no
idea what was wrong but I knew where
I was going was not where I needed
to be.
The reality I was living was just insanity
and I had this undergirding sense from when
that guy was saying about these friends in
high places and suddenly these weird spiritual experiences
that kind of seemed to be right.
You know, it almost seemed to be a
guidance or a direction.
I didn't know where it was coming from.
I had no idea where it was taking
me but all I knew is this seemed
like truth.
It seemed like something right and so I
was taking these experiences and feeling like maybe
something good could happen to me.
Maybe something good could happen to me and
I got off the needle but I didn't
stop drinking and my alcoholic binges by this
time, imagine a heroin addict now trying to
supplant heroin with alcohol.
What does that guy look like?
You know, a puking, disgusting wretch.
I would urinate in my pants about every
night in blackouts.
You know, my closest friends with their faces
ripped to pieces through my violence the night
before.
I've got blood and cuts all over me
constantly.
Find out I was just a weeping, mourning
drunk.
They said I would just fall to the
ground just crying and saying things like, does
anybody love me?
And just, you know, my mind is hitting
this point of pain inside, confusion and fear.
I had no idea what to do.
I'm just getting more and more scared but
these weird spiritual experiences are happening to me
and one night I have a dream and
my mom's in the dream and I'm telling
her, can you not tell that I'm trying
to kill myself?
And the next day I woke up and
I remembered the dream and thought about my
mom and I wanted to call her again.
Well, that day God told her, when Kenny
calls you, pursue him.
Pursue him.
I called her and she said, Kenny, where
are you at?
Well, I'm in Phoenix.
I want to come out there.
I hadn't seen her in two years.
My mom comes out to Phoenix, Arizona.
She said under one condition, you don't do
any drugs or any drinking while I'm there.
I'll leave right when you start.
I said, wow, okay.
And so I start trying to muscle it
up and dry up and my mom comes
into town and she put me up in
the hotel with her and again, she's looking
at a son.
She hadn't seen me in two years at
that.
I wrote a few years ago, my mom
gave me for my birthday a journal that
she was taking at this time in her
life.
We're meeting at the halfway house where she
last saw me when they dropped me off
in Phoenix.
Here comes Kenny.
I can't believe I'm seeing my son.
All we did was hold on to each
other.
God, I want my son well.
In another place, she wrote, sat by a
fountain outside, Kenny talked of his pain and
cried.
He said he's really messed up his life.
She's cleaning up language there.
I can hardly stand the pain myself.
I love Kenny.
Kenny talked of his fear of AIDS and
his past.
Feels suicidal, feels he won't live to age
24.
He cried and cried.
I held him and said I'd stay as
long as he needed.
He needed me and I'd be with him.
At that time in my life, things really
start stirring.
I start, I'm cleaning up, which I had
some other experiences detoxing in county jails.
If the stay would hold me there for
45 days, I'm detoxing for this and that.
It's just jail time detox.
This time, I'm with my mom.
I'm detoxing off all the booze I'd been
just thrusting through my body and started working
at a temp work agency.
She felt like maybe that was going to
help me.
I was really aggressive and really angry during
that time.
After three weeks, my mom invited me to
go back to Oklahoma with her.
A decision that I took her up on.
Because again, I just felt like even this
encounter with my mom, and I have no
idea where I'm going, but I feel like
this is something of this hope that I
started holding on to.
That something good might be able to happen
to me.
And so I went with my mom to
Oklahoma.
I get to Oklahoma and I do wonder,
maybe this weird reality that I'm living in,
maybe it was the drugs.
Maybe it was just the drugs.
And you know, maybe the people I'm around.
And so I've been clean for a while.
I go to Oklahoma City and meet some
of my old punk rock friends and things
like that.
And we're hanging out.
And it comes back, the fear, the terror,
the voices.
Nothing's changed.
I'm not on drugs.
I'm not on alcohol.
And I'm still this maniac inside.
One of the last things that happened, my
foster brother, who I, you know, would have
thought I really loved the man a lot.
We grew up together.
My foster brother, I see him and I
don't know what got into me.
Blew up into a violent rage.
His teeth are punctured through his jaws.
He gets sent to the emergency room.
He's a bloody pulp.
My mom and dad, he calls them from
the hospital and just, you know, it was
the first time he'd seen me in years.
Calling my mom and dad and I just
saw, I'm at the emergency room.
