Near-drowning experience of Scott Hayes

I'm certainly certainly glad for everyone who's made an effort to come along tonight to Listen to my testimony and a little bit of my past experience I assume everybody pretty well knows a little bit of what I want to talk about But let's start reading from verse from Psalm 69 the 69th Psalm I want to tell you a little bit about my Growing up years and a few things there and my mother my mother hasn't been out of the home for quite a while But she's my honored guest and she's here tonight. So she'll keep me truthful. Okay Psalm 69 verse 1 Save me O God for the waters are come into my soul.

I sink in deep mire where there's no standing I am come into deep waters where the floods overflow me. Let's go to Romans chapter 5 Romans chapter 5 Some of you heard me read these verses many times and I like to read them backwards of the order they're found in Romans chapter 5 and verse 12 Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned There's my beginning at verse 12 now, here's the answer to that problem in verse 6 For when we were yet without strength in due time Christ died for the ungodly For scarcely for a righteous man will one die yet peradventure for a good man. Some would even dare to die But God and that's in contrast that's in contrast to man in verse 7 But God commendeth his love toward us in there while we were yet sinners Christ died for us And if we have taken advantage of that simple fact and put our trust in him then we have verse 1 Therefore being justified by faith.

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ Now I haven't been checked for quite a while, but I don't think I have any water left in my lungs I don't think I have any residual whatsoever from my my near drowning accident except for one thing It's left me a little bit more emotional than I used to be. And so We may have to deal with that. We may not it kind of is unpredictable, but I'll just I'll just warn you But it is there.

Okay, I want to ask to start off by asking you a simple question It's unusual to start off with this question in the gospel me, but Do you know how to swim? No Well, that's a simple answer. That's exactly what's looking for a simple answer Now somebody else might say yes But I'll bet you if it was one-on-one and I says do you know how to swim out in the hall left? well, I would get all these answers like kinda a little bit some depending Yeah for me. It was like well Yeah If nobody gets in my way in a calm pool I can swim across but I've always said if I ever fall out of a boat I'm dead Now last night we were over at my My mom's were visiting my mom's there and I got you know, she reminds pretty good when you go back 50 years and I says 50 years ago mom.

I was taking swimming lessons Whatever possessed you to think I needed to swim in lessons What was that about that was that was out of character for me to go to Ryan Beck and go swimming It's the swimming lessons and she says well, you know, I just think everybody else was I guess we thought all the other kids were doing it would send you over to swimming lessons to with your brothers there and It'll probably he remembers these details much better than I do, of course, he'll fill me in later what I'm missing but I Remember going to the school lessons and she said well, I don't think it hurt you any I think it Kinda you kind of learned a little bit how to swim. Now. Here's the difference between your mother and your wife My mother she's trying to find the good and give me a little credit and my wife looks like he don't know how to swim Let's Go to a let's go to a different type of question that that question that question is not a good question It has too many answers.

See I swim a little over kind or a little bit or conditions. I give you a different question This is the kind of question. I grew up facing more than than swimming Are you going to heaven? Well, well kind of well, well maybe well it depends on the conditions it That's kind of hard, isn't it? No, is the answer still no See I grew up.

I grew up in all in a home Where those answers where I knew the answer to that question? I didn't have to stop and think like maybe some of you you're not sure I Sometimes wonder what are the priorities in our lives? so I grew up on a farm not very about, you know, 15 miles west of here just out of stout and And Swimming was not a priority for me. That was not important the Creek was a was about six inches deep down the road that we played in and I didn't really have to Know how to swim there and I've never went to a swimming pool No priority was not there It was far more important for me that I know how to drive a John Deere 50 with a hand clutch That was real. That was what I did.

That's what I love to do. That was what was important. That was my priority But mom had a little bit different priorities for us mom and dad both and that priority Was wasn't swimming wasn't the tractor It was our soul Are we right with God? Are we prepared to meet God as young boys growing up? And so what that involved was was going to Sunday school going to gospel meetings looking at a chart like this Well some of you have perhaps if this would be an unusual thing to look at a chart like this for me That was that would then nothing new There was a broad way.

There was that narrow way And that wasn't complicated to me and you could ask me on any day when I was quite young Which road are you on? I said, I'm on that broad road. I'm going down to hell. Do you want to be it? I don't know.

