This morning we're going to be in Revelation chapter 12, verse 7. While you're turning there, I'm going to read a few verses to you from the 103rd Psalm. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with love and kindness and tender mercies, who satisfieth thy wrath with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles, who forgiveth all your iniquities, who redeems our lives from destruction, Revelation chapter 12, verse seven. And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not. Neither was there a place found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now has come salvation and strength in the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ. For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony. And they loved not their lives unto the death. I'm gonna cue on verse 11 here. He overcame him by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony and their love, not their lives unto the death. And of course, by overcoming him, he's referring to his salvation. These three things, all of them, absolutely 100% necessary. No man can be saved without all three. And of course, everything revolves around the blood of the lamb. In its very essence, that is his salvation, the blood of the Lamb. Without the blood of the Lamb, there is no possibility of any salvation at all. Everything is completely dependent upon that. And without it, the other two aren't even pipe dreams. The second one we have is the word of their testimony. A testimony is about the blood of the lamb. We hear different people at times give their testimonies, but for every believer, every testimony is exactly the same. He forgave our iniquities, and he redeemed our lives from destruction. Testimony is the blood of the lamb. That's how he did it. That's what the blood signifies to us. We all got the same testimony. Testimony is, it's our record. You may have police talk to somebody, they want a statement on record, right? This is our statement. This is our record. This is what we have witnessed, what God did for us, forgave our iniquities and redeemed our lives from destruction. So intimately tied is this testimony to the blood of the lamb, that the third one comes into play. Not even death can separate the two. The testimony is intimately, deeply, 100% tied to the blood of the lamb. Just like Paul said in Romans, talking about how nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, one of those things he named was death. Nothing, death cannot even separate us from the love of God, can't separate us from the blood of the lamb either. Not death, neither the threat of death can separate the two. All three of them are essential. As we get near the end today, we'll talk a little bit more about the word of their testimony and why the word. But for now, I'm going to do something for me is real strange. I've never given a testimony publicly before. It has been encouraged to me that it might be useful for some to hear it. So we're going to try that today. I hope it is. If it's not, you can blame Mark for it. But the thing about the testimony is, on the one hand, they're all the same. We've got the same record. You got the same story to tell. But at the same time, again, in the wonder of God, they're all unique. Everybody's story is tailor-made for that individual. Because the events that occur in our life by God's divine providence help shape what we are. Mark's life has gone the way God wanted it to because he wanted Mark to be Mark. If it went any different, he'd be somebody else. Same thing for all of us. Same testimony, sometimes the way the Lord makes that testimony known to us, the way he puts it in is sometimes a little different. Sometimes it's what he does in our lives and our walk is a little different sometimes. So with that in mind, I'm gonna describe to you a little, I guess about a 20 year period of time. when I was in school. I was born in South Carolina. My family was really from Georgia. My dad moved us to New Orleans when I was three. Not long after being there, I was molested by a man in a church that we were going to at three years old. And I only tell you that because it's significant in a lot of different ways, but caused a lot of problems. I was very fearful as a child. I had horrible, horrible nightmares. It was rough. But the Lord drew me to himself at about the age of eight. And by the age of 12, I had a very earnest walk with him. Was studying, not just reading, but studying the scriptures every night. I, around this time, It became very noticeable that my life was pretty much dependent on that. There was a lot of things around the age of 12. As soon as I really started walking earnestly with the Lord, it just seemed like the gates of hell kind of opened on me. Things were going south real fast. I wasn't healthy. I had, I didn't know it at the time, but I was born with a heart valve problem. I had a form of juvenile arthritis. I didn't know. but one was causing a lot of fatigue, the other causing a lot of pain. And in the normal circumstances, that would be difficult already, but my dad was not to disparage him in any way, but there's a lesson in him as well. My dad had been professing to be a believer for some time, but around this time, the best way to describe it is he just, he loved the world