I just saw Kenny, you know, basically just
beat me to a pulp in that.
And that night, my mom and dad, they
knew I was going to be at a
coffee shop and they called the coffee shop
and said, you get back home.
And, you know, I imagine they were just
at a place, you get out of this
state.
And on the way home, I just started
weeping.
And I'm telling you, my hatred for what
was inside of me was beyond, you know,
all this aggression that I'm having and it's
coming out on other people.
You know, it's kind of turning inwardly and
I'm just beginning to hate who I was
and what is all this?
And I tell my mom and dad about
this, what I really am feeling about myself
and I'm glad God gave them the grace
to give me another day.
And it wasn't too much long after that
that another kid named Sean Sundstrom, a kid
on the streets, Oklahoma City, somebody I knew
before I left Oklahoma, given me a little
green Gideon's Bible.
And he's telling me, hey Kenny, you should
read this stuff.
I think these guys were seeing aliens.
And, which, you know, take that for what
it is.
But, you know, and I tell him, I
don't want to read about Jesus.
I've got tattoos of my body scoffing at
Jesus.
I've, you know, in my heart, I don't
like Christianity.
I don't want to look at that.
That's got no, you know, I don't even
want to look at that.
He said, come on, just read it.
Read the book of Revelations.
And so I went ahead and took the
book and reluctantly put it in my pocket.
And when I went home, I actually didn't
go to Revelations.
I opened the book of Matthew and I
just started reading.
I grew up in church.
To be honest, I don't know whether I
just wasn't listening or they just weren't teaching
or what it was, but I was reading
something I'd never read before in my life.
I'm looking at this man, Jesus Christ, where
I expected Him to be one thing.
And maybe some of that was from the
churches or the Christians I had seen.
I don't want to take that too far
in that.
But to be honest, I was seeing something
of a glory that I had never seen
in regard to this Christianity or what have
you.
As I started looking at the life of
Jesus, and I was taken by surprise.
Soon I've got a piece of paper and
I'm writing down all these things that I'm
seeing through this Word, whether it was demonized
kids.
I'm seeing that and I'm like, wait a
minute, that looks like me.
And seeing Jesus had power over this.
Or I'm looking at His wisdom and suddenly
I'm seeing this is no normal man.
This Jesus, listen to what He said.
And I remember writing all these things down.
I cannot believe the words I'm reading.
And I mean, I had read philosophy, poetry,
classical writings.
I wasn't an unlearned man.
But I'm seeing in this, this is something
beyond normal reason.
And this in a whole different way.
And I remember I told Sean, I'm really
starting to like this Jesus.
And he's like, yeah, he's pretty cool, huh?
And I could tell it's like, no, I'm
seeing something in Jesus that's not normal.
I don't know really what it is.
And I just kept reading and I keep
writing and I'm looking at Him and suddenly
I'm realizing I'm seeing something more beautiful than
I've ever seen before in my life.
A wisdom that it was beyond me.
My pride is kind of sinking a little
bit.
I'm seeing what He's saying.
And as I was hearing things like, love
your enemies.
If somebody hits you on the right side
of the face, can't he instead of blowing
up and going crazy, why don't you just
calm down and turn the other cheek?
And even though that would have gone against
every grain in my being, I was holding
up a white flag and saying, I wish
I could.
You know, as I'm seeing He's saying, if
you look on a woman to lust after
her, you're in danger of hell fire.
And even though that went against every grain
of my flesh, I was holding up a
white flag and saying, that has made a
mess of my life.
I have had no pleasure in this flesh.
I have had no pleasure in it.
And Jesus is telling me to turn some
things off that I had been running with
for a long time.
And I did start seeing something in that
suddenly it's a perception of a new life.
Well, from the book of Matthew, I move
on, I'm in the book of Romans.
And my brother at the time, he gave
me a little lawn mower and a block
on a street in Oklahoma City mowing these
lawns.
And if you can picture, it's mainly an
elderly neighborhood.
And you got this guy with dreadlocks and
rings in his nose and his lip and,
you know, nasty clothes.
Again, I hadn't bathed, you know, I'm still
proud of the fact that I'm dirty and
filthy and, you know, mowing these yards.
These people I'm sure were scared to death
of me.
Well, one morning I went out there and
the grass is too wet.
So I go to the lake and I
sit down.
