Psalm 40:1-3: God is for you

Very good, Terry. I'll give you a choice. I was going to read Psalm 40 or tell how I got saved.

What did I do? Psalm 40? Okay. Psalm 40 in verse 1. Psalm 40 verse 1. I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings.

And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. Many shall see it and fear and trust in the Lord. This is a wonderful psalm and I think of the experience of David as one that everyone that's saved here knows what it is.

This eyewitness experience, and you know there's nothing quite like hearing how someone got saved. When we were in Russia, we would have a school, we'd get a school, they'd give it to us, and we'd have about this many people at the meeting. And we always had a question period at the end because they had no Bibles for 73 years.

It was all strange to them. And we'd ask a question period and we'd hear questions like, will Jesus ever die again? And I told, I'd be talking about my experience and I'd say, you know, when I got under conviction of sin, it was a terrible thing. One of the questions was, how long were you in prison and what for? Conviction.

So we had some things that we had to straighten out. So when they'd ask me, how do you become a believer? We'd say, you come tomorrow night and I'll tell you mine. And we would have the place packed.

Twice as many people would come. But here's one here. He says, I waited patiently for the Lord.

Salvation begins with God and God wants all men and women to be saved, boys and girls. He wants you to be saved. I told Terry this yesterday, last night, but he had two series of meetings in our little assembly and he's coming back in a month to do it again.

But one of those series, he kept saying, God is on your side. God wants you in heaven. And you know, I liked that.

I liked that. He said it again and again. And then I would start to say it when I was preaching the gospel, any place.

I would say, we had a man called Terry Topley and he said, God is on your side. Well, then I got looking in the Psalms and here's what I read. Psalm 8, 118 and 6. The Lord is on my side.

Psalm 56 and 9. God is for me. Psalm 124 and 1. If it had not been for the Lord who is on our side, that's from God. And why does that mean so much to me that God's on my side? I was going to tell how I got saved, but I got saved at 27 and I lived an ungodly life.

I was a drunkard. And we used to have this boys drinking. We never went to church.

None of us did. But if you want to know anything about the Bible, we knew it all. And every time we get drinking, there'd be a religious argument.

And you know, I got a job in Polysar and 2,500 employees, a big place, 200 acres. And the boys would say, there's a guy down there Kember. And he preaches to us all the time.

One day I didn't have a job and I said to my boss, I need a job. He looked up the work orders and he said, go on down to the eye plant pump house. There's two broken panes of glass there and put into glass.

I went down and I took the old ones out. I was going to put the new ones in. And one of those pumps sprang a leak and they had to shut it down because of the oil.

And they called for two laborers to come in. One of them, as I looked at him, had on his hard hat Kember. Where did I hear that? Oh, that's the fellow that preaches to us all.

I thought, I wonder if he'll preach to me. How will I get him to preach to me? And I took one of those broken panes of glasses when he wasn't looking and I dropped it on the cement floor and it crashed. And then I started to curse and I cursed and I cursed and I cursed the Lord Jesus.

I cursed him because I said, I knew the phonies. They drank with me Saturday night and took up the collection in their church on Sunday morning. But if he's a real one, he won't like it.

And he come right over. He said, you shouldn't do that. I said, do what? He said, you shouldn't swear.

I said, I know that and God knows I don't mean it. He said, have you ever heard about being born again? I never heard that in my life. It's a long story.

I won't go into it anymore. But it ended up, he came out and visited me and visited me and visited me and I got saved. It was the Lord on my side.

I can't believe after all that cursing that he looked down and he won Max McLean in heaven. I don't know what your life is or who you are, what your name is, but I can tell you this, the Lord is on your side and wants you to be in heaven. He heard my cry.

He was awakened and he says he brought me up out of a horrible pit. If there was a pit, there was a wall. And if there's a wall, he couldn't get out.

Thank God it wasn't the bottomless pit, but he was brought up. He was brought up. God brought him up.

Have you made that big discovery yet that you're in a pit and you can't get out? You can't get out. And then it says he heard a call. He inclined his ear.

He has inclined his ear and he was listening. He was listening for Max McLean and he's listening for you. Listening.

I was with John Kember up north of Sudbury and we had meetings up there and a man's wife came out to the meetings that lived there and she got saved and we went to visit her husband. His name was Claire LaPage and he was a guide. There was people, he brought people from all over the United States come up for the hunting, the deer and the bear and the moose fishing.

And we went over to preach to him one afternoon. We were there for two hours and he kept telling us stories and we never got to the gospel. But he had a man from New York City that always came up every year for years.

And Claire was the guide. And he said to Claire one year, his wife told us this, he said, I want you to come to New York City and be my guest. And Claire said, I've never been out of this village all my life.

I'm coming to get you. And he made arrangements and he flew back up to where Claire lived up north there and he went with him and flew him down to his home in New York City. And he showed him New York City.

Amazed. And he took him down Broadway, walking down Broadway. And all the noise that would be on that, you can just imagine.

And they stood there going across the street and Claire said to him, his friend, I hear a cricket. And the man said, what? He said, I hear a cricket. I said, you don't hear no cricket, you're not home now, Claire.

And Claire looked around and there was a restaurant and some planter boxes. And he walked over and he lifted the flowers and out jumped a cricket. He said, I don't believe that.

Claire said, anybody can do that. Oh, Claire, he said, nobody could ever do that but you. Come here.

