3ABN On the Road

A Brand Plucked From The Fire

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Kevin Sears

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Series Code: OTR

Program Code: OTR000989


01:01 Good morning ASI. Good morning ASI.
01:06 I know its morning. What a privilege it is
01:09 for me to be here, you know, I am over the last
01:12 few years I've been up on the ASI platform,
01:17 usually on Friday nights and I am very much
01:19 looking forward to this Friday night seeing the
01:22 youth for Jesus program and the testimonies.
01:27 I want to thank Lisa for that introduction,
01:29 boy I almost starting crying back there,
01:32 it's a little early for that. Before we begin
01:36 I like to have a quick word of pray with you again
01:39 and then we'll get right into the talk for this
01:42 morning. Father in heaven, what an
01:45 incredible privilege it is to be here to speak to
01:47 your people, to speak to such a powerful
01:52 organization working for you. Lord, you know the
01:58 desires of my heart through this talk this morning.
02:02 Father, I pray that not one person here would
02:05 see me in this testimony but they would see
02:09 how incredible you are. Father, bless us,
02:13 send your Holy Spirit in Jesus name, Amen.
02:16 Turn with me in your Bibles if you have them
02:19 to Acts chapter 26, I gonna try and move quickly
02:22 this morning through this, I just wanna share so much
02:26 with you but I know I only have approximately
02:29 50 minutes or so. Acts chapter 26, beginning in
02:36 verse 16, But rise, and stand on your feet,
02:39 for I have appeared to you for this purpose,
02:41 to make you a minister and a witness both of
02:44 the things which you have seen, and of the things
02:48 which I will yet reveal to you. I will deliver you
02:52 from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles,
02:54 to whom I now send you, to open their eyes,
02:58 in order to turn them from darkness to light
03:01 and from the power of Satan to God that they
03:05 may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance
03:10 among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.
03:15 As I read this later on after I was converted,
03:20 I saw that this is what happened to me.
03:26 At some point in our lives, God is going to
03:31 orchestrate. He is going to allow circumstances
03:35 in you life to take place so that you can come
03:39 face to face with him. This is exactly what happened
03:43 with me and I am going to begin from the beginning
03:46 and I am going to try and move quickly.
03:47 When I was born now as Lisa told you I'm from the
03:52 Boston area, I lived all around Boston,
03:55 I figured it out I was, had lived in 13 cities around
03:59 Boston before I was in the 6th grade.
04:01 We moved a lot. I was born to two parents that
04:05 married very young, I was the middle child of three.
04:09 I have an older sister and a younger brother.
04:11 And my parents married very young.
04:14 My mom was 16 and my dad I think was 18,
04:19 I can't remember exactly. When they got married
04:23 they were, they lived a lifestyle that would
04:28 work with go along with what he did for work.
04:32 He was a rock n roll musician, my father.
04:35 He played a bass guitar and he was a singer
04:38 and he played the harmonica for a group
04:40 called J. Geils. Now, some of you older folks may
04:44 have heard of J. Geils they made it big.
04:47 They began in the 60s and made it big in the,
04:50 really big in the 80s with a couple albums.
04:52 My father was not a part of that group at the time
04:55 they made it big. And so with the rock n roll comes
05:00 the lifestyle of rock n roll and so the drugs and the
05:05 alcohol were a big part of my parent's marriage
05:10 and with that it's the recipe for a broken home.
05:14 And so my, both my parents were addicted to heroin.
05:18 They would shoot heroin into their veins.
05:21 They were alcoholics, they smoked, they did
05:24 whatever, as matter of fact they led a life of
05:27 crime for a little while as well. I remember some
05:32 years when I was older before I was converted
05:34 I had found some old newspaper clippings
05:38 that my mother had and in it, was the headline
05:43 news for that day. From a newspaper from Lexington,
05:47 Massachusetts, the largest heroin bust in the country
05:52 and my father was in the list of names that were
05:57 arrested for that, that very large heroin bust.