too much. John's quite serious in his epistle when he says, love not the world, neither the things in the world. They will cause many terrible things. And he was a football coach that, and he was a track coach. I pole vaulted. He was my coach. And he was a tough coach, heavy-handed coach. But so sports with those, with those illnesses were not a good combination. They were difficult. But my dad, we were at a school in New Orleans. It was a sports oriented school, really was. So it was a big deal, horrible hours. It just, it was not a good time. But to describe a little bit of kind of what it was like, I had several things that were going on. One, I wasn't healthy and I didn't know why. I didn't know what was wrong. I was having some stomach issues. Didn't know what the cause of that was because of some of the other things going on. I was given high doses of medications that just made the stomach and everything a lot worse. But around the time I was 14 in the eighth grade, just to give an example, I was Wasn't really ready for it, but my dad kinda had me on the varsity team and we were at a track meet. It was the first outdoor track meet of the year at E.D. White down in Thibodeau. And the first outdoor meet of the year always seemed like, well, it was always the first weekend in March, but always seemed like it was the last cold front of the year coming through. And it was cold, it was like 45. And I don't know if you know anything about pole vaulting, but it's hard to do when it's cold. And it was painful. You have sometimes the skin just rip off your hands trying to hold on. But there were a lot of things going on with it. And at the time, I had been having a back problem for about three months. And my dad, those things didn't move him. In fact, it just would make him angry. He'd accuse me of faking. And most of the time he would hit in response to it. So you learn to just shut up. You don't say nothing. You hide what you can hide. If you can't hide it, you just don't make an issue of it. The way I looked at it is you got to do it anyway. Why take a beating too? So you just shut up and you do it well because it was cold. And with my back, I couldn't run well enough and I knew it, but I had no choice. And I couldn't run fast enough to get the pole vertical so that you can land on what we call the pit, just a soft landing spot. And those poles are fiberglass, and so they would coil and recoil. And if you couldn't get it vertical, that thing would shoot you back. And it did, threw me about 20 feet back, landed on the runway, and that is not Back then, I don't know what to, I don't know what E.D. White has now, but back then it was not one of these soft rubberized tracks. It was asphalt. It was a road. And so, you know, hurting quite a bit. That didn't feel too good. I'm very fortunate. I didn't really hurt myself. But as soon as that happened, my dad just came running over and just started beating me. Just right in front of a stadium full of people. You couldn't do that today, but back then you could. And You know, it's pretty humiliating too. But it's a significant event. This isn't the only time similar things like this happened, but this one was significant to me because it was the only time my dad ever apologized to me. About 20, 30 minutes after he calmed down, he came up to me, put his arm around me and said, I'm sorry you made me do that. That was the only apology I ever got. So you don't forget things like that too easily. But sometime, let's see, it would have been the next year, ninth grade, indoor season, going into the, heading into the state championship was always at LSU. And I don't know what it was, but this event, I was having just blood in my urine, very heavy. I've had kidney stones a lot, and this just seemed different. The blood was so thick, it was nearly black in appearance, but you could see the deep garnet color. And it did that for three days. And I said not a word to anybody. Because whatever that was, I wasn't near afraid of it as I was my dad. Because telling him you couldn't jump in a state championship was not going to work. But things like that, you just, you hid things, just do the best you could. When you couldn't hide it, Like I say, you just don't make an issue of it. But between that and football, there were 10 different times in which they had me with a team doctor where he would inject me with corticosteroids and numbing agents to keep me playing, jumping, whatever it was. And I can tell you, there's no high school kid should be having that. But that's just kind of the way life was. It was rough. It was difficult. Not only that, because of what happened when I was three, I was having demon issues. Um, I couldn't hardly sleep at night. Uh, you know, demons don't play fair. They're a bunch of jerks, but you know, I couldn't even really go to sleep at night. Um, I'd have to spend hours just fighting against them. They they'd threatened to kill me if I'd closed my eyes, just, you know, there's a lot going on. Well, About that time, too, I remember seeing a documentary of one of the concentration camps being liberated. And I noticed the prisoners being liberated had no reaction at all. They just they weren't happy. They weren't. And I couldn't understand it. I just you know, here I was