Dead Man Walking

January 27, 2003

Central Christian Church

St Petersburg, Florida

Joe Bedy

Sermon for the prisoners in

West Liberty Ky

“Dead Man Walking”

Greetings from Florida it was _____’ when I left Florida this morning. It is good to be here.

This is a nice church ya’ll have. Truthfully in here you have a better shot of being a true NT church than what we practice on the outside. The early church took all of their meals together; as a matter of fact they were always together. A lot like you guys here to night.

This is my first time in a prison. I have called on an inmate in the Pinellas County jail, but I have never been arrested or incarcerated.

I did watch a movie once called “Dead man Walking.” It is the story of a nun who tries to save the soul of a death row inmate who raped and murdered two teenagers.

What I remember most about the movie was the line ‘dead man walking.” After a death row prisoner had exhausted all of his appeals and stays of execution and his sentence had not been commuted he was led to the room where he would receive a lethal injection and on the way the prisoners and the guards would refer to him as a dead man walking.

I am here tonight to tell you that without Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we are all dead man walking.

I am here to tell you tonight that the murderer or rapist who has confessed his sin and repented and received Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior will be more alive at the moment that the Lord returns or when he dies than he has ever been before.

I want to tell you tonight that we are born innocent, but it doesn’t take very long for us to live up to our sinful nature.

All of us have fallen short of the glory of God and all us have sinned. I have never raped or murdered anybody, but without Christ as my Lord and savior I am worse off at my death and headed to hell than the most vicious criminal who has received Christ.

Without Jesus Christ we are all “dead men walking.”

Open your Bibles to Ephesians 2.

Eph 2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,

Eph 2:2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

Eph 2:3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

You and I are born dead; we are dead men walking, because we followed the world and its ways.

I did, I used to think I was somebody, a big shot, because I was a successful land developer and builder.

I fell for the lie that I could live however I wanted.

And Oh boy, was I smart, I didn’t need a God, and God was for sissies. What did I need a God for? I could provide everything for me and my family that we needed and then some. I didn’t need God.

Well, there are only two daddies in the world and the Devil was my daddy and I belonged to him.

V3 Put us all in the same boat, I am no better or worse than you. We are either saved and God is our Father or lost and the devil is our daddy.

I this world you or either in the condition of a lost soul or you are in the position of one of God’s children-what the Bible calls the elect.

We all lived (lost) that way at one time or another; maybe you are still living that way. Maybe you are here tonight you have come to listen, but you know the devil is your daddy.

Maybe V3 describes you, as it once described me, gratifying the cravings of my sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, I was by nature an object of His wrath.

For me it was pride and arrogance, by golly I was somebody and if I wanted to buy a Mercedes or own 3 boats that is what I was going to do. I was going to satisfy my flesh and the Devil was cheering me on all the way. Why not I belonged to him and he was my daddy.

And the whole time I was living like the devil the God of the universe loved me. He had already demonstrated His great love for me, by sending His son Jesus Christ to die for me, on a cross at Calvary and to purchase for me by His shed blood a place in paradise.