06:01 So, as life went on my parents, obviously in
06:07 that type of lifestyle. My parents eventually
06:10 split up. My mother was very beautiful
06:13 and there was a lot of men coming around
06:15 a lot of times and I'm not sure why they split off,
06:19 they never divorced, they were separated
06:21 throughout my entire life from very young.
06:26 And I was probably, I'm guessing about
06:28 4 years old when they, 4 or 5 when they split up
06:31 and of course this is always very difficult
06:34 for children when parents split up and I remember
06:37 an argument they were having in the kitchen one
06:39 time and they were literally pulling me,
06:42 you know, Kevin's gonna come with me,
06:44 no he is gonna come with me. No, let's ask Kevin
06:46 who do you wanna go with? I mean how do you
06:49 ask your child that? And that so this began another
06:53 portion of our lives as children. My father had
06:57 left and I believe it was because mom was
07:02 unfaithful, because there was always men around
07:05 and my father loved her very much, and there were
07:09 still addicted to heroin. When my father left he
07:12 decided he wanted to clean his act up and get
07:16 rid of the drugs and alcohol in this life and so
07:18 he began that process. My mother on the other hand
07:21 who had custody of us, was still doing drugs and
07:25 I remember at one point she decided she wanted
07:29 to try and kick the habit of heroin.
07:31 So, back in those days this is the early 70s
07:33 you would go to these clinics that they had set
07:36 up for heroin abuse and you would go to this clinic
07:39 and they would give you another drug called
07:41 Methadone. It was a red liquid and you would drink
07:44 it and it was supposed to help you with the addiction
07:46 of heroin. Now, they understand today
07:48 that it helps you with the addiction of heroin
07:50 because you become addicted to the Methadone
07:52 instead. And so I remember we would drive in to this
07:55 clinic often, sometimes with my father,
07:57 sometimes with my mother. And one evening we were
08:02 driving with my mother and she was driving,
08:05 my little brother was an infant on the front seat.
08:07 I was sitting behind my mother on the back seat.
08:11 My sister to the right of me and I kept sitting
08:13 up on the seat, and she kept saying Kevin sit back,
08:15 sit back, sit back and finally I sat back and as
08:18 soon as I did I fell asleep. The next thing
08:21 I remember was the police pulling us out of the car,
08:25 out of a river, out of the Charles River.
08:27 As soon as I had fallen asleep my mother passed
08:30 out behind the wheel. She veered off the side of
08:33 the road in a section of the Charles River where
08:35 they don't have railings or anything, we hit a tree,
08:39 Praise the Lord and we rolled into the river.
08:42 And I'm skipping a lot there was a lot of
08:45 spiritualism in my family. My parents were very
08:48 intrigued by spiritualism and earlier that day,
08:52 my mother and I broke into somebody's house.
08:56 These people next to us who were hippies.
08:59 They were, you know, those kind of the, they
09:01 had still the hippie era, kind of coming out of that,
09:04 and they were hippies, they were a rock band
09:07 and I was very intrigued by them, and they were
09:10 devil worshipers and I remember I snuck into their
09:14 basement one time with my friend and they had
09:16 coffins down there and of course little kids we're
09:18 freaked out, would ran upstairs, I ran out to my
09:21 house and tell my mother and so she was intrigued.
09:24 Well, that morning I was out playing on my big wheel.
09:29 Do they still big wheels today? I still love my big
09:32 wheel and so I was playing on my big wheel
09:35 and all of a sudden these hippies coming running
09:38 out of their house like they just saw a ghost.
09:40 They jumped in their van and they screeched off.
09:43 I ran and I told my mother and so she said come on,
09:46 so we, we she took me in the house and sure enough
09:49 they left everything and we went into the living room.
09:52 And they had a podium in the living room and on it,
09:57 I am not sure I believe it was the satanic Bible,
09:59 it looks like a Bible it was black leather, but it was
10:02 not a Bible and they had chairs set up in their living
10:06 room where they would have these services
10:09 worshiping the devil. I remember going up stairs
10:12 and we went in a room and they had a little table
10:15 set up with a black cloth over it and they had
10:17 candles light and there was all kinds of demon stuff
10:20 around and witchcraft books and so something
10:24 happened in their service and they got frightened
10:27 and ran off. Well, that evening is when we got
10:29 into the car wreck and its very interesting,
10:33 the tree that we hit as we found out later and still
10:38 to this day has a satanic symbol on it, one that my
10:42 mother and father had seen in a book.