in eighth grade, thinking my circumstances, which wasn't the same thing, but still I could somewhat relate. But all I could think was I didn't understand because if that was me and I could get out of what I was in I would have been the happiest person. I just wanted out of it so badly, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. I had at least four more years of it. But by the time I was a junior, I was praying one day and the Lord reminded me of that, that documentary. And by that time I understood when something like that is going on, it goes on, it's bad enough, goes on long enough. You get to where you just, you don't care anymore. was in sports, winning, losing made no difference to me. In fact, even living, dying made no difference to me. In fact, I'll tell you, I had a favorite verse from Revelation 14. Verse 13, he says, and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write blessed are the dead which die and the Lord from henceforth. Yea, say if the spirit that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow. I just, I didn't have a death wish necessarily. I wasn't suicidal, but it didn't seem like a bad thing to me. I was rather looking forward to it, quite frankly. But by the time I was a senior, my body was seriously failing. I was having all kinds of problems. In fact, does anybody know what Raynaud's disease is? Okay, so it's kind of related to the arthritis, but it's where the blood vessels go on the spasm and it cuts off the blood supply. So these two fingers, even with gloves on, they'd be ice cold, solid white. And I had two different doctors tell me before the year was over, I would lose these two fingers. So thankfully I didn't, but I had to start using nitroglycerin patches, you know, trying to perform in sports while you're, Nitroglycerin gives you terrible headaches. It was really miserable. But also my senior year playing football, our quarterback threw the ball a little high over the middle, kind of exposed me. I got hit, had my ribs broken in the front and three dislocated from the spine. And I was glad because it gave me a month off. But that's how rough it was. I'd rather have those broken ribs and have a month of rest and then have to keep playing. So in any event, I kind of came crawling out of high school. I just, I don't know how I made it. Um, but normally we had seven classes in the, in the fall. I only had three, uh, and in the spring I only had one and I was still barely making it. I mean, I was getting so bad physically, even my dad, he never believed me, but he could see it. And the Lord gave me a little bit of grace there in my senior year. My dad didn't make me practice a single time. In fact, half the track meets, I didn't even jump in. I just showed up at a few of them, including the state championship and somehow won. It didn't matter at all that much, but just the Lord getting me through it and getting me out of it. But at the same time, I was, it was really difficult to explain, but being recruited by colleges to go. And it was really strange to me because everything I was faced with, everything I was going through, I just couldn't envision any other life. I couldn't envision getting out of school is all I knew. I couldn't envision. being married, I couldn't envision having kids, grandkids, you know, the thought of going to college, you know, I had no thought of even studying anything. But I was a very good student, primarily because I didn't dare give my dad any other reasons to be angry with me. It was motivation, you could say. But You know, during this time, I was accepted at three Ivy League schools, which I really wanted to go to Columbia because it was nowhere near here. I wanted, that's the only thing I could think of was just anywhere else. And I was being recruited by Tulane and the deal was if I went to Tulane, my dad would continue to be my coach and I didn't want that. But I also knew I wasn't smart enough to figure out where I needed to be. So I was depending on the Lord to lead me and tell me. And I didn't have an answer, a clear answer from the Lord yet. And the deadline for Columbia came and went. And the coach called me. I was a football coach. He called me and said, I don't understand because Columbia only takes 1,000 kids a year. And he said, we've never seen this, but they're moving the deadline back for you. And so I just kept trusting the Lord and praying and then, but that really took the pressure off of them doing that. And, but by the time I knew what to do, you know, Lord had told me he wanted me to go to Tulane and not what I wanted to do. But he told me just to trust him. So I went there. I was there for two weeks, and that's when they diagnosed the heart valve and the arthritis. And it just it got me completely out of sports. So I never had to deal with it. So but at the same time, if I'd gone to Columbia, I never would have met Lynn. I would have already been up there. So Lord knew, of course, as always knew what he was doing all along. But, you know, there were some very, very difficult times, very hard to describe for the most part. But while all this was going on, there was a whole nother side to it. When I was in the eighth grade, Lord had told me he didn't want me to use concordance, not not concordance, but