Will This Be Your Final Answer?

We have all heard many people in our lives give their personal testimonies. Some were delivered out of a life of drugs; some out of the occult; some out of lust; and yet others right out of the gates of hell themselves.

Tonight, we are going to be talking a lot about these testimonies. You will notice three things about all real testimonies.

1. They will always involve a personal encounter with Jesus Christ;

2. The people who have those encounters always end up being more excited about God than they have ever been about anything in their entire lives; and

3. The people I just described will always have a faith in the Lord that seems unwavering – even in the toughest of trials.

I have heard people say that we should believe in Jesus ‘just in case he happens to be true.’ I would say that is a belief born out of fear, not out of faith. I also think that any type of belief that is not born out of faith in the Holy One is of absolutely no value to us at all.

Engineers always seem to be among the hardest to convince of Jesus, because they devote their entire life to seeing the proof of their work. Concepts just don’t seem to interest engineers on the whole.

There was an engineer in upstate New York who was working on a classified long-range submarine during the late 1970’s. His wife gave birth to their only child, just to find out within three months that the little girl had a digestive disorder and would soon die.

The father was walking through the woods one day and cried out to God that if He were real, He would heal the baby and then the man would be willing to at least talk to God about believing in Him.

A week later, his wife came home and said they needed to take the baby to a church service that night. The preacher at the service was an ex Harley rider who was now a Southern Baptist preacher.

During that service, the wife started crying and told her husband their baby was being healed as they sat there. She then got on her knees and began praying at their pew. Well, the husband quite embarrassed about this public display of emotion asked the usher to forgive her when they came to her aid.

They said that he should also start praying. He refused to pray. Two days later, the doctors called and said the little girl was dying and she could go home now with her parents for her last days.

When she was home, the wife threw away all the medicine and grabbed the baby food and started feeding the baby. She kept it all down and very quickly started to gain weight. A week later the doctor told the parents that he didn’t understand what was happening, but whatever they were doing, they should keep doing.

Later that day, the engineer went for his daily walk through the forest behind their home, and he felt God in his heart saying, “I did My part, now let’s talk.”

The engineer is now a Baptist preacher and the daughter is the song leader in their church. I heard this man give this testimony on TV, yet the power of the spirit was powerful as it was with this gentleman. It was a most awesome testimony.

Tonight, I have invited a friend of Keith’s to give his testimony. I have not heard it, but I have heard that it is an awesome testimony in itself. Kim, would you please come onstage?

AFTER KIM’S TESTIMONY

One thing we will all agree on. None of us want to be where Kim came from, do we? But that testimony shows that God can go anywhere to do His wondrous work, and He can reach down to anyone, no matter where they are or what they are doing.

I have told some of you how God called me as a child to preach. I grew up with that desire in my heart, but the older I got, the more isolated I became from Jesus.

Throughout the years, I kept feeling pulled to preach, but every time I felt that, it seems the deeper I would step into sin and away from the Lord.

Finally, God let me get sick. He let me get very sick; to the point where I knew I was dying. I went to doctor after doctor, and they would send me to specialist after specialist. None of them could help me.

One specialist said I had an "acute resperitory ailment". I asked him just what that meant, and he said he didn’t know what was wrong with me, but that my lungs were slowly deteriorating. He asked me if I believed in a "higher power". I said I did, and he advised me to go to it because they could not help me.