by Dr. Roy Brunson

Romans 10:14-15

14      How, then can they call on the one they have not believed in?  And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?  And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

15      And how can they preach unless they are sent?  As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (NIV)             

Winning was everything to me. It wasn't how you played the game as long as you won. I would lie, steal, cheat; I would do whatever was necessary to beat my competition. And I was very good at it. I became the highest paid salesman my first year for the largest direct marketing company in America. The second year I was the highest paid sales manager in the company's history. By the third year, I was promoted to vice-president and was making $300,000 per year income and scheduled to make over $500,000 the following year with the projected profits. I was cocky and considered a rebel by the company but since I made them so much money they put up with me. The president of the company protected me from my enemies because of the tremendous profits my region was producing. My region was by far the most profitable in the company.

Then the worst thing that could happen to me happened. The company was sold and some of the people I ran over getting to the top of the corporate ladder got there before I did with the new owners. I WAS FIRED! The president that protected me was gone. Where does an executive making almost a half million dollars a year find a job in the classified section of the newspaper? I lost everything, my money, my power and I was humiliated. I thought I was a failure. I was in total despair. I had no self- respect. How would I tell Dixie, my wife that I was fired? I went to my lake home and wept. Sorrow came first, then feelings of failure and hopelessness. I didn't believe in God. My mother told me He had to be dead, because no loving God would have allowed the pain, suffering and torture we had gone through. My father, who was a " mean" drunk, had tried to kill my mother on several occasions. The only gods I knew, money, power and success were now dead too. Then anger took over and I became enraged. I wanted revenge. I wanted to get even with them for destroying my life and killing my gods.

I called my production manger and my sales managers to my lake house. In three days and nights we had a business plan and a name, MAIL AMERICA. Thirty days later we had Three million dollars from venture capitalists. In sixty days we had taken eighty five percent of the business in Texas from the company that had fired me. Over one hundred thrity five employees walked off the job of the other company and came to work for me. They also lost over Twenty million dollars in less than ten months. I finally thought I had my revenge but it was not to be. "Revenge is mine, says the Lord", Dixie would tell me. But I told her I didn't need her God, I could handle it myself. It was a corporate war not unlike that of the old TV series "Dallas". My phones in my office and home were tapped. They had corporate spies and so did we. They made twosabotage attempts against our eighty five thousand square foot building, but were run off by our armed security guards. They hired private detectives that followed my management team and me day and night. I had all one hundred thirty five employees take a polygraph test and we found two of their spies.  I was even told by our intelligence sources that there could be a contract on my life. Because of that possibility, I would sometimes have one of our hourly workers start my Mercedes at night before I went home, without any regard to his safety. I was deep into my sin. My rage and obsession to get revenge was the only thing I cared about.

However, God wasn't finished humbling me. The other company went to my investors and offered them a Three million dollar profit if they would sell their fifty one percent ownership to them. They took their offer and my old company fired me again, and they fired all my one hundred thirty five employees that had been loyal to me and physically searched them as they left the building. That was the ultimate humiliation to me. I had lost the war because my investors had betrayed me. I had lost all my money to lawyers in filing lawsuits and the IRS that disallowed two tax shelters that I had invested in and wanted over $300,000 in interest and penalties. I was totally broke. I had to give up my lake home and my beloved Mercedes. I was in total despair! There was nothing to live for. Thoughts of taking my own life were overwhelming. There was no hope, only total depression. Death was my only way out. I still had a  million dollar life insurance policy still in force. My family would be better off with me dead than alive. THEN GOD STEPPED IN!

I was on a plane from Dallas to Memphis contemplating how I would take my own life, when a neatly dressed, attractive middle aged woman sat next to me. She immediately started asking me questions about my religion. If I was a Christian, did I go to church, was I born again? I didn't want to hear about God, especially when I was contemplating suicide. I was very rude to her and started shouting at her to leave me alone. All the passengers on the plane could hear me. I turned my back on her and pretended to read a magazine. That didn't stop her. She punched me on the shoulder and told me "Jesus loves you". Then I shouted at the lady and asked her,  " lady, exactly what did God do for you anyway?"  That was a mistake. She told me she had been totally blind for over thirteen years. One night after coming home from church her husband, who was a Baptist minister, got down on his knees and started praying for her eyesight while she lay in bed. She said he prayed  " God, I know that you can make Marolyn see. O God, make her see now",and just like that she saw her husband Acie for the first time. Then she saw her daughter for the first time. She had met and married Acie while she was in college when she was blind. She then went on to explain that she had numerous doctors examine her and they all said it was impossible for her to see. The damage to her eyes was still there and beyond repair. But they could not explain how she now had 20/20 vision. They had to admit that the only explanation possible was a supernatural one. It could only be a miracle.