commentaries. He just said, I'm going to teach you what I want you to know. And so there's nothing wrong with anybody doing that, but he didn't want me to do that. And so I never have. I don't use anything I get. I get from him. He's always taught me that's the way he wanted it. And I got to tell you, at that time, my dad really wasn't much of a dad at that point anymore. It was the Lord who was raising me, teaching me. And even though having to wrestle with those demons and everything, he was teaching me how to fight them. I think of songs where David writes, teaches, my hands to war, my fingers to fight. The Lord was teaching me that too, such that I've been able to help some others from what the Lord taught me on how to fight them. But it took, there was about a heavy year of fighting where it would take, I'd be up every night, two to three in the morning, having a fight, fight, fight, before you could just go to sleep. But through that, Lord teaching me how to fight them. And like I said, it's been helpful to me and to others as well to learn that. But at the same time, Lord was doing some other things. I'll give an example. When I was in the 10th grade, my family was going to Georgia for a family reunion. And I had to stay. And like I said, there's a lot going on and demon things and just sick and a lot of pain and a lot of weird things going on. But at this time, I wasn't too young. I'd never been home alone before like that and and a little worried about it. I knew my mom was praying for me. I had a good mom, a godly mom, a praying mom. And it wasn't any fault of her own, but the Lord had just kind of taken her out of the picture as far as I was concerned, because he was, like I said, he was the one raising me. So she didn't even know what was really going on. But you know, I was worried about that. And at that time, this was one of those days I had to get one of those injections in my ankle and this particular time they put something, I don't know what it is, but they put something in it to bust up calcium and it was busting up calcium. When that numbing agent wore off, that was excruciating. You could feel it in your ankle. You could hear it. It almost sounded like Rice Krispies and you could feel it and it was busting it up and it was quite painful. It was a Friday night and I was there alone, just in pain, you know, facing another night, these demons and everything going on. And I was trying to go to sleep. I was the only one there, like I said, and had just a lamp on. And all of a sudden, I just noticed. No demons there. It's quiet. It was peaceful. I couldn't believe it. My ankle didn't hurt. Everything was fine. and I opened my eyes and there was a light in the room. It wasn't coming from this lamp. It's impossible to describe because you recognize that it's light, but it ain't like our lights. It ain't like the sun. This is different. There's no way to describe it. It's just light, but it's different. It's not like we normally identify with light. And I got up and I walked to the house, no lights on, but the whole house was lit up with this light. And as I started walking to the house, I couldn't see them, but I could hear them. And I couldn't understand what they were saying. They were just talking to each other. The house was just filled with angels. Dozens and dozens of angels. And then I could discern, I could just sense their individual presence. Like I said, I couldn't see them, but you could hear them. I don't even know if they were talking another language. Whatever it was, I wasn't meant to understand them. I knew that, but whatever it was, I was keenly aware of their presence. The Lord wanted me to know about their presence. The Lord told me, okay, go to sleep. So I went and laid down, no pain, no fear, no nightmares, just slept peacefully. I've never experienced that before in my life. That was wonderful. But, you know, it's something, a little thing that the Lord did for me. And then there's another time, and there were a lot of different things, time after time, One time I had an ankle injury and I was supposed to go to the University of Florida to jump in a track meet. This was in March. And my dad knew my ankle was hurt, but you know, it made us go anyway. And so drive all the way to Gainesville and get there. I couldn't hardly walk on it. You know, pray in the helmet, I can't even walk on the thing. And not only that, but there was a heavy rain and it's dangerous to pole vault, in the rain, especially heavy rain, light rain, you know, questionable, but heavy rain, it's not a good idea. But that day, I don't know how, just the Lord with me, I was able to go set the meat record. And, you know, in that pouring rain and then go home. I don't, a lot of things like that. I don't know how, a lot of things I don't know. but just a lot of supernatural things that the Lord did showing his presence and his comfort and bringing me along. And I remember one time in 10th grade, we were approaching, it was the week of Easter. And Easter was kind of important because it was the last track meet of the year before district. In district, you had to finish first or second to go to regionals. Regionally, you had to be first or second to go to the state championship. So this was like your last meet before what is