I started reading the book of Romans that
day and grass was kind of too wet.
It was clogging up in the mower.
So I went and sat beside a lake
and was continuing in the book of Romans.
And I mean, I remember that day inside
of me was just a stirring.
Ah, it was turning.
Paul was breaking open this logic or this
making, taking the gospel of Jesus Christ and
laying it out in this manner that he's
explaining to me, you know, what was the
purpose of the death of this man?
What was the purpose of the resurrection of
this man?
How does God view humanity?
And as I'm seeing Paul saying, look, you
were not thankful and you didn't glorify God
and God turned you loose to your understanding.
You've done things that are so shameful and
abominable.
The judgment's already visible in your life through
what you do in your life.
You're a wretch.
I'm reading Paul.
I'm just having to say, you're right.
You're right.
You know, I'm wanting to plow through.
I'm getting answers.
I'm on to something here.
And I knew it.
And inside, you know, even though it's kind
of this sense of conviction, but this sense
of thrill, I'm getting a hold of something
solid here.
I keep reading.
He starts talking about Jesus and starts talking
about Adam.
And I kind of knew who Adam was.
And he's comparing the two.
And he's saying, well, you all know that
through Adam, death came into the world.
You inherited that, Kenny.
You got that from your daddy.
He got that from his daddy.
And it all goes back.
It started with Adam.
And everybody knows how through Adam, Adam gave
something to mankind.
And that's sin and death.
And you've got it.
All right.
I know I've got it.
I've got Adam.
Well, just like that, Kenny.
In fact, much more so, Jesus came into
the world to give something to you and
to give something to mankind.
And it's not sin and death.
It's eternal life and grace and a gift
that he's willing to give to you, even
though you are in wretched state.
And God in His justice would tear you
to pieces.
In His justice, He would tear you to
pieces.
But God is saying right now, He tore
His Son, Jesus Christ, to pieces on the
cross.
And He did it for you so that
He could give you a gift.
And while you have spoken evil of me,
I've reached out in love to you, Kenny.
I'm reaching out right now, Kenny.
Can you see?
Jesus came into the world to give you
life and a gift.
And just like you got it through Adam,
it's even much more so through Jesus.
Much more than the death and the sin.
There's more life I'm willing to give you
through Jesus than the death you apprehended in
Adam.
And Kenny, will you believe this?
By then, I had to give it up.
Heaven cut loose on the bank of that
lake that day.
And in faith, I apprehended a throne and
a majesty of Almighty God that surpassed anything
I had ever experienced.
And even inside of me, such a stirring
happened as I believe right then demons were
fleeing from me.
I believe God in triumphant power was making
a humiliating show of them as He's coming
in in triumphant power.
And He's saying, this is My child who
has received Me and I have received Him.
And you must leave sin.
You must go.
Death, you must die.
Life is coming to this house today.
And I got set free.
Wholly, completely, and utterly set free.
God gave me life.
Even in that neighborhood where those people, I
was mowing their lawns.
The next week, they were all coming out
in front of their house looking at each
other and looking at me and they're walking
out.
What happened to you?
Suddenly, everybody's seeing what happened inside of me.
The whole community and everybody knew about this
dying freak of the decent child is suddenly
this new Jesus freak, you know, and maybe
my reputation didn't get any better for all
marks, but everybody was and wondered what happened
to this guy?
This is your justice, Kenny.
And He is laying down His life for
you.
God has humbled Himself, you proud young man.
He's bleeding.
And Jesus Christ's blood spilt on the cross
at Calvary kept flowing down.
They raised Him up on top of that
cross.
They took a sword and they cut Him
in His side as people still like me
began scoffing and laughing at Him.
Jesus Christ, God had humbled Himself.
You proud men, all of you who are
still in your heart scoffing and laughing at
Jesus, He is being ripped apart for you.
God ripped Him apart so that we could
have life.
And that's what Paul was asking me to
look at and not just to believe, but
to understand Jesus Christ was ripped apart in
His humility in behalf of our pride.
And when I believed and understood that on
that day, an inheritance came to me and
a whole new life.
It wasn't just, you know, have you ever
just offended somebody and you thought, well, I'll
just walk away and do things different.
It's not like that with God.
You don't just walk away from scoffing and
laughing at a living God who is a
consuming fire.
He is a consuming fire.
And you don't just walk away and kind
of clean up a couple things and make
some changes like I had tried to do
so many times.