What do you got to go? I don't when you're gonna go. I don't know But I just knew that it was there and that's what we were brought up with So, let me go back let me go back those 50 years I Think I was maybe nine Sid helped me out five it was like nine years old. I went to swimming lessons probably pretty close 50 years ago exactly and Like I say I didn't I should have been in the younger kids with him I should have been in there with the water wings I suppose but now you don't want to wear water wings anymore So yeah, they stuck me in an older class and I didn't do very well And I remember on the last day we kind of had to take this test and here's here's Scott You can walk in water.

You know that three feet deep. I could just walk across I have my head in the water Do you think anybody called home and said hey he didn't pass the test no Who cares it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you know how to swim or not does it for the most part? For the most part doesn't matter So here two months ago Here I am on the the beach in Mexico two o'clock on a Monday afternoon 80 degrees and the Sun is shining and it's absolutely perfect and and there we are And we're walking down the beach make it clear down to this point where there's a where the river runs into the into the ocean and it was Extreme low tide.

I've never been there was quite that Far down before I checked out the tides it drops about five feet from high to low tide and this river is Got all these little fingers going across this big huge sandbar And I know some of you have been there, and you've seen it You know exactly what I'm talking about and somebody last week says you're were you crazy to go You know that little stream was about a foot deep. Maybe a little more two ladies had just walked across it and They came back with these shells and I wasn't what did you go once you go across and get me a couple of those Well no problem, I would do that for her if that's what she wanted. I'll do it and You know I stepped out in there and within two three steps I have to say the closest thing it felt like was was when I was sitting on a Sitting on a bench at a at a dunk tank And you know when that dunk tank is tripped if you've ever been there when you're in the water And you're no you're here to be faster than you can even think you're under the water It's that quick, and that's instead of being in a dunk tank.

I found myself in the Pacific Ocean Now all of a sudden you want a little more relevant question all of a sudden in your life Do you know how to swim Scott? Do you know how to swim? Yeah, kinda My mother says I'll help you a little bit well When the real test came it wasn't enough I didn't know how to swim my wife. She knows me far better knows what I act like in the water She's no you can't swim So there I was One big gulp the first time I went under one big gulp of water And I came up, and I wasn't very far away, but I could immediately feel it man There is this water this isn't like being in a swimming pool the water was just like it was pulling me down the water that was pouring over from that river and a riptide coming across the other way and there I was and I thought I looked at my wife just a few feet away, and she's looking at me I Says Kim. I'm gonna drown I Can't make That was my first I Remember scanning across the beach looking across there And you know what I saw this beach probably was 90% people that were over 70 years old and of course half of them would Be women and the amount of people that would be able to jump in there and swim me I could was going to be extremely extremely small, and I just looked across that beach, and I was There's nobody here.

There's nobody here, and I remember Very clearly in my mind my last thought being this is where it all ends You know what? None of you know how much money I have in my 401k. I just last week I can start using that now. I've got some money in there.

I own some land I've got some of the greatest grandkids in the world still find my wife's still an attractive young lady to me But you know what? Was over It was life was over right there, I knew I was done You know the Lord Jesus himself asked a very important question What shall it profit a man what shall profit a man if he gained the whole world and Lost his soul You could bring that into Take that a little out of context. What was it? What was everything I had saved up here I was enjoying my early retirement on the beach in Mexico, and what was it in comparison to drowning in the ocean? He said that's kind of Kind of kind of a strange sad ending wouldn't it be? One thing one thing I've changed if I could have those five seconds back One thing I would have done. I would said Kim.

I love you I Didn't do it You know I didn't have time to think there wasn't enough time, but you know what you know why I wish I would have said Why I don't think I didn't say that Because so ingrained in me and you and every one of us is that thought I? Still have I have 15 seconds. I have one more breath and with my next breath. I'll tell her that I didn't have time To think that but I think in the unconsciously that's why I didn't unconsciously I Still surely I can fight this off.

I can tread water for 30 seconds Can I and you know I remember looking and and I was about this deep in the water because I couldn't do any better And the next wave came and it went right over my head and gulp I Would like to have thought I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed as I stand here. I've been I've been hit nearly a car accident I remember driving a little Volkswagen Rabbit about the worst thing you could be in for a head-on collision and seeing a car straight in front of these headlights coming at Me and I swerved and it swerved and we Made it and then when that car was right there.

I think God helped me You know that was my thought, but you know as I was there in that water I'm afraid I'm afraid my real thought was even God Even God can't help me in this one. I'm done And you know that next wave Went over my head I Thought if you if you drown that there must be there must be that struggle I was thinking that the intense pain the agony of the struggle of trying to fight your way through it And it wasn't there I was just unconscious You know I've asked a doctor friend. I says do you think my mind do you think I was able to block that out of my? memory The the pain of of what I was going through is that water as I sucked that salt water in do you think I blocked That out or was I really unconscious.