essentially like a playoff. kind of thing. And my dad just on Tuesday that week, out of nowhere, never did this. Canceled our involvement in this meet and took us to Savannah, where our family's from. But leading into this, I used this stuff, it was, believe it or not, it was an automotive part called the gas concealant. You know, it's a spray, you use it, very tacky, and we'd use it, you know, for holding onto the pole. And I was a heavy sweater, sweat a lot, even in my hands, it was difficult for me and I really was dependent on stuff. And I was starting to run out and I don't know why, but it's for some reason, the manufacturer of this stuff changed their formula. And now it starts coming off with the sweat of your hands, which didn't do any good. In fact, it made it worse. I was better off without it. And I was driving all over New Orleans trying to find, you know, the old stuff. And you could tell that the old can is just a blue bottle. And the new stuff, it had these white lines over the blue, making like squares. So you could look at the can and tell what it was. And I just couldn't find it. And I was getting desperate. Again, no way I could tell my dad, I can't jump in there because I don't have the stuff to hold on with. That wasn't going to work. So, I couldn't find any of the old stuff anywhere. In fact, I just gave up. I was still praying, but I stopped driving and I couldn't find it anywhere. And this was before the internet, so you couldn't order anything or look for it online. I just was stuck. When we go to Savannah, and in Savannah, my dad's parents owned a florist. And whenever we were there, I'd run deliveries for them and do things, worked with them, spent a lot of time with my grandfather. And I was with him and he was pumping gas. And this is not like these convenience store gas stations today. You remember the old gas stations where you had maybe two pumps on a single aisle, right? And you had the store just like a big plate class window, right? And then, you know, you had one aisle for customers and then you had the counter and the cash register and some shelves in the back, but it wasn't carrying potato chips or nothing. It was just auto parts, right? And my grandfather got gas, he's inside pain, and I'm just sitting there. And in fact, I was even praying at the time. I asked the Lord, what am I going to do? And out of the corner of my eye, I see this strange light and a turnover. And behind the counter, way at the back, was a bottle of this stuff, the old stuff, the good stuff. There's no way I could have seen that if I was looking for it. But anybody seen Christmas Vacation? at the beginning when he sees the tree and you got the light, you know, and that tree is glowing, right? Now, there were no beams coming from heaven like that, but that bottle had a light that wasn't natural. I could never have seen it otherwise. But I go running inside, you know, and my grandfather thinks I'm crazy, asking him to buy me a can of gas concealant. But he does. And normally a can was I don't know, maybe they were like eight ounces, you know, not very big, but this can was the biggest thing I've ever seen. It had to be for, you know, like a mechanic shop, right? Not a simple retail use. But I got this can and then the rest of the time I pulled off it and never needed to buy another one. But the Lord did that for me. To provide something I couldn't find anywhere in New Orleans and I was desperate. But things like this. And even, you know, like I said, in my senior year where the Lord had my dad recognizing something was wrong with me and I didn't have to practice. If I had, I'd have never made it. There was no way. I was done. But it got me out of Tulane. And even a few years later, after I already married to Lynn, I was having real bad reflux. The fact that doctors, were telling me it was precancerous. It was eating away the esophagus. And I had to have a surgery and it was problematic. And I had two kidney stones and just things weren't going right. Things weren't going well. I was just suffering. And then I had to have all four of my wisdom teeth cut out. And it seemed like the last thing I needed at the time. But that was going to be on Friday. And it was Sunday night. And I was praying, not looking forward to what was coming. And the Lord told me, he spoke and he said, you can ask anything you want, I'll give it to you. And the first thing I did was scare me because I knew enough to know I'd read about Solomon being given a similar promise. And it's, you don't think it would be kind of frightening, but when you realize what it could potentially mean, yeah, it's pretty frightening. And I didn't know what to ask for. I told him, I don't know what to ask for. He said, just pray. So I've been praying and fasting and then Monday night, He just spoke again and just had me ask him for what he most wanted to give me, which I didn't know what that was. And so I asked him for that, what he most wanted to give me. And he said, just keep praying. So I kept praying. Then Tuesday night, he spoke again and he turned me to Acts chapter 7. and where Stephen is being stoned. But Stephen, it says, being full of the Holy Ghost, looks up and sees the heavens opened and seeing God on his throne and Jesus standing at his right