Testimony, John Fitzpatrick

I want to thank the Assembly very much for the privilege to have been able to be with you this weekend. I'm not a fellow that knows Iowa too well. I'm thankful they have a thing called a GPS, and you can punch in the address, or for the hall, I punched in the computer coordinates, and then I was able to come back, even though I'm not flying, I was able to get the car to bring me where I'm supposed to go.

My friend told me one time, he says, I think you're directionally challenged. I says, well, I don't know about that, but at least I'm not heaven challenged. So if you have a Bible, turn, please, over to the book of Jeremiah for a starter, and I'd like to encourage you young men in the front row to turn to your Bibles also, because when we read the Bible, that's how God speaks to us.

Jeremiah, over in the Old Testament, pretty close to the middle of your Bible. Isaiah, Jeremiah. Jeremiah, chapter 3, and a little phrase in verse 19, the 19th verse of the book of Jeremiah, right after the book of Isaiah.

Jeremiah 3, and verse 19, but I said, how shall I put thee among the children? I'll read it one more time, it's a short one, and I'll read a couple others. How shall I put thee among the children? And then over in 1 Peter, over in the New Testament, chapter 3, and verse 15, the 15th verse, and the 3rd chapter of the epistle of 1 Peter. Let's sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you, a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.

John's Gospel, please, chapter 3, verse 7. The 7th verse, and the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of John. Very words of the Lord Jesus Christ, spoken to Nicodemus, and applies to each one of us here this evening. Marvel not that I said unto thee, notice, ye must be born again.

Acts chapter 4, and verse 12, the 12th verse, and the 4th chapter of the book of Acts, please. Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name unto the Father, under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved. I found a little note in the front of my Bible, I don't know when I wrote it, but a Gospel message that flatters and is caressed by this world is no Gospel message at all.

How shall I put thee among the children? We're not thinking about age, we're not taking about sexes, we're not taking about occupations or degrees or farms or families, but we're thinking about it in a spiritual sense, saved or lost. In Christ, not in Christ, well with your soul, not well with your soul. So I want you to think about that tonight.

Are you saved? Are you bound for heaven? Do you know your sin's forgiven? I wrote a little verse there in 1 Peter, that we should be able to give an answer to every man of the reason of hope that lies within. So my exercise was, I've only been here this conference, is to tell you how I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior. I didn't have the privilege to grow up in a Christian home like many of you did.

My lot in life was to be an only child. I would have liked to have had a brother or sister, but you don't have any choice in those matters. When World War II was over, my father worked on the ships on the coast of California as an electrician.

They moved back to Yonkers, New York, where they had moved back to the West Coast. My mother wanted to come home to the homeland. They initially bought a two-family house, nothing was available, and then they moved to another part of Yonkers, New York.

I looked back over it and God was in the move. It was a little bungalow. You farmers would laugh, the whole piece of property is 50 feet by 100 and most of you have a garden bigger than that, you might say, and yet that's where I grew up.

But as I look back over it, God was in that move. Because a block above that street was a family that was saved and was in the assembly there. And their son, Tom, and I became exceedingly close chums.

In fact, so much so, my mother told him, don't come to the house before seven in the morning, it's just a little too early. Both of us were probably wired with 440 back in those days, and you could hear Tom running down the hills. We had a very good friendship.

We still communed with one another by email or phone, but he had an odd family. He says, now on Sunday I can't play or get dirty, it's the Lord's Day. And on the Lord's Day we go to meeting in the morning, and we go to meeting at night.

So we never saw each other on Sunday because this was the Lord's Day. My lot in life was to go, we'll call it church if you understand what I'm trying to say with my mother. My father was of one of the largest, if not denominations, in the United States, so they had a divided marriage that way.

I had a good home, no cursing, no drinking, and so on, but it was a home where they knew not the Savior. I was christened at three days of age, they tell me, and they tell me I cried and embarrassed them. And then in the fifth grade, I was baptized by water immersion to join the church where Mom was bringing to me.

They had big beams, they had stained glass windows. I never heard the gospel there, but I became a member of the place. And so if you were to ask me, would you be in heaven? Well, I guess so, because I'm not the worst person in town, and I've got my name on the church roll, and I tag along Sunday morning with Mom.

And if you were to ask me, what did you know in the Bible? I could have told you it was called our Lord's Prayer, our Father who art in heaven, he's teaching the disciples to pray, and I could have quoted Psalm 23. I would have known a few of the books of the Bible by name, and that's all I knew. Tom was a very good friend, but he was a pest.