10:44 My mother told me recently when I was
10:46 talking to her about this last year. She said, Kevin
10:48 not only that but when I was in the hospital the
10:51 engine ended up on my mother's lap,
10:54 she broke her legs, her back, her neck.
10:56 She was out of service for a while. She said while
11:00 I was in the hospital, your father came to see me
11:02 and he was looking at the marks on my leg
11:06 and there was a satanic symbol on my knee,
11:10 a scar that we had just seen in a book in Harvard
11:14 square that intrigued us. And so this went on,
11:17 so now this car accident happens, my mom has
11:21 custody of us. Now, back then the department
11:26 of youth services they were, a lot of things got
11:28 swept under the carpet and they didn't give
11:31 a lot of rights to the father usually in a
11:34 situation like this. So, my mom still had custody
11:37 of us while she was in the hospital for a few months.
11:40 And we had caretakers come, the state provided
11:43 to kind of raise us for a few months and that
11:48 went well I guess we survived through it
11:50 and then it was time for my mom to come home,
11:54 but she was still laid up in bed. She was bedridden,
11:57 and they were still giving her drugs.
11:59 They had her pumped up on morphine,
12:01 and whenever she would come around,
12:04 she would wake up and she would take more drugs
12:07 for the pain and she would call the taxi company
12:11 and have them deliver her a bottle of vodka.
12:13 She was still drinking. And so the taxi company
12:17 would come by and drop off the bottle of vodka.
12:19 Well, while this was taking place there was one taxi
12:22 driver that took a liking to her. And one thing led
12:25 to another and they began I guess you would say
12:28 dating and when my mother was well enough
12:32 to get out of bed and walk around then they decided
12:36 it would be best for us to move in with her boyfriend.
12:39 Now, that's something normal these days and
12:43 it wasn't so normal back then but the abnormal part
12:47 was we moved in with, it was my mother,
12:49 myself and my brother and sister.
12:51 We moved in with her boyfriend,
12:53 her boyfriend's wife and his kids.
12:56 And so we're living in a place called Charlestown.
13:00 If you know the Boston area, Charlestown is
13:03 a kind of historic, the Charlestown monument
13:07 through the battles there. Well, Charlestown was
13:11 more notorious for Bostonians for being
13:14 a place riddled with crime, organized crime from
13:18 the Irish mafia and drugs and these types of things.
13:23 So we move into these projects. The Bunker Hill
13:26 projects named after the Bunker Hill monument
13:29 and these were rough, rough projects.
13:32 Now, we were kids that had never been exposed
13:35 to these types of things. We had always
13:37 lived in decent areas up until this point.
13:40 My mother's father always provided funds
13:44 for us to live in a decent place even though they
13:47 were wasting a lot of money on drugs.
13:49 At this point we moved into these projects
13:51 and I remember the very first day we were there,
13:53 a gang of ladies or I should say women jumped
13:57 my sister, they was about 10 of them and they beat
14:00 her really bad and that was kind of the initiation
14:02 into this new neighborhood,
14:04 and so we, this began a chapter in our lives that
14:07 was, that was very dark. Her boyfriend,
14:10 my mom's boyfriend was an alcoholic and he was a
14:12 violent alcoholic and he would get drunk and then
14:16 he would get violent and turn that on us kids,
14:20 my bother and sister and myself.
14:22 And mainly on my brother, and on myself
14:26 as well but the brunt of the abuse was on my little
14:30 brother. My little brother was the cutest little
14:32 kid ever, blonde, blond hair, big blue eyes and
14:37 he didn't like that apparently. So, as
14:40 we were living with them for this period,
14:42 I remember we would go hungry. We literally would
14:46 be starving, they would spend all their money on
14:49 alcohol and they would eat, of course,
14:52 they would eat like kings and but they would never
14:54 feed us. And so I remember being starving
14:59 and my mother's boyfriend had a daughter that was
15:03 my age, and we used to hang around. So we went
15:06 out one day and we decided we were gonna try
15:09 and find a way to eat and so this began my career
15:14 as I walked into a supermarket chain
15:17 that I don't know, yeah, I guess they're still around,
15:20 Stop and Shop, I walked in there and I decided
15:23 I was gonna steal some food to eat and you know,
15:27 I was a little kid and what would you steal if your
15:31 a little kid hungry you went into a supermarket,
15:33 may be candy bars or something right, no, no,
15:36 no that stuff is bad for you. The very first thing
15:38 I stole was a coconut. Could you imagine?