That's not the way you come to God.
That mountain, His holy hill, He won't even
let a man touch it.
You can't come near God.
You cannot come near Him.
There is one gate to the heart of
God and there's only one way and one
means.
And until you look at Jesus Christ bleeding
and crucified and you understand that is for
the justice of your own iniquity, until you
see that and you understand Jesus Christ and
His agony died for you, you cannot come
to that mountain where God dwells.
I'm telling you, His hand is held out
at you in His fury.
And there's nothing holding Him back from utterly
destroying you, but His mercy that's being expressed
on that cross.
And if you will look to Jesus as
the Scripture says, look to Me, all the
ends of the earth, and you will be
saved.
And if you look at Him, He will
save you.
He saved me.
And at that point in time, that high
and holy mountain where such a God lives
and dwells, I can now go there.
I began running up that mountain to God.
It's Zion, His holy city, His holy place.
I began running there and not alone, I'm
running there with other redeemed saints, people set
free, alive in His Spirit.
I'm now able to come to this place
and worship Him, to look at Him, and
now I see a glory in God.
It's amazing.
It's amazing what happened in my eyes when
I first understood and believed what Jesus Christ
did on the cross.
It's amazing what happened in my eyes that
a God really, and it was nothing fictitious
if I deemed Him somebody that I didn't
like, I was absolutely right.
I probably shouldn't have.
He didn't like me.
But not based on anything He had done,
but who I was.
And it's amazing what the cross of Jesus
Christ and that work alone can do inside
the heart of a man to make you
acceptable to stand before a living God.
And He does not care where you've been.
He does not care.
I'm telling you, some of y'all probably
think I did worse things than you.
I haven't even put a drop in the
bucket on what was going on behind the
life of that proud young man.
And there is nothing that you have done
that's beyond Jesus Christ's willingness for that agony
and that blood to have been shed for
you.
And I really do, I want to right
now open up.
If God has stirred, and I believe it
could happen that right now today through the
word spoken, God could have stirred your heart
today for the first time to see Jesus
Christ crucified and to understand that He was
ripped apart in His humility on behalf of
your pride.
And if that's a reality, I really do
stand up.
Stand up.
There's men, Christians in this prison, me, others
that are here.
I mean, really, there is no reason why
if faith has been stirred up in your
heart that the same inheritance and the same
life that was given to me cannot be
given to you.
And I do want to say that if
there's something that's standing between you and God
in that, whether it's your sin, whether that's
your shame, whether that is your pride, I
wouldn't encourage you to come.
I wouldn't.
I would encourage you to look and to
look at Jesus Christ and to look at
the bruises, the blood and the agony that
He did for you and let that do
a work in your heart.
And if you don't believe me, I've got
other witnesses right here and I would, first
of all, like you all to stand up.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
Stand up.
Amen.
Look at this.
Every single one of us, can everyone say,
I understand what this kid's talking about today.
I know what he's talking about.
I know what it means to look at
Jesus Christ on the cross and to be
given a new life.
Look at these witnesses.
And we are just a drop in the
bucket.
We are.
There is a train, a train of captive
slaves being set free.
Picture it.
The emancipation of mankind behind Jesus Christ.
A train for over 2,000 years who
even picked up the rubble from the beginning
of creation of the saints who are glorifying
God in heaven.
Now all y'all can sit down.
Look at these witnesses.
Okay, I've got two minutes.
This doesn't have to stop here though.
I'll be running out the door.
No offense, but thank God.
I could be here with every one of
y'all, couldn't I?
I'm not different than any one of y
'all.
But I would encourage you, hit your face
to the floor.
Look at Jesus in that.
If that's a missing element in your life
and many of you knew it, you can't
say, I don't have that.
Well, that's how you get it.
You look to Jesus and Jesus alone.
It doesn't get any more simple than that.
Well, God, I do love you, Lord.
All of your saints here, we praise you.
God, we exalt you.
Lord, I pray that the words spoken today,
the testimony of your work in one man's
life, Lord, I pray that it would, Lord,
draw men to look at your soul and
to be saved.
God, glorify yourself.
Lord, glorify yourself in bringing the pride of
mankind to his knees to worship you.
Make your name known.
Lord, let them see your strength now through
your love.
I love you.
In the name of your son, Jesus Christ,
I pray.
Amen.