She's you're unconscious She says that's how long it takes you ran out of oxygen, and you are immediately unconscious and so there I was Now why for the next five minutes For the next five minutes. I'm unconscious underwater in the Pacific Ocean and they said hi I floated as If I was standing on the bottom with the water at about the top of my head Between my forehead right somewhere in here and there I am bobbing up and down now Why you couldn't float six inches higher than that I have no idea, but I never disappeared I never went under and did not come back up. I stayed right there and Meanwhile a few minutes before this back up at the resort swimming pool there was a There was two families there they had boys Two boys eight and a boy ten two young couples and somebody told him They should take those boys down to the river Down at the end of the beach and they might see stingrays down there if they're low tide at this time of the day they Might see them stingrays down there, and so they thought that sounded like something unique to do they were gonna head down there And they thought you know just in case the boys get in the water.

We'll make sure they take their life preservers along Now I looked before and I've looked every day since on the beach And I haven't seen a life preserve on that beach one single time but here come a boy here come three boys with the life preservers and They get down to the beach about the time Kim is frantically trying to find somebody that might be able to rescue me and They come to the end Here Kim pleading for help and the first man his name is is Pat and he can swim His wife told me she could swim better But she didn't try it Pat jumped into the ocean and you know what he immediately had to try and get back out He immediately tried to save himself Climbing back out And he was surprised at how steep the drop-off was and how steep the steep the current was and it took everything he had to Get himself out of that water, and he realized he was never gonna try and save me They started calling for a man by the name of Stuart Swenson the other father And he's off by himself about 50 yards away. I understood it from him and remember it He's maybe 50 yards down and he gets in the ocean down there, and he's like whoa this this isn't safe There's a this is a strong current And this is a sharp drop-off, and he gets back out of the water, and he hears his wife Hollering for him to come to help to save this person and His first thought is it's what his boy or one of the three boys is in the water he's like how did they ever let them boys into the water like that and Well it turned out. It was me, but his wife had just enough She made him stop.

They took the life vest off of the boy And he took that life vest with him and now Approximately five minutes as has passed, and I'm still Starting to drift away, and he jumps in comes to me with the life vests and pulls me pulls me up now I Didn't think at first that this is the right timing for this, but it seemed like at that time. I was having this Nightmare it'd be the best way to describe it You know if you've ever had a bad dream and like you've just trying to force yourself to wake up to get out of this Thing and it was just like I was kicking and pushing and and for all I was worth and I had to wake myself up I had to get out of this darkness and For just a split second I woke up and I looked at this man And the reason I think it was at this point in the time because I heard somebody say Don't fight him Don't fight him Because and that was my wife Because she had tried to rescue somebody once upon once a time when she was a youngster And you know what they did they climbed on top of her head And held her down to boost themselves to lift themselves up, and she knew don't fight him Just go with whatever he does And you know I was immediately Unconscious and Stuart thought that he was going to just pull me back into the shore And he realized with that current it was hopeless. There was nothing he could do and For the next 15 minutes we drifted away.

We drifted approximately. I don't know how you can figure it out However far you can see to what you can't see a person's head in the ocean anymore probably close to a mile And we're out there a mile away And I was hoping when I met Stuart that he was gonna say how was it was a piece of cake you know I? Could have gone stayed out there all day, and he said no He says I didn't know you don't know how many times. I thought I was gonna have to let you go He says his first impression when he first got to me was the man's already dead.

What is the point? And he said how why should I? Risk my life. I have a wife and a young son there Why should I risk my life to save a dead person, but they thought how can I go back? How can I ever go back to my wife and to my boy and sit and tell him? I let him go without even trying and so away we went You know my I had the easy part I had the easy part of this whole thing I didn't have any work to do I wasn't conscious, so I didn't know what was going on. I was very comfortable and Stewart's wife had a terrible time with it my wife was watching The three boys they had the three boys praying the three boys told me afterwards He said we filled we filled that boat up with prayers.