15:43 Now, I'm starving half to death and I steal a
15:47 coconut. What on the world are you gonna
15:49 do with a coconut? It took me like hours to
15:51 get this thing open. Finally I am like
15:53 smashed it on a brick and like after about a
15:55 100 times I think smashed and we lost all the coconut
15:58 milk and then it's tough to eat anyway and so
16:03 I learned very quickly, you know to get a little
16:05 wiser in my selection of food and so I began
16:08 stealing every single day. I was in the supermarket
16:11 it was only the hand of God that was winking
16:15 at my ignorance that protected me because
16:17 I was in that supermarket 2 to 3 times a day.
16:20 I just walk in, pick stuff out and walk out.
16:22 And no one even looked at me twice, and so
16:26 I began eating like this and this was a pretty
16:29 good career for me if I wanted to eat.
16:31 Until one day my partner in crime got caught,
16:36 and she had gone alone, I didn't know she went
16:39 and I came home and her father was in the window
16:42 waiting for me and I knew I was in trouble.
16:43 He said, Kevin come on up here, we need to talk
16:47 and right then I knew exactly what happened
16:49 she had got caught and told on me and so
16:52 I went up there and I took the beating and so
16:57 this ended my career as a thief and so I had to
17:00 find another way of finding food and so one afternoon
17:05 I was walking down the street and I saw some
17:08 food in an open trash can and I thought well
17:11 that looks pretty good and so I took it and I ate it
17:15 and I thought wow! This is pretty good in these
17:18 trash cans, there's plenty of food and so every day
17:21 I would go out and I would dig through the people's
17:23 trash like a homeless person would, and that's
17:27 how I would eat and I didn't think anything of it.
17:29 I thought this was normal until one day,
17:33 I was across the street from my house and
17:36 I was sitting inside of a dumpster and I had found
17:40 this big aluminum foil and opened it up and there
17:43 was a big piece of steak. Now, I wasn't an Adventist
17:47 at that point and it was a big piece of medium rare
17:51 steak and a big potato, and man it was good,
17:54 it wasn't bad. And so I began eating it and as
17:58 I am sitting in this dumpster eating,
18:00 a young adult came in and he went to throw a bag
18:04 at trash in that dumpster and he saw me in there,
18:06 and he was horrified and the look that I saw in his
18:11 face made me realize that this is not normal,
18:14 not normal and so I stopped stealing food,
18:19 growing up we never, I was the child that parents
18:25 would tell their kids do not hang around with him.
18:28 You can't because we were out of control.
18:31 I didn't have to go to school if I didn't want to.
18:33 I very rarely remember ever bathing as a child
18:39 and so I was that child, I'm sure I probably smelled
18:42 horrendous, I was always dirty. I was that one that
18:46 your parents would tell you, you don't hang around
18:49 with that person, with that child. So, this went
18:53 on for a while, the abuse got worse and worse,
18:56 at one point my little brother got caught
19:00 stealing a little box of Kellogg's cereal,
19:03 you know those eight packs of the Kellogg's cereal.
19:06 Well, he stole it out of the kitchen we had to steal
19:10 in our own house to eat and he got caught and so
19:13 my mother's boyfriend beat him severely.
19:17 So bad that he almost killed him. And so they decided,
19:21 they couldn't take him to the hospital because then
19:24 it would come to be known what happened.
19:27 So, they just locked him in the bedroom for weeks,
19:31 and during this time my grandmother,
19:33 my father's mother was meeting up with us
19:35 secretly and she would give us some encouragement.
