Testimony, Robert Plant

A verse in the Word of God in 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 15, it says, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Now, the only time in my home that we ever went to church, chapel, or anywhere like that was for weddings or funerals. My parents weren't in any way religious, they certainly weren't Christian, but when my mother died, who died first, my parents had been married for 63 years.

In fact, my father even worked out 63 years, and so many months, and so many weeks, and so many days, and even to the hour, that my mother and he had been married. So although they weren't saved, they had a very long and happy marriage. But, I first heard the gospel through a friend at school, and he started witnessing to me at school.

He was odd, and I was odd. The reason that he was odd was because he didn't use the language we used, didn't go to the places we went, didn't read the material we read. The reason I was odd was because when everybody else was listening to the pop bands of the day, like ABBA and Brotherhood of Man, I was 20 years behind the times listening to Jim Reeves and Country and Western Music.

We were oddbods, and we got together, and we got friendly because we were the odd ones in the class. And he started telling me I needed to be saved, and amazingly, several months after he started telling me I needed to be saved, he found out he wasn't saved himself. When he thought the Lord had come, and he'd been left behind, well, Wesley got saved.

And if he was keen to witness to me before, he was doubly keen to witness to me after. Young people, if you're saved, don't be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it's the power of God unto salvation. And Wesley kept passing me, started passing me a little booklet called Our Daily Bread.

Back in those days, it came out every month. I believe now it's every three months. Radio Bible class.

And he used to pass them to me. Now, the problem was, we used to make fun of Wesley. We had nicknames for him.

He was the bishop. He was the archbishop. He was the vicar.

Or occasionally, if we wanted to be particularly bad towards him, he was the Pope. And we used to walk down in front of him, pretending to swing the old incense, as if he was the bishop. And we'd all say, Oh hail the archbishop! Make way! And we used to make fun of him.

Of course, when he started passing me these little gospel booklets, or daily reading booklets from the Bible, everybody started making fun of me. I was a Bible basher. I was his assistant.

He was the archbishop. I was the bishop. And so they started making fun of me.

Well, this embarrassed me. So I saw on the back of these booklets, it said distributed, free of charge. Now, I don't know in America if you've got a state or a city that's known for being tight.

But Yorkshire, in England, and Aberdeen, in Scotland, and Ballymena, in Northern Ireland, are known for being tight. In Yorkshire, we all tend to have short arms and deep pockets. In fact, we have a little Latin expression in Yorkshire, Brasso in Clutcho in Tacto.

It just means keep hold of your money and don't let go. And so when I saw distributed free of charge, well, that was wonderful. So I wrote away.

I said, would you mind sending me one copy of our daily bread every month, free of charge, until further notice. Lo and behold, a month later, a copy of our daily bread came through the post to me. I didn't want it to read it.

I wanted it to stop Wesley passing them to me in front of everybody else in the class. And one time, well, when they came through to me, Wesley came, he said, here's your our daily bread for this month, Robert. I said, thank you, Wesley.

Don't need it anymore. Get it through the post. Thank you very much.

On one occasion, Wesley said, or we were arguing, and I said, all right, Wesley, all right, believe it all, believe all the Bible, except those first few chapters about creation. A lot of nonsense. We come from monkeys.

Where's the proof? I said, well, scientists, you know, they've got the proof. Which scientists? All scientists. Show me the proof.

Right. Always one for a challenge. So I used to go to the library.

I used to read, still do. I used to read a lot. And so every week I was trying to read through the whole set of Biggles books.

You've probably never heard of Biggles over here, but Biggles was a pilot, almost lived as almost an exciting life as Murray. Fought in the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War. I think just about everyone that was going.

And Captain W.E. Johns wrote 135 of these wonderful books for young men about Biggles the pilot. And I was trying to read all 135. Never managed it.

Got to about 98. But I went in to get my Biggles books that I hadn't read. And I said, where's your section on evolution, please? And so I went to have a look.

First book I pulled off the shelf. The very first words were the theory of evolution. Second book, second paragraph, the theory of evolution.

Third book, second page, the theory of evolution. Huh. That put my argument about us coming from monkeys on fairly shaky ground.

One night in May 1981, I couldn't sleep. I didn't know that before then, Wesley had said to his parents, he said, I don't know what to do anymore with Robert. For four years I've witnessed to him, given him booklets, even get some sent to him himself.

What do I do? His father said, Wesley, if you want God to open a door, you need to shut a door. And you need to go in to your closet and pray. And that family prayed for me.

One Wednesday night in May 1981, I couldn't sleep. Now, I'm a good sleeper, usually. And I was tossing and turning and finally, I decided I would read one of these books.

Now, I'm a hoarder, still am. Can't throw anything away. Never know when it'll come in useful.

Little bits of wood, little screws that you don't know what they belong to. You never know when they'll come in handy. And I couldn't throw away these books.

There they were, piled up at the side of my bed, about 18 inches high. Our Daily Bread. But every month, you not only got Our Daily Bread, the daily reading book, but you got a little Bible, a study book.

Or you got two. You maybe got one on a character in the Bible. You maybe got one of a book of the Bible, one on a doctrine in the Bible.

And so I never read them, just put them on this on this shelf. And this night, I picked up the top one. It was called Heaven, Our Eternal Home.

It's all about heaven. It was written for believers. Told you about heaven.

What was in heaven? Who was in heaven? Why they were in heaven? Also told you what wasn't in heaven. I realized that was the category that I came into. Read all 32 pages.

Never even felt tired. So I picked up the next book. They'd come together.

It was called Heaven and how to get there. It was based on the book of Romans, the three R's. Man's ruin, God's remedy, man's responsibility.

Man's ruin, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I picked up that much from the first book, Heaven, Our Eternal Home. I knew my sin would keep me out of heaven.

Then I realized there was God's remedy. But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I realized that God loved me and Christ had died to save me.

And then it took you to Romans 10 and 9. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Still the same today. Anybody here not saved? Listen, thou shalt be saved through faith in Christ alone and nothing else.

Well, the booklet never told me to, but I felt that the only thing I could do was get out of bed. I kneel at the side of my bed and I rested everything on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. I was saved.

My dear friend, are you saved? Are you forgiven? Are you cleansed? Are you ready for heaven? Is Christ your Savior? I tell you, this would be the best day in your life and the best conference you will ever attend if it's the day that you start for heaven through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Heaven, and how to get there? It's not through anything that the preachers do. Not through anything the preachers say.

Not through anything that you can do. It's all through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. When he paid the price in drops of precious blood upon the cross, and the Bible tells me this, the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanseth us from all sin.

You want to be saved? Here's how. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.