You know I appreciate that tonight And those boys praying for me, but there we were drifting away You know I Regained consciousness somehow at that somewhere along the line toward the end of those 15 minutes. I regained consciousness and to listen to Stewart Screaming at a fishing boat way off in the distance and now Pat the other man Was running along the shore waving his arms trying to attract the attention of a of small just a little tiny Old old fishing boat with three men in it going across the bay out there and he finally got those men's attention and Painfully slow that boat stopped Turned and started coming back, and you know that's the point I I regained a little consciousness was listening to Stewart Screaming at this boat for those guys to hurry up. He couldn't take it anymore He said every time he couldn't hold on any longer He'd have to switch hands and I'd go back under the water every time a little bigger wave would come I'd be back underneath the water again You know then he started having me count and a few things like that And I I was a little bit conscious, but you know that that fishing boat eventually got got there, and I really I remember My consciousness getting a little clearer, and I remember being two feet in front of that Piece of junk boat that meant the world to me at that moment and there was that boat right there But you know what I could do to save myself.

I couldn't even I couldn't even keep my eyes open Let alone save myself. You know there was a man Somebody has asked me if I thought Stewart wasn't an angel I'll leave that the theologians. I don't know he seems like a normal person to me He happened to be Though I I missed this who was who was Stuart Swenson Out of all the people on that place That couldn't have saved me Stuart Swenson's got a he's got a purpose in life He has inherited through a bankruptcy a gym And he is training said to be a he wants to do an Ironman triathlon where they swim What is it three miles and bike a hundred and run? 26 miles and so that's what the man's training for so he has purchased a swimming pool That is an endless pool where the waves do the current just comes at you And you just swim and swim and swim and swim, and I had a little contact with him Friday I guess it wasn't he says I'm on my way to the I'm on the way to a college to train today with a college Swimming coach he says I need to get better.

I need to get better at swimming That's the man. That's the man that was there when I needed him, and you know so there To me is an incredible thing out of all the people in the world there was one person there when I needed him and that was that was Stuart, but there was another man in this boat and They referred to him as Mexican GQ he was they called him. They said he was just dressed immaculately groomed everything perfect And when he was in that boat, and he thought you know how our minds work we run through the negative side I bet the guy was maybe he was a drug dealer and when he because as soon as we got there He was gone.

He just disappeared, and he didn't want to talk to anybody. He didn't want to be seen must have been a drug dealer You know I was talking about this Gary Gary Southerly I was telling him about this man when that that man in his beautiful clothes when he saw me in the water They said he never hesitated. He was off that boat.

He just dove headfirst into the water. He was there the man He raised me up. He was the man that put me in the boat Gary says that wasn't a drug dealer.

That's your angel there Well, I appreciate him. Whatever. I never never caught up with him.

I never caught up with the man on the boat But I appreciate what they did You know they soon as they got me in the boat We took off for the for the for the dock a few miles away And I remember the waves come I regained enough consciousness to feel that I can remember hitting those waves lying on that hard boat with the ribs on the bottom of the boat and Then I remember I started to to cough up all this this blood and and water and it was it was a mess But for the most part I was I was unconscious But I I remember somebody saying at some point these little lines would come out that I could remember and somebody say you know all that blood can't be a good sign, and I thought whoa I was starting to think maybe and Here's and here's Stuart, and he's he's just hollering at me. You're not dying today, buddy You're not gonna die today, and you know I eventually I think I started to believe I'm not gonna die today I've got another chance here I'm gonna make it and you know by the time we got to the got to the ambulance all I could say was the man Saved my life. I'm telling these guys this man.

Just saved my life and And Stuart still saying you're not gonna die today, but then you know I remember hearing this about the blood and some of these things They got me into the ambulance, and I kind of seemed like I was fairly clear there But then I was gone again, but then I remember in the in the emergency room. I hear one thing I remember hearing somebody say this man either does a lot of cardio exercise Or he's dying right now because he doesn't have much a very He's got a very slow heart rate, and I remember thinking I'm okay on that one. Yeah, I'm okay I Have a slow heart rate But you know I was in a in a coma the doctor says you're in a coma for the next for the next 10 hours I woke up in the middle of the night after After those 10 hours, and I was I was wide awake.

I didn't went back to sleep. I was extremely conscious and It was not a good night I had I had a lot of thoughts of you know I was supposed to be on this machine And I couldn't take it anymore in this this nurse couldn't speak English And I don't speak Spanish, and I don't know if we communicated right or not But I was supposed to be on this machine which was helping pump the water out of me, and it was Got incredibly uncomfortable, and she tightened that up, and I was just like I was drowning all over again in oxygen and She finally just ripped the machine off shut the machine off Went over went back to her desk went back to sleep And all I could think of was what am I doing now am I killing myself? I got having this machine on and it was a miserable time But by the morning I had to say I felt I felt pretty good And I went the doctor come in I says doc when you think when you think I'm getting out of here Well, I didn't realize I didn't have much oxygen in my blood, but he says listen. I want you to know something You have been extremely and I said Extremely close to death just because you've made you've made a dramatic recovery, but you were extremely close to death He said now just relax, and you know it wasn't too hard for the next few days I just sat there.