Every week coming home for years on Friday night, they had special children's meetings where he attended, and he was always asking me to go, as faithful as the clock would chime, and my answer constantly consistently was, no, I'm not interested in coming. Sixth grade was over, 1959 to date myself, and they were going to have in June or July, I'm not sure which the month was, special children's meetings with a guest speaker, but they were going to do a craft. So that was what got me in, I like doing something.

And there was a man that spoke, shiny head like me, maybe even a little rounder, and he said, now if you learn the Bible verse every day, ten days, two weeks, five days during the week, you'll earn a New Testament. Well that sounded real good, but then I found out we had a problem, we didn't have a Bible at the house. We only had a big thick book that was called a children's story Bible with hardly any references.

But Tom's mother didn't think that was any problem, so on an old fashioned typewriter they could jam the keys together with an old ribbon that needed ink, she typed up ten verses. And I learned those verses, and I earned the New Testament. My mother never had good health, she had scarlet fever as a child, and so her heart was affected, and anyway they had a Friday night where we would stand up, and the parents could come, and you quote your verse.

I had that little brown New Testament for years, but there's something else that happened in those meetings. I found out that you needed to be saved to be in heaven, and I found out you needed to be born again. I never heard anything like that.

And the beloved brother was very faithful, he was from South Carolina, and he told us if we weren't saved we were going to be in hell. And so God began to do a work in me. I never knew a term, the conviction of the Holy Spirit or anything like that, but I want to tell you, that summer I was absolutely miserable.

Nobody would know it, never talked to anybody, I was shyer in my youth than I am now, and inside there was a voice that was speaking to me, John, you're not saved. John, if you die riding your bike crazy on all these hills, you are going to be in hell. And I was a very, very troubled lad.

Nobody could see it on my face, never told it to Tom, never told it to his parents or anybody, but you're looking at a fellow in 1959 in the summer that was miserable. Because I have learned from the word of God and I knew it was true. I'm headed for the awful place, and my sins are not forgiven, and I haven't got a clue how to get the matter taken care of.

That summer was miserable. Tom, faithful as the clock chimes, you want to come to meetings Friday nights? Seventh grade, sure I want to come. I couldn't tell you what night I got saved.

It was at the end of October or the beginning of November, and I came home from those meetings around 9 or 9.30 at night. I lay on my bed upside down. I had my head where my feet go, my feet where my head go, not that I have any reason, and tears are flowing out my eyes.

It's the only place they come, I know. And I realized at one moment I'm heading to the awful place called hell, and I realized laying on that little bed that the Lord Jesus paid for my sins on the cross, and I trusted him. I had the privilege to learn John 3.16 for that little New Testament.

I learned Romans 3.23 for all of sin and come short of the glory of God. I learned Romans 6.23 for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. And so God was gracious to a blind, poor sinner that didn't have a Bible in the home, and a prayer was never said in the home, and just had a mom and a dad that loved him, that had religion, but never knew the Savior or anything about him, to cause the gospel to cross my path, that I might come to know his Son as Savior.

I want to tell you tonight, salvation's real. It lasts. It's available to you tonight through the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I don't know many in the audience, and I have difficulty learning names, be gracious with me, but God knows about you, and I want you to put in your pocket tonight from the front row all the way to the back, standing at the door, God loves you, and wants to give you forgiveness of sins, and wants to give you pardon, and wants to bring you and the family in the fold, and I know something about you, and I don't know you. You have no true peace till you come to know the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ, as your Savior. Do you know what he did? On the cross, he paid for our sins.

On the cross, he paid all that any man, or woman, or boy, or girl, or teenager needs that they might be right with God. And he came to seek and to save that which was lost. Do you know what it means to be lost? You know where you want to get to, and you can't find your way.

It slipped out in a gospel meeting one time, I was hunting in the Adirondack Mountains in New York State, and I'll say like Daniel Boone, I got temporarily misplaced, I was lost. I finally found my way out, but I didn't tell the missus, because I figured she might not think it was a good thing to do, but it slipped out in a gospel meeting. When you are lost, you know where you want to go, but you can't find your way.

And God says the Lord Jesus has come to seek and to find those that are lost. And he wants to come across your path tonight, individually tonight, and tell you boldly and plainly and lovingly and kindly and graciously, you need the new birth. He wants to tell you kindly and graciously, you need to be saved.

If you're old enough to understand the gospel message, and old enough to understand you need to be saved, you're accountable for God, and you're old enough to be in hell. That's a bold statement, but that's the reality of it. If you're old enough to understand these facts, and the Spirit of God has pricked your heart, I need to be saved, you're old enough to be saved.

