Testimony, Cal Erickson

A familiar verse, please, Romans chapter 5 and verse 6. Romans chapter 5 and verse 6. For when we were yet without strength and due time, Christ died for the ungodly. I have in my heart especially these young children that are here tonight, although there may be older ones still striving to enter in. I'd like to tell you my experience.

I was raised in a Christian home, that's not unusual, but I don't remember hardly a thing about the gospel. And now I find myself to be 28 years of age and I've turned my back on God when I was 16, told my mother, dear, my dear mother, I said that's it, you'll never see my face in a gospel meeting again. Now it's interesting, when I was 28 years old, for the first time in my life, I realized that I was going to die and meet God.

Did you understand what I just said? When I was 28 years old, I understand for the first time in my life that I was going to die and meet God. Now we're taught as children, that's true, but we don't think it's personal for us that we're going to die and meet God. And so I asked my mom for a Bible and she gave me one and I would read it and I didn't understand it.

And the short story is this, I started joining churches and I wanted to have my sins forgiven. Didn't know anything about the gospel hall, didn't know anything about how the gospel was to be preached accurately like it is here. But I want to tell you that God is dealing in my life because when I realized I was going to die and that I was not prepared to meet God, there was a need in my own soul that hasn't been met yet.

And there might be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman in this audience tonight who realized even for the first time you're going to die and meet God and you're not ready. And that's a scary situation, but it's a needed situation that you know you're not ready to meet God. No mom, no dad, no other security blankets, but you alone with God.

Well what happened was I ran into a couple, Dave and Lois Hardy, and I watched them for a year and I understood that they were Christians indeed. Something changed even though I was reading my Bible when I went to Dave's house on that Monday night, we talked about the accuracy of the Bible, the holy scriptures that are true and I left a changed man. I wasn't saved yet, but now I'm picking up the Bible as a 30-year-old man and for the first time in my life it's not me reading the Bible but it's God talking to me through his word.

Do you understand the difference? God is speaking to you tonight through the Bible. He's speaking to you through the word. He was speaking to me through the word.

And not surprisingly when I understood it was God speaking directly to me, that not long after I was saved. But some other things happen first. When I was starting to read the Bible and God was speaking to me through it, I understand that I'm damned.

I understand that I'm a sinner before a holy God. We need to understand how holy he is that sin cannot come into his presence. We also have to own up to what we are in his sight, that we're a fallen creature full of sin.

That might be harder for you to know, even though you're little, but I talked to a man who was saved when he's five and he's older than me today in an assembly fellowship. He understood he was a sinner. A sinner before a holy God.

Well God was speaking to me and six days before God saved me, he showed me how holy he was and what my destiny would be without being saved. And I can tell you, I knew I was going to hell as I was tying my tie. An executive at a company and I was looking in the full-length mirror.

It wasn't God talking to me, it was me talking to God. And I said, God I'm going to hell and I know it and you're right in putting me there and there's nothing I can do. And I can tell you my knees quivered together for fear of meeting God in my sins.

So then, six days later is a Sunday. It's a Sunday six days later. And Lois Hardy had been on me for a long time to come to a gospel meeting.

And I tell you, I hadn't planned on going, but I found myself walking into the gospel hall on George Street over there on December 2nd, 1984. And there was a man named Robert Boyle. I never knew him up until that point.

And he was preaching on something that just spoke to me. It was in Psalms 8, when I consider the works of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained. What is man that thou are mindful of him? Now that's God speaking to me again.

And you know what he said? He said through his word to me that you're important and I love you, love you very much. Now we've got a same God in heaven tonight who loves you very much and he's speaking to you and that's a personal direct love for you. Now I still wasn't saved, even though I was overwhelmed with his knowledge that God loved me.

So Dave and Lois invited me over the house where Mr. Boyle was staying and we went through six scriptures actually. Now this is important. As I'm sitting on the kitchen table, that fifth scripture that Mr. Boyle took me to was 1st Peter 3 and 18.

Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust. I stopped reading because now for the first time in my life I understood that Jesus Christ God's Son is pure and holy. And God showed me his Son is that way.

Did you understand he's never sinned and he is God's eternal Son. Now I wasn't saved yet, but you cannot go to your life not understanding your sinnership before God, not understanding you cannot go to heaven the way you are, not understanding that there's a God in heaven who personally loves you, and not understanding that he's proven it by sending his Son from heaven itself into this world, the pure and holy Jesus Christ. And that's what I saw in that chair but I wasn't saved yet.

So you can have all this knowledge and not be saved. But what happened in the next moment, Mr. Boyle took me to Romans 5 and verse 8, God commendeth his love towards us, and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. And there God showed me something.

It wasn't Mr. Boyle talking to me, he never said a word, but it was the Word of God. God was talking to me, God commendeth his love towards Cal, and that while Cal was yet a sinner, Christ died for Cal. And so my friend, right there on that chair, trusting the Word of God, I understood in that middle cross was the person of the Son of God who is just.

There God offered him up for my sins. My sins were there, and he took it away, dying for me. And my friend, tonight he lives, and so you have an opportunity.

There's a God in heaven who's dealing with your soul this evening. There's a God in heaven, the same God that has saved so many in this room tonight, who would love to have you just trust him. When we were yet without strength and due time, Christ died for the ungodly.