I don't know how many times you know you rerun it over and over in your mind Finally after two days they stuck me into a room where I had a window. It was first I couldn't see anything if I put me in a room with a window, and I could see people walking out their ways You can't imagine I didn't I didn't it didn't bother me at all to be in there I thought just just to be able to see him out there everything was real everything was was you know what over and over over I'm alive. I'm alive So a few days later I they Checked my oxygen.

I was just about Okay, I had a little water left in one lung I was dismissed I was saved But I want to look at a few things now go back go back 50 years ago again 50 years ago, how was I brought up? I was brought up knowing I needed to be saved Saved from drowning no never entered my mind Saved from what? Saved from my sins I Knew I was going to hell you could have told me that but you really didn't have to and if you would have told me You wouldn't have had to convince me because see every day in my life. I Lived out those things that proved. I was a sinner.

I was not like God and So here we have these verses verse 12. We read that all have sinned And what was the answer to that in verse 6 for when we were yet without strength Talk about being without strength when I was in that water I've never felt so hopeless so helpless could not do one single thing to save myself And that's the beauty of this verse here That that is when Christ died for us when there was nothing we could do ourselves That's when Christ died Now look at this for scarcely For a righteous man will one die There are people willing to give their life to die for somebody else I Wonder if you would do that Would you be willing to die for somebody else? Maybe somebody really close to us. Maybe somebody really special But you know when I think of when I think of Stuart I think of a man who jumped in to save a total stranger, and I realized He never thought it was going to be like it was he thought it was only going to last a minute He thought he was going to jump in and we're going to be back out, but at the same time Whatever lay before him he could have left me go.

He could have left me go at any time What was another thing about the man who saved me He could have stayed on the beach he could have looked out there and What a fantastic person he would have been if he could win the escape from Alcatraz swimming race Which he's training for now if he could win that race Man, he'd probably get his name in the in the local paper up there in Minnesota. What an athlete he would be What a capable swimmer and he could have stayed on the beach But you know what he did he came to where I was And that was the low place And you know I think of the Lord Jesus You see the Savior had to be most both capable and willing Whatever that cost whatever it was going to entail he was willing to do it And that's where Stuart jumped into that water. He came down.

What's the water? Just go to baptism per minute what when we think of baptism What does the water speak of of going under it's a place of death, and you know that's where I was I was in the place of death He left to myself It was inevitable probably another minute. Maybe less and That's the place Stuart came to and where did the Lord Jesus come to came into this sinful world What did that entail going to Calvary You know I had somebody asked me another question. I'll ask this one to you now You didn't answer verbally, and I don't want you to but the first question was can you swim? Doesn't matter does it not much for most of you.

It'll never matter Are you saved Some of you would say yes And some of you would say no Now I've got a question for you. Here's the question that was asked to me I was a senior in high school. I could look back on a calendar.

I could come up with the same exact date It was just before Christmas of 1972 and I came home from school I rode the bus and I came home, and this was a setup deal my mom's got fresh chocolate chip cookies My favorites on the kitchen table, and she's in the other room with this gospel preachers wife And I'm left here with a gospel preacher sitting in the rocking chair in the corner And he looks at me and says Scott would you like would you like to be saved? Is that a fair question today? Would you like to be saved? If you're not saved, and you know what you need to be saved It should be an easy question would you like to be saved? Now I hope you weren't aren't tonight like I was then see I'm always afraid when I look at an audience like this Those people if they think like I do then we're hurt and we're in trouble here tonight because you know what I told the preacher That's no This is I don't want to be saved because Look, I know how to get saved and if I wanted to be saved I would be saved well, that's That's a pretty cocky attitude isn't it for a young man to have towards God, but yet. That's that's what the way I was If I really felt that way, but that's what I told him that night But you know I was going to a series of meetings there in 72 that started in stout with Gayus Goff and and Robert or and Robert or was the preacher that asked me the question and Those meetings went on and I started thinking One night was a pretty small crowd, and I thought I'm about the only unsaved person here I thought this is they should have canceled the meeting tonight, and you know all the Christians they could have had the night off and I Could have went to the basketball game. That's why there wasn't my brothers were there They're go to the basketball game sip is playing basketball.