19:39 She would take us like to McDonald's and we loved
19:42 that and she would let us know that my father was
19:46 had cleaned up his act and he's trying to custody
19:48 of us and to hang on because they're working
19:52 on this. And I remember one day during this two
19:54 week period my brother had been almost killed.
19:57 He had been locked in a room at this point for
20:00 two weeks and we met with my grandmother
20:02 and she said Kevin, when you go home today get
20:05 your stuff ready we're coming to get you.
20:09 And I remember I went back to the house and this was,
20:14 I had mixed feeling, mixed emotions,
20:18 we were so happy to get out of there, but we were
20:20 so sad we had to leave my mother and I remember
20:24 I was in the living room and the police came
20:27 and when the police came and knocked on your door
20:29 in the projects you knew it was the police.
20:31 They just had a special way they knocked.
20:33 They knocked on the door and all the adults threw
20:36 the vodka underneath the coach and tried to
20:38 straighten up and they answered the door and
20:40 sure enough it was the department of youth
20:43 with the police officer, two police officers,
20:46 with the paper work and said, we're taking these
20:49 children out of here and it was one of the happiest
20:51 days in my life. Although, it was sad.
20:54 So, we began living with my father and my father
20:58 had kicked the habit of heroin and alcohol
21:00 but he was very sick always, since I can remember,
21:06 he had contacted hepatitis through using a dirty
21:10 needle, using heroin and the hepatitis led to
21:15 different elements as well eventually to cirrhosis of
21:19 the liver and so he's always in and out the
21:22 hospital. Now, my father and I got very close.
21:24 I was the oldest boy and we did a lot of things
21:27 together when he felt up to it, and in the city
21:32 where we were living was Summerville, Massachusetts.
21:34 Now, that whole area of Boston is basically run by
21:37 Mafia either Italian Mafia or Irish Mafia just to give
21:41 you an example, a lot of the bar rooms, lot of the
21:45 liquid stores are Irish mob owned,
21:48 the Italian restaurants and night clubs are Italian
21:51 mob owned, and so it's all over the place,
21:54 so you grow up with that. Now, I had become a boxer.
21:59 My father loved the sport of boxing and I wanted
22:03 to make him proud and we were pretty close.
22:05 So I began boxing, and right away I took to it
22:10 I became a natural at it and over a few years,
22:14 a couple of years of training and fighting,
22:16 my trainer had mentioned that I had the potential
22:22 of being an Olympic fighter. Now, this man
22:25 had trained a lot of famous fighters in the area
22:29 and so my dream in life became becoming an
22:34 Olympic fighter. I wanted to win the gold medal
22:37 for the United States in my weight division
22:39 and then I wanted to eventually become the
22:42 world champion Welterweight champion
22:45 of the world is what my dream was,
22:46 it became my life. Everything I did
22:49 revolved around that. So, life was good so to
22:54 speak and my father had been sick off and on,
22:58 always in and out of the hospital and I remember
23:02 the day he went into the hospital for another
23:05 operation, the Thursday night and I came home
23:08 from the school Friday afternoon December 5th,
23:10 1980. 3 O'clock in the afternoon the phone rang,
23:14 it was my grandmother, my father's mother.
23:16 She said and I answered it. She said, Kevin,
23:18 said you know your father went in for the operation
23:21 today, I said, yes, how did he do? She said,
23:23 he didn't make it. And I went into shock like how
23:30 could this be. It was just another operation,
23:34 how could this be, and I couldn't speak,
23:37 I couldn't cry, just handed the phone to my sister,
23:41 went into the other room. Later on that Friday night
23:44 we went to my grandmother's, to make some plans
23:48 and talk about what we were gonna do,
23:49 who was gonna take care of us.
23:51 I was just turning 15 at the time.
23:55 It was a few weeks before Christmas and during
24:00 this time I had hooked up with some wrong
24:04 influences in school because of my fighting background
24:08 I started to gain a reputation with the wrong people
24:12 and so that Friday afternoon we were at
24:15 my grandmother's I went into her medicine cabinet
24:18 and stole a bottle of Valiums from her.
24:20 Now, those of you that don't know what Valiums are,
24:22 they relax you and they're very strong.