Her blue eyes looked right through me into my soul. I was very frighten. Could my mother be wrong? Was there really a God that loved me and had a plan for my life? When the plane landed, I called Dixie and told her about the strange woman on the plane and what she had said. I had made fun of Dixie for years about her Bible studies. I thought she was a "Jesus freak". She studied the Bible at least three to four hours every night for ten years. She was saved at the age of seventeen in a Baptist high school. She told me to come back to Texas and she would give me some tapes to listen to and I could make the decision if God really did exist. She gave me several audio Bible study tapes by Hal Lindsey. They were Jesus in the Psalms and the book of Revelation. At the age of forty two I heard the plan of salvation for the first time. I was driving to Birmingham over 105 miles per hour trying to get enough nerve to run my car into a bridge pillar to kill myself when Hal read Psalm 22 that described how Jesus was crucified on the cross. How Jesus cried from the Cross " MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?"  How did David know that Jesus would sacrifice himself for the sins of the world eight hundred years before the Romans invented crucifixion? When I heard this, I knew that I had forsaken Jesus and cried out "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE TO YOU?"   At one hundred five miles per hour I prayed the sinner's prayer that Hal led me through on the tape and I gave my life to Jesus and asked Him to come into my heart and change me. Then I wept! I cried for what seemed like hours. I had so many tears that I could no longer see the road and had to pull over to the side. All of that pain and despair went away. All that rage disappeared. I forgave all those that betrayed me and I asked forgiveness for all my sins and for those people that I had hurt. It felt like a ten thousand pound weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I praised God for putting the blind lady that could see on that plane next to me. I thanked God for my wife and daughter who had supported me through those terrible times.

Six months later, Hal Lindsey baptized me with my daughter in the Jordan River in Israel. I thought that there was a real possibility that the blind lady that could see was an angel that God has sent to save me. She wasn't an angel, but God did send her to save me. It took me a year to find her in Memphis. I called her and shared with her how she saved my life. Since then we have become close friends and she has included my testimony in one of her recently published books.

I know that many of you have gone through terrible times too and sometimes it feels like there is no hope and all is lost. Some of you have even lost your jobs as I did. Maybe you have lost a loved one and you don't think you can go on without them. I know that depression is over-whelming and you may think death is the only way out; but believe me, there is hope. There is a way out of despair and a way out of the trouble you may be in. His name is Jesus Christ. God loves you so much that he gave His only Son to die for your sins. He wants to give you hope, peace and rest. He wants to give you eternal life with Him in Heaven. All you have to do is pray the prayer I prayed when I was ready to take my own life. All you have to do is ask Jesus into your heart and mean it. If you hear that voice calling you, it's the Holy Spirit wanting you to come to Jesus. Jesus said that no one comes to salvation unless the Father draws him and no one goes to the Father but by me. If you hear the Holy Spirit calling you, pray the following prayer and you will receive salvation today.

"Heavenly Father, I confess that I am a sinner. I know there is nothing that I can do to earn my salvation. It is only through your Grace and Mercy that I can be saved. I believe that you died for my sins and you rose from the grave on the third day and defeated death. I accept your free gift of salvation. I ask you to forgive my sins. I ask you to come into my heart and change me. Make me a new person. Thank you for forgiving me of my sins. Thank you for saving me. Thank you for changing my heart and making me a new person. In the name of Jesus I pray these things. AMEN!"

POST SCRIPT Hal Lindsey was given a Gideon Bible when he was ten years old. At the age of twenty five as a tug boat captain in New Orleans, he locked his cabin door and dug out the Gideon Bible from his sea bag that he had kept for so many years and started reading it for the first time. That same night he repented and gave his heart to Jesus. Hal Lindsey quit his job and attended Dallas Theological Seminary and was ordained as a minister. He has become of the best selling authors in Christendom. He has written over fifteen books, including 'The Late Great Planet Earth".  Hal told me that he has received over twenty five thousand letters of people confessing Jesus Christ as their Savior after reading "The Late Great Planet Earth".  Isn't it amazing how powerful God's Word is? Just think of how many people were saved because of one Gideon Bible. God has used me and my ministry to lead over two hundred fifteen thousand lost souls to Christ and I am sure they in turn have led many more thousands to Christ.  I  became a Gideon one year after I was saved.             

Marolyn Ford, the blind lady that can see, fell in the bathtub a few years ago and crushed her spine. She was not able to eat or drink. She was fed intravenously through the heart for eighteen hours a day and she almost died several times, but, she had another miracle this year and the Lord healed her again. She is a well known speaker and author and has written three books with the first being "These Blind Eyes Now See".  Marolyn and her husband, Acie, have become our close personal friends.  We visit and talk to each other often. My personal  testimony was included in her last book that was published recently, "Grace to Endure".

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