So it's no excuse. Some get saved at a very young age, others a little older, and others a little older, but we thank God that God wants to come along across your path tonight, and wants you to stop in your tracks, and to ponder the path of your feet, and to be able to acknowledge, not intellectually, but alone before God, I'm a guilty, vile sinner, and I need a Savior. I have trouble swallowing pills.

I'm taking a few vitamins, they're supposed to help you, I don't know if they do, so the missus gives them to me at dinner time. The biggest pill I ever swallowed with the greatest problem, I'm a lost sinner, heading down to hell. I was shook.

The christening wasn't going to do it. The baptism wasn't going to wash away my sins. The man that was called the reverend where I went, shame on him, only a reverend is our God, with the red robe, and the brass organs, and all the choir with their robes on, that wasn't going to get me to heaven.

I only had a religion, and it wasn't going to work in any way, shape, or form, and they never told me I needed to be born again. Thank God for the clarity of the gospel. This word is clear, it's concise, because God doesn't want anyone to miss it.

You don't even have to be able to read to be saved. I work with the homeless in Phoenix oftentimes, and I give out gospel papers, at least two almost every day. Grown adults, they say, I can't read, John, I can't read.

I say, well, you can listen, and I can tell you the story how you can be saved. God wants to come across your path tonight, and visit in so great salvation, you must be born again. Except a man or a woman is born again, saved, you'll never be in heaven.

You see, oftentimes in the Bible, the double mentions are particularly important. John chapter 3 has a double mention about being born again, and then, perhaps you were daydreaming, I doubt it, and you could go over to Acts chapter 4 and verse 12. It says, neither is there salvation in any other.

There's only one way to be saved. There's only one Savior. There's only one mediator.

There's only one that laid down his life, the holy spotless one, the Lord Jesus Christ, on the cross of Calvary, the creator and life sustainer of all things, and he rose again the third day, that can be your Savior. When it comes to salvation, it's not complicated. I'll say this though, it's a battle to be saved.

A battle to be saved. You're going to have to swallow your pride, I'm a sinner. You're going to have to be willing to take God at his word, I'm a lost sinner, and you're going to have to be able to acknowledge, I want to be saved, and I need to be saved, that God might draw near and save you.

Sometimes in gospel work, we say, we wish their mouth would stop, because the Word of God says, let every mouth be stopped. In other words, we're not interested, and I don't want to be offensive in what you think, we're interested in what the Word of God says, and the Word of God says, there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved. You must be saved if you're going to be in heaven.

It's through the Lord Jesus Christ, through what he did on the cross. We heard in the conference already, probably two times, the little word was mentioned, it is finished. All that was needed, that you and I might be saved, that our sins might be forgiven, was completely paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary.

Last Lord's Day, I sat down with a young fellow, 12 years of age. He's been concerned, he was concerned with Mr. Lavery at meetings there a year ago. I says, how are you doing? He says, I'm not saved yet.

I gave him a couple verses. I said, what do you think? He says, I believe what they say, but I'm not saved. It's possible to intellectually believe something, but never really believe it.

There was a man by the name of Blondin, and with that I'll sit down. It was before my time for you young ones. He was a tightrope walker.

He set a cable across Niagara Falls, and the crowd gathered. It was the day before TV or knowing what he looked like, and he intermingled in the crowd. Blondin could put a man on his shoulders.

He came up to the man that said it. I'm Blondin, come with me. He says, I've heard what you can do, but there's no way I'll trust you.

To save the show, his manager got on his shoulders, and he said he had nightmares the rest of his life. You know what the Lord Jesus Christ can do. You know he died on the cross for sinners.

You know you're a sinner that needs to be saved, but salvation is when God shows you of what his son did on the cross at Calvary. I like to call it an illumination from God. One man, Mike, got saved in Cedarville, California in a tent, and he only came two weeks.

That's all we were there in the park, and I says, Mike, how could a fellow like you get saved? He says, John, it was just like turning the light switch on, and one moment I was in darkness, and the next moment I was in light. I found out that the Lord Jesus paid personally for my sins, and I'm free. God loves you.

Christ died on the cross for the ungodly, and he tells us graciously and tenderly and kindly and compassionately that we must be saved, that we must be born again. In John chapter 3 verse 16, it's 25 words. The center word is about the Son.

For God so loved the world, you and me. He gave his only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that whosoever, you, me, and anybody else believes on him, what's that mean? Trusts what he did on the cross for their sins, will not perish, but have everlasting life. God loves you.

Christ died on the cross for sinners, and the good word of God says you must be saved.