24:27 These were called Roche they're 10 milligrams each
24:30 and I remember I stole 18 of them.
24:32 And I still hadn't told anybody what had happened,
24:35 I couldn't talk about it. I literally was in shock.
24:38 So, I went out with some friends that night,
24:41 two friends and we bought a case and half
24:45 of beer. We bought a quart of hard liquor
24:48 and a pint of hard liquor, we bought some marijuana
24:51 and I had the pills between three of us.
24:55 And apparently I had started drinking very fast
24:59 and we started smoking the pot and we're
25:03 drinking the hard liquor and I'm drinking very,
25:05 very fast, my friends realized. I didn't realize
25:08 it. Then I pulled out some of the pills.
25:11 I lied to my friends I said I stole six of these
25:13 pills. I gave two to each of them and I took
25:16 the other 14. Now, this is a miracle that should
25:21 have killed a horse, especially just the pills
25:23 alone. To let alone the hard liquor
25:26 and the marijuana and the beer.
25:27 Well, the next thing I remember I woke up,
25:30 I had blacked out, I had got an alcohol poisoning
25:34 as well as overdosed on the pills and didn't know
25:39 what happened 'cause I had blacked out,
25:41 apparently I blacked out and started crying
25:43 and trying to beat people up and just a mess,
25:46 and so this began another chapter of my life.
25:50 I never felt so alone in my life, 14 years old
25:54 just turning 15. Now, I have to become a
25:56 man and had no one there for me, no one
26:00 in my family, no males in my family stepped up
26:03 to plate. My family was kind of the black sheep
26:06 in the family because of the drugs.
26:08 So this began a downward spin of drugs and alcohol.
26:13 I was in so much pain, I had such an empty feeling
26:17 inside that I was trying to fill and I didn't know
26:21 how to fill it, and so I turned to drugs and
26:24 alcohol, I would wake up, now my mother moved
26:26 back in with us to take care of us. I despised her
26:30 at this point. It's already tough enough with your
26:33 teen years and parents and I despised her,
26:37 and she was still drinking, so I would steal her vodka
26:39 in the morning. I would drink a quart of vodka
26:42 with orange juice before I go to school, junior
26:45 high school, and I would go in drunk and I would
26:48 pick somebody out and I would beat them up
26:50 and I was always in the office for months at hand.
26:55 Now Praise the Lord the principal found out
26:58 what happened, I never told anybody but he read it
27:00 in the newspaper, so he tried to get help for me
27:03 with the guidance counselor. It didn't
27:05 work out, we didn't connect and eventually
27:07 I started getting suspended and suspended
27:09 and suspended, when I was old enough to quit,
27:12 then I quit school and I started working in
27:17 the restaurant business and I got burnt out
27:20 in the restaurant business over a few years.
27:22 My addiction was drugs and alcohol which blended
27:26 in very nicely with the restaurant business in
27:29 the area because that was the kind of clientele
27:33 that you had and the people you worked around,
27:35 they party a lot. And so I worked in the restaurant
27:39 business for a while and I had a child with my high
27:47 school girlfriend, my son Kevin Jr. and it was the
27:50 best thing that ever happened to my life
27:52 because of my child I decided I have to give up
27:55 this lifestyle. I remember thinking one day what
27:59 would happen if there was ever a fire in my house,
28:03 and I couldn't wake up because I was too drunk.
28:05 At this point, I was drinking every single day,
28:08 morning, every night I would drink two 6 packs
28:11 of 16 ounce Budweisers before I go to bed,
28:15 and I thought what if I couldn't wake up and
28:17 there was a fire and something happened to
28:19 my son I would never be able to live with myself.
28:21 So, as I was looking at myself in the mirror
28:24 one day I decided to give up smoking and
28:26 drinking and the whole nine yards.
28:29 So, now work became my addiction and I would
28:34 work over a hundred hours a week in the restaurant
28:36 business and it's a very, it's a business that you
28:41 get burnt out and quickly, and especially
28:43 if you're working those kinds of hours.