I could have went to the basketball game everybody could have been happy and That what if what if they're having this meeting for one? Person what if they're having this gospel meeting for me, and I don't even care wouldn't that be kind of crazy And you know what I kind of started listening. That was a it was a bad snowstorm that night That's why there are so few people there. I remember and you know Gayus had a lot of stories that seemed like about snowmobiles going through the ice and people Dying in Newfoundland and fishing boats lost in the fog and people perishing nice I could listen to those stories But then I had this switch, and I just shut the gospel back off And it seemed like it just seemed like in my mind.

I cannot have fun I cannot have fun in this world and be a Christian I can't be both and I would want to have my fun first because see ingrained in my mind is That time there's always more time right down to my last final breath surely there's one more breath left in me None of us tonight none of us know do we? And there I was living in That precarious situation of knowing that I was on the broad road I was going down toward that death pillar which I could cross at any time You know when I stepped out on that little bit of sand in that stream running that day I had no more thought of danger Than you had crossing Walnut Street this evening If you parked on the other side and walked across the street. Yeah, you looked for cars No problem Cars come over the hill pretty fast. Yeah, that's okay.

You know what you're doing. You can cross it I was the same way everything is okay. No problem here.

We'll just walk across here and Look what happened? You know I started paying attention to those guys I started thinking if there's such a thing as being saved maybe I start paying attention I Remember on Saturday Saturday was we were had the chores done. We lived on a farm. Dad was still out finishing up the chores and I was in the house.

We're right and waiting for supper. Mom was just finishing up the supper there and The phone rang and I remember standing there listening in the kitchen to mom talking on the phone and That afternoon had been a nice afternoon and my uncle and his boys my cousins Had been cutting down a tree with a chainsaw up at Plainfield, and they cut that tree down And you thought there were three smart adult men. They would have known they couldn't tell which way that tree was gonna fall They ran three different directions and the tree landed on top of my uncle killed him instantly All right Until that moment I really Was not serious.

I did not want to be saved until that moment my mother hung up the phone I could tell pretty much what it happened my mother hung up the phone. She asked me another question. Here's another question for you, okay? Scott don't you ever think you need to be saved And I would have to say if there was never a time before that when I thought I had to be saved There was never a time in my life after that when I didn't think I need to be saved And you know I went to the gospel meetings after that a little different I went to that funeral a little different.

It was a terrible funeral for me I I couldn't hardly look into the casket of my uncle thinking if that had been if that had been me You didn't have to I didn't have to wonder you didn't have to tell me I knew I was not prepared to meet God To meet God I had to have a day of salvation that was for my earliest Sunday school was was John chapter 3 verse 3 Accept a man be born again. He cannot see the kingdom of God You familiar with that verse tonight? It's there you know and I just got back just got back from Africa and I appreciate the Honesty of the African people when you present them with the gospel And we're passing out this these Gospels of John's by the thousand and it tells you Read the Gospel of John start at chapter 3 read chapter 3 read chapter 3 every single day And you know what these people say I know I know I need to be saved. I know I'm not right with God I'm confused.

Can you help me can somebody tell me what these words mean? It's hard to find somebody in Iowa that would say tonight. Will you help me? Will you sit down with a Bible and those people every day you'd meet somebody can somebody help me understand what these words mean? Well, you didn't have to explain to me what John chapter 3 verse 3 meant It meant that there was a time in your life when you became a Christian. It was an instantaneous thing It wasn't something that you grew up into it wasn't anybody Baptized you into it wasn't something somebody confirmed you into it was between you and God It was when the day when you came to an end to yourself when you rise you were the one without strength and you put Your trust your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's how a person became born again. That's how a person became saved and so Those meetings went on and Nothing really happened. I mean I was I was concerned I was troubled but they closed and I didn't get saved I went the next in the next full year almost and I was I was always in the back of my mind It's Scott.

You need to be saved, but I never got any farther You know Gaius Goff came back then in 1974 in in January with with Albert Hall to evangelists young guys and Boy right from the beginning. I was interested. I was I was concerned.

I was listening. I remember I Was going to Hawkeye Community College at the time was Hawkeye Tech and I was driving from out there stout and One afternoon after school I was coming home and out there on about Hammond in 412 it was at that time and I got to that corner and here was a Semi and the semi had tried to miss the corner They didn't know what happened had missed the corner I was hauling a load of hogs to down to the wrath pack and that load of hogs went upside down and here's all these hogs and they're walking around in this in this Creek here and Half of them are dead and half of them are walking around but I could stand there and I was just Looking this scene over. It was a mess and In in the cab, I could see there's the driver and the driver's dead And you know what? I thought I Wish I was a hog.