side. Here he is being stoned, but being welcomed into heaven. And the Lord led me and said, ask for that. So I asked for that. And I forgot to mention to you, but all this time, I've been struggling something awful with assurance. The thing that scared me about the demons threatening to kill me is not what the demons would do, but what was going to happen after. When you're not sure, it's concerning. But the Lord told me to ask for that. Well, Friday came, and when you go into the dentist's office, you know, they give you those injections and they leave for a while for it to take effect. Well, they gave me these injections, walked away, told me you're going to come back and they wanted to gas me for it. And while he was gone waiting, there was an angel came and stood by me. He said his name was Michael. Now, I don't know one angel from another, but that's what he told me. And he said that God had granted what I'd asked for. An angel stood there with me the whole time. I never felt a thing. The doctor came in and he looked at me kind of funny and he said, you don't need this thing. I'm talking about the gas. I don't think so. No gas, no pain medicine. I never felt a thing. Just perfect peace and comfort. But the thing that's interesting about that particular promise is that it might be a little unique in the way it was presented to me. But the promise itself is not unique. It wasn't unique to Stephen. It's not unique to me. It's the same promise he's given every one of his children. Because if you think about it, at the time of your death, to be welcomed into heaven versus cast into outer darkness, to be welcomed and to be embraced and loved by God rather than facing his wrath, You know, we can refer to that in a lot of different ways. Eternal life, salvation, redemption. It's the same promise. It's the same thing. I'll just take you through a few verses here, and this is where we're gonna wind up today. James chapter one. Sorry, this is a new Bible. I'm having trouble getting to my pages. In James 1, verse 12, he says, blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he has tried, he shall receive the crown of life. There's another way of saying the same thing. Crown of life. And notice what he says. Which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Not to select individuals, was what God has promised to all those who love. Everyone has the same promise, crown of life. To be welcomed, to be received, to be accepted. There's that beautiful hymn, accepted in the beloved because of him, because he forgave our iniquities, because that blood of the lamb we testify on. We all have the same promise. And if you think about it, even the Lord Jesus, A thousand years before he went to the cross. What is it in the 16th Psalm that David wrote? He will not allow his holy one to see corruption. Talking about the corruption of the body and the grave. The promise of that redeemed, of that not for him redeemed, but that resurrected life. That's what his salvation is. That's what the life is, is that resurrected life. It's all by promise. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. I have just a couple more. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 14, he says, knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus. and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God, for which cause we faint not. But though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, But the things which are not seen are eternal. And I love what he says there in verse 14 again, knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus. That's what his eternal life is, is that resurrected life, is one and the same. There's not another one. We're gonna finish here in Titus chapter one. Titus chapter 1 verse 1 says, Paul, a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, in the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness. Now notice what he says in verse 2. In hope of eternal life, which God did cannot lie, promised before the world began. Revelation 13 verse 8 tells us about the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. But this came first. Promise came before the world. The promise of eternal life. Everything is by promise. Isn't that a wonderful thing to know? His word, he promised. As he says here, God, which cannot lie, it's impossible. He gives his promise, eternal life. How wonderful it is to know that before even the foundation of the world, there was the promise. God already had it all planned, everything was accounted for, everything already done. I think that's why it's so fitting, the way it's written, Revelation 12, talking about the word of our testimony. Because that life, that eternal life is given by his word. That's how relationships work. One speaks, another responds. They give their word. Their testimony is a spoken word. Why God chose to do it that way, I don't know, but he did. By promise, by his word, and we respond by word, giving our testimony. And you don't have to stand in a pulpit in front of other people to have and to give you a testimony, you live that testimony every day. And our faithfulness to him, we obey him and our lives are wrapped up in him and we're taken up with him. Just as he says, you know, it's relatively simple to love not your life to the