28:45 I got burnt out after a few years of this
28:47 and continued in the restaurant business even
28:50 though I despised it at this point but I had
28:52 no education to fall back on, always struggled
28:55 in school because when I was little I never had
28:58 to go to school. So when my father took custody
29:00 of us I was always behind and always struggled,
29:02 couldn't understand things and so I always
29:05 struggled in school. So, I had no background,
29:07 I mean I had no educational background
29:10 and the only thing I know how to do was cook
29:12 and fight. And I hated cooking at this point,
29:16 didn't want to get back into fighting and so
29:20 I decided I was going to begin a career in gambling,
29:24 brilliant and you know the devil puts these
29:28 beautiful ideas in your head and they just seem
29:31 so good at the time. I thought yeah, you know,
29:33 I know football, I will start, you know,
29:36 I know all the bookies in the area.
29:37 I'll start gambling and betting on football games,
29:40 and so that's what I did. The very first Sunday
29:42 now should Christians gamble? No.
29:46 No, not play lottery any of that. We should not
29:48 be involved in that incidentally. No Christian
29:50 should be involved in boxing. We shouldn't be
29:52 watching it. We shouldn't be involved in it at any
29:56 level because it's all mafia run, not only is it,
30:00 you shouldn't be involved any ways, but the mafia
30:02 owns the boxing world. And so now I start gambling,
30:09 the very first Sunday I bet on the games,
30:11 I bet on every game on the board,
30:12 Sunday I don't know it was 11 or 13 games.
30:15 At the end of the day, Sunday I had won every
30:18 single game and I remember Tuesday you would,
30:22 whether you won or lost Tuesday you would go
30:25 into the bar room and met in the back room
30:27 with the bookie and either pay or get paid.
30:29 I remember that Tuesday I went in and sat down
30:32 with the bookie who was actually, he was a boss
30:35 of a small family and he said Kevin sit down,
30:39 he said all the years of my career as bookie
30:43 I've never seen somebody do this.
30:45 You hit every single game, well, of course,
30:48 I left there with a bundle of money and
30:50 I thought this is it. I'm gonna make my millions.
30:53 Gambling with the bookies and you never come
30:58 out on top when you gamble. That was the
31:00 last weekend I won a game. Week after week
31:04 I just lost of course I lost all the money
31:06 I won then I lost all the money that I had then
31:10 I lost money I didn't have. I started betting,
31:13 trying to win back to break even and the bookies
31:16 liked me, they had previously because
31:20 I built a name for myself not only in the ring
31:23 but outside the ring I had gained a reputation in
31:26 my city, and so the bookies or the people in the
31:30 mob used to more than I can't tell you how many
31:34 times they were trying to recruit me to work for them,
31:37 to help them collect debts and I would not do that.
31:41 You know I had morals and so now I find myself
31:47 in this situation where I owe the bookies a lot of
31:52 money, thousands of dollars. Finally I called
31:54 in a bet and they said, Kevin we can't do it
31:56 As a matter of fact you need to come in and
31:58 we need to talk. So I went in, we had our meeting
32:01 and they said, Kevin you owe us thousands of
32:04 dollars we've been lenient with you, we like you,
32:07 we're trying to help you to win your money back
32:09 but you couldn't win if you gave you winners to
32:11 pick and so now we have a situation.
32:14 You owe a lot of money and we're going to get
32:18 that money from you, one way or another.
32:21 And you're gonna decide that way either
32:23 we're gonna get it from you or we're gonna get
32:26 it from me. And so here's your option you work for
32:30 us and work your bill off or we'll go to plan B
32:34 and I knew what plan B what. So I thought about
32:37 it for about 8 seconds and decided my best
32:41 career move at this point in my life would be to
32:43 work for this mob family. So, I began selling drugs,
32:50 began selling cocaine and then I went to heroin
32:54 and marijuana and pills and steroids and it
32:57 just snowballed. And so I became very busy
33:03 immediately in my city and surrounding cities.
33:07 And so much so that within a couple of weeks
33:10 I was able to pay off my bill with the bookies
33:12 and I decided, I am gonna break off from them.
33:15 I am not gonna sell drugs for this mafia family
33:18 anymore. I