I wish I had been born a pig because really a pig doesn't have that bad of a life and Even if he did when it's all over Then he just dies and he's gone and nothing really matters And it doesn't matter if he had a good life or bad life was a good pig a bad pig. He's just gone But there's the driver and I of course didn't have any idea who that driver was But I knew one thing the driver was now in eternity. He had passed the death pillar.

He was on the other side he was never coming back and he was gonna meet God and If the driver was immaterial to me What was real to me is again if that was me if that was me they're crushed in the cab ready to meet God. I Had no hope You know is when I started thinking that way I became just as helpless I really honestly would tell you tonight when that boat was two feet in front of my face. I felt helpless I began to feel the same feeling at 18 years of age When I considered my sins I Want to tell you something I Don't believe anybody has to go through what I went through to get saved I believe you could get saved in this meeting right here tonight whether you're 10 years old or 110 years old It's not as complicated as I made it But I do believe if you're a 17 year old smart Alec that thinks you know more than God does and you challenge God That you're probably gonna have to be humbled and you're probably gonna have to realize that God doesn't have to just give you this salvation because now okay now on my terms.

I'm ready and you know what I had to realize I Had to become without strength. That's what this verse says for when we were yet without strength You know I had to realize there's nothing nothing I could do I Remember a Friday the last Friday night the second February 1st the second Friday night of those meetings well the first Friday night. I remember Going to a basketball game said was playing basketball, and that was just what I did It's something to do I go to the basketball game, and I didn't really much care about it But I was I was there to have something to do and you know it was obvious I was this this macho young boy And I wasn't it was like a sign of weakness for me to go to a gospel meeting over a basketball game And so when the time came I had to decide and I'm going to the basketball game And I remember sitting there.

I had a friend friend home from college and Most of I made friends didn't go to college and and he'd gone away And he came back and that night after the basketball game. I'm gonna take you boys out I'm gonna show you what I've learned about this world and drinking and picking up girls and everything else and I'll show you guys how to have a good time and I Said I'm sick, and I was sick Wasn't I wasn't physically sick. I felt great, but you know what I was sick of this world I came to realize that this is the best this world has I thought here's 500 people packed into this gym and What's the concern? Who wins this basketball game and by tomorrow morning it won't even have hardly mattered and Eight miles down the road.

There's a gospel meeting going on and there's people that care about where I'm gonna spend eternity That's not now who are my real friends You know when the next Friday night came along. I went to the gospel meeting. It was a basketball game I could have went to the I was past that I realized See now we're back to priorities.

What's real? It's driving a tractor real yeah, is it a real priority is swimming a real priority is like Getting my soul safe return. Is that the priority? Maybe it should be it is because see We really don't set the priorities and your parents don't really set them God sets the priorities and if God has valued you and your soul worth more than the whole world Then that's what the priority is and that's what's real and that's what's important and it's important tonight You know I went to the meeting that Saturday that Friday night And I was going out out the door and they stopped me This is would you like to talk to the preacher sometime and boy by this time? I was I was ready to talk to somebody. I just couldn't seem to I thought like this I'd be able to figure this out I wasn't that stupid I could figure this out But I I couldn't figure it out and I stayed that night and I read verses with mr. Hall and I I hadn't cried for a long time, but I couldn't I couldn't hardly read the verses for the tears that night and Guess what nothing happened.

I didn't get saved. I went home the same way I came I knew I was still a lost sinner the next morning was Saturday morning, February the 2nd 1974 There's a man here tonight, and I used to work for him He was a farmer and Larry called and wanted me to go to work. I didn't know it at the time and My mother's just wise enough.

I never did find out he called I Stayed in bed. We did not stay in bed. You talk to you guys some of you guys sleep in we didn't sleep in But I stayed in bed that morning and I had my Bible and I had these tracks and I had these verses and I just stayed there and I think I think my brother Sid went and worked for Larry that Saturday morning And I just stayed there and I struggled to the point where You know, what was the white? What was my wife's advice? Don't fight it.

There was nothing more I could do. I Didn't voluntarily give up when I was in the Pacific Ocean. I didn't voluntarily give up I would have fought it to the end, but I couldn't But you know when I was helpless when I was just there when I was limp That man could take me and I didn't have to fight him I didn't try and climb on top of his head and push him down and to save myself I couldn't do it and that Saturday morning.

