Sermon Central
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When I Passed Out Preaching On Death!
Contributed by Dr. Larry Petton on Mar 25, 2024 (message contributor)
I met Christ as my personal Lord and Savior when I was 15 years old. I had grown up in church and had faithfully gone to church 3 or 4 times per week my whole life......but I did not have a personal relationship with Jesus.
After trusting Him as my Savior, I felt that God spoke to my heart through an unusual dream that woke me up in the middle of a night with a burden to tell my friends about Christ. I then surrendered to the call of God to preach the Gospel shortly thereafter and preached 300 times during my high school years in the Jesus Movement days when churches were alive and wanting to have youth revivals, church revivals, meetings, retreats and special services on a constant basis. I had started a singing group of high school friends, and we went all around the southwestern part of our country preaching and singing. We were gone somewhere almost every single week.
We were in one church in Dallas where I was preaching on the subject of death, which was odd for a 17- year-old to talk about. During my message I had planned on using a technique I had learned from Bob Harrington, the Chaplain of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. I clicked my fingers and planned on saying, "Any moment, any second, right now, you could die. Where would you go?" I couldn't wait to use that in the pulpit during my sermon.
When I got to the pulpit and started preaching, I was a little woozy for some reason. But, oh, well, I preached on, anyway. Then I got to my favorite line in my message where I said, "Right now......any moment, any second, you could --- I can't believe it happened, but I couldn't finish my message because I PASSED OUT RIGHT IN FRONT OF EVERYONE at that very moment!!!
it scared the people of that large church in Dallas to death! My mother came running down the aisle to check on me. Deacons called an ambulance. And the pastor stepped over me and decided to give an invitation right in the middle of all of the confusion!!
When I came to, I was outside on the lawn of the church and an elderly man had his wrinkled, old face right in front of mine. He said, "Young man, you have a most effective way of delivering a sermon!!" Haha!!!
Needless to say, that church never forgot that message!!
I pray that you realize the same message. You only have this moment. You don't know for sure that you have even the rest of this day. But you have this moment right now to trust Christ as your Savior. Stop living a lie. Stop playing church. You may not be here tomorrow. Trust Jesus today and then you can know that you know that you know where will be tomorrow!!
- Dr. Larry Petton
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