death when you love God more than anything else. It's not hard. If you don't love God more than anything else, it's impossible. Can't do it. And we love him, as he says, because he first loved us. Word of our testimony, pretty simple to do, because we're just responding to what he already promised, what he's already given. And they overcame him because of the blood of the lamb and because of the word of their testimony. And they did not love their life even to death. I like that, we all have the same testimony. The worth of the lamb and the lack of worth of the saint. They don't consider their lives of any worth, but they consider the worth of the lamb everything, the same testimony. And our life experiences that God gives us, whether it's the man born blind and doesn't know a single thing about theology, but he can testify to one thing, I was this and now I'm that. And that's always going to be the testimony of a saint, that it's the blood of the lamb that took me from this and made me that. And however, You fill in the blanks and put in the adjectives and the nouns and the pronouns and make that testimony real. That's something between you and God. But yet, it's interesting in verse 11, he doesn't say, and this is a nice story, he says, and they overcame him. Why is overcoming tied up into your testimony, your testimony? You can't borrow my testimony. You can't borrow somebody else's. It's your testimony. You don't have one. But one of the, the effects of your testimony is that you overcome the evil one. And it's interesting how you overcoming, you overcoming, but not devaluing your testimony is by looking at your life and treating it as no account in comparison to the lamb. And you would think, well, how does that overcome anything? Sounds like you're throwing your life away and somehow people are supposed to, you know, be, you know, mesmerized by something like that. No, I'm not sure how they're supposed to take it. We just know one thing that we used to be this and now we're that. That the blood of the lamb is everything that has caused us to be different. And now because of that great blood of the lamb, it's not like our lives just don't have any worth. It means that Our lives don't have the worth in order to support the testimony. There's a big difference. In other words, my testimony will be true. My witnessing to what God has done will be true. And every other man will be a liar because of it, because only I can testify to it. And when I testify to it, it may cost me everything that I have. And that's fine. I'm not going back on my testimony. Why? Because the blood of the lamb is the undergirding of my testimony, and as a result, when people contradict it, disparages it, want to persecute you with it or whatever, okay, I'm not giving up my testimony, because to give it up is to say something about the blood of that lamb, which I cannot do in a negative fashion. And when you do that, here you are. You're at the mercy of them, and God calls it overcoming. Not being a victim, not playing the victim card and all of that. No, you're overcome. Your feet are actually on the neck of the enemy at that point, because no one's going to overcome your testimony. Cases in court are won or lost based upon testimony. In a testimony of two or three witnesses, a fact is established. When a man gives his testimony of what God has done, he's establishing a fact, him and God, what God has done, and you're testifying to it. And so it creates that fact and that fact goes into effect in the real world and it overcomes the enemy. Thank you so much for that testimony, Gary. Amen. Let's pray. Let's seek the Lord and ask him to bless the rest of our day as we remember his great resurrection. And remember, he is forging a testimony in all of you and it'll be your testimony and you'll have an opportunity to give it maybe once in your life, maybe every other day, whatever it might be. Well, I'm not good at witnessing. I don't know a lot of Bible verses. Well, you can tell them what God's done for you. You were there. You can't keep your mouth shut. You're a witness. You're a witness to the blood of the lamb, what the blood of the lamb has done to you. That's an awful, powerful weapon that God will use. Father, we thank you for this time. We thank you, Father, for this testimony you've crafted in Gary and we've had the opportunity to hear and learn from. We ask, Father, in our own lives, Father, that you would create testimony for your glory. And if, Father, we do not have a testimony, it means that, Father, ultimately that blood of the lamb has not been applied, and we're asking for that. We're asking, Father, that you would give us a testimony. It doesn't have to be ornate and very flashy It just has to be you. And it has to be real. And it can't be something drummed up. It can't be something Father made up. It can't testify to a lie. It can only testify to the truth. We ask you, Father, to bring your Holy Spirit to bear. And maybe that will be that testimony where the Holy Spirit, Father, that you send, ask those searing questions. You don't have a testimony. And I'm going to give you one. Give us all a testimony, Father. We love you and we thank you. First in Christ's great name, resurrected forever, and we are with him that we pray, amen.