And he took him over to that restaurant and they stood on the steps. And Claire reached into his pocket and they picked out a coin. And all that crowd was still there.

And Claire flicked the coin. And when that coin hit the ground, all those people that were in that vicinity, maybe 15 around there, when the coin hit the ground, they all looked around. He said, you see, it just depends what you're listening for.

Now, I'm in this meeting and you're in this meeting. Can you hear the voice of God? God's speaking to you. And I'm just the noise.

Get by the preacher. God's here and he's speaking to you. He wants you in heaven.

He's heard my cry. And he listened. Are you crying for God? And it says he brought me up and he set my feet upon a rock.

Security. Security. Isn't that what you really wanted to know anyway? That your sins are forgiven? I used to wonder when he'd tell me, I know I'm going to heaven.

And I'd say to myself, nobody can be that sure. They're so sure. All these ones that I met, they're all sure.

Nobody can be that sure. He had established his goings. You can be sure that you're going to heaven.

And establish my new, my goings, a new direction, a new walk, a new people, and a new song. He's put a new song in my mouth. One of the devil's favorite best deceptions.

It's an unhappy life. I didn't, you know why I didn't want to get saved? I'd lose all my friends. If I get this, I'll lose all my, my brother-in-law.

When I got saved, about two days, my brother-in-law come out to see me. He said, get in the car. I said, I got in the car and he drove out to the cemetery in the little village of Oil Springs.

He shut it off and he said, Max, you're going to lose all your friends. I want to tell you, I got friends around the world. In Russia and Ukraine and here.

That was a song of deliverance. A song of deliverance. You know, one time we went to Washington, D.C. and we took the city tour.

And one place we went was the Ford Theater where Abraham Lincoln was shot. And we went in and we saw upstairs where they shot Lincoln. The chair was there and the crowbar that John Wilkes Booth put up on the door so nobody could come in.

And downstairs they had the little Derringer gun. It wasn't that long that shot Lincoln. But what I liked about that place, it was before typewriters.

And I don't know if you've ever gone down to the Ford Theater. They're down in the basement. It's a big round thing.

And there's all his writing. Beautiful handwriting in ink. And they were signed A. Lincoln.

And I walked around. And then I saw one. It was bigger than this, about twice as big as this.

And I read it. Now, this is fact. I'm going to tell you some fiction.

But this was fact. You know what it said? You have a prisoner. To the chief jailer, you have a prisoner in your prison by the name of Max McLean.

My signature on the bottom of this letter is that all that is required for his immediate release. And it was signed Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America. If they haven't moved it in 15 years since I've been there, but you can see that exactly what I just said.

But it was written for somebody. Now, this is making up. And I thought, they tell me you could get to see the president easier those days.

And I pictured some woman saying, can I see the president? And she walked in and she said, look, I know my son did wrong. But I need him. I can't do the work at the farm without him.

We let him out. And President Lincoln pulled out a pen and penned the letter. And she's walking down the street and she's happy and she's laughing.

And somebody said to her, what are you so happy about? She said, my son was in prison, but he's out. Oh, is he? Where is he now? In prison. Well, I thought you said he'd get out, read this.

And he'd read the letter. My signature on the bottom of this page. He's out and she gets down to the prison.

Can I see the chief warden here? Well, lady, he's busy. Here he comes now. Can I see you, mister? Hurry on.

I'm busy. I got a letter for you I'd like to read. And he looked at it.

What? McLean? We just put him in solitary confinement a few days ago for a month. Read it again. Jack, go get McLean.

Tell him to bring his clothes. What are we doing with him? He's free. You can't free that man.

Read this. Well, you say that was good for 150 years ago. But what about me? You know what? 59 years ago, last April the 4th at 11 o'clock at night, I got one.

Not from the president of the United States. If the sun shall set you free, you shall be free indeed. What about me? You're here tonight.

The king that we've been hearing about all weekend. He wants to set you free. And he's got a letter.

My signature. The son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Look, this is a wonderful salvation.

It's so wonderful. I couldn't hardly believe it. And the night I got saved, I went to work the next morning and I worked with a fellow and I saw them, Dave Kember, what they did to him.

And I said, I can't do that. And I walked up the door with Bud Mitchell. And he turned to me and he said, well, Max, what's new? And I said, what? What's new? What can I say? I said, well, Bud, last night about 11 o'clock, God saved me.

And he turned to me and said, well, isn't that nice? I preached to him all morning. Not out of this. I didn't know any of this.

But I preached to him all morning. I went home. Five-year-old boy.

We're sitting at the table. And I tried to give thanks and I got about four words out and I stopped and he looked at me and I said, we'll start again. I'd never given thanks for food in my life.

My wife said to me, get the butter out of the fridge, will you? I went over to get it out. I opened it. And there was three bottles of beer.

There was two miracles. How I was ever got down to three bottles of beer was unheard of. But then I wouldn't have a taste for it.

I used to be drunk twice a week. And I took the bottle out, one of the bottles, and I looked at it. It looked the same as it always did.

And I went and got the bottle opener and I opened it up and I smelled it. My wife said, she told me later, I thought, are we going back to this? And I took the other two bottles out and took the lids off of them and I walked over and I gave her the two. And I said, this is most likely caused you more trouble than has even me.

And the two of us walked over to the kitchen sink and we poured it down the sewer 59 years ago. And I've never had another drink. It's life changing.

God bless you. God save your precious soul, for God's sake.