I couldn't do it either But you know, I couldn't seem to get it figured out at 10 minutes quarter to 12 I Was still in bed quarter to 12 on Saturday morning And I thought you know what I knew people had they struggled with this and they've struggled and struggled I thought it's only takes a moment to get saved And I thought I'm not gonna go on with my life Struggling if I can't get saved today, I'll never be saved I'm gonna give up and I thought at 12 o'clock. I'm getting up and I'll never go to another gospel meeting I'll never open a Bible. It doesn't matter.

I'm going to hell. I might as well be the worst sinner out there I'm going to hell anyhow. It doesn't make any difference And you know then I went back my next thought okay, how do I know I'm going to hell anyway See, that's where I had been a year before when I challenged God.

How do I know all this is real? How do I know I'm going to hell? How do I know I'm a lost sinner? I thought the Bible the Word of God tells me I'm going to hell and you know what for the first time in my life Maybe I just believed that I accepted that as truth the next thought was The same Bible the same Word of God Tells me that Christ died for my sins and just like I believed I was going to hell because I wasn't safe. I Put all my trust in The Lord Jesus Christ and you know, I knew right there it's done. I'm saved I Went back.

I read some of those verses I got up supper time didn't saying supper time. I told my mom I says mom. I think I got saved Mom's cautious person.

She says don't tell anybody She says go take your Bible and I went back and I read all those verses. I came back down as my I don't know I can't I can't see it any any way else every verse I read tells me that Christ died for my sins I was saved I couldn't be any other way You Know a couple days after my accident I was in an elevator with a couple ladies and it was easy to talk about it a lot of people had heard about it And I was just telling us in there, you know how people are and we how we all are worth America We're not charismatics and this is so you you believe in Miracles, I do today I says Do you believe in being saved I do today I Hope you do too. I Just want to say, you know Some of you here tonight and there's there's pain And I can I can identify with a little bit and I want to be very careful, you know God in his sovereignty spared my life Not because I deserved it but he did and here I am tonight And some of you've lost love and something I think I think a little Isaiah.

What was he five or six years old and God didn't spare his life in there. Here we are tonight And I can't explain that to you And I can sympathize with you. I Said we can't we don't want to get bitter about things We want to be real Let me just ask you tonight Are you saved? Do you want to be saved? Here's the answer you can be saved I've had something on my mind.

I want to just take a few more minutes I wasn't sure I could take a whole hour and here it is, but You know, I've been reading a little bit lately I've been reading some war war stories I don't I don't want to think we should get too far away from what some people have endured as Soldiers fighting for this country and I've been reading some some novels and and I was just reading last night about about some World War two prisoners and what they went through and the terrible things that one man can do to another and there was our our u.s. prisoners these Australian prisoners of war against the Japanese and they're over there in the in the Pacific Corridor and there's a hundred men and there's a hundred men and they're building a road or railroad and they each have a shovel a hundred men in a group with a hundred shovels and the day is over and they come back in and they count the shovels and one shovel is missing and The Japanese won't tolerate it They will not tolerate one shovel missing and they line them up they got everybody lined up and they want the man who's didn't bring a shovel back to step forward and he'll be executed on the spot and Nobody steps forward And the Japanese soldier says no problem You can all die. We have a hundred bolt. We'll shoot up.

We'll all yellow die unless one man wants to step forward And you know the story is told One man stepped forward shot him Turns out there was a hundred shovels He Died and 99 men lived another day But let's take that story one step farther Let's put you let's put me in that lineup of a hundred men and Let's say there's one shovel missing This has been enough about me tonight, let's make it about you. It's your shovel that's missing You got tired of carrying that shovel and you left it there because you didn't feel like bringing it back besides you were extremely tough and couldn't hardly get it back you did not bring your shovel back and Now you're asked to step forward and out of these hundred men There's two people that know it's your shovel that's missing and the other person that saw you leave your shovel You don't even like that person You've never liked that person you've said bad things about that person and now you watch as that man steps forward And the Japanese soldier kills him that's what the Lord Jesus Christ did for me He was the one willing to go to Calvary's cross did I appreciate him before I was saved no while we were yet sinners God Commended his love toward us while we were yet sinners the Lord Jesus won the one who stepped forward voluntarily Took my place at Calvary's cross paid for the punishment of my sin and tonight. I am Saved Can you swim Are you saved would you like to be saved you can be saved trust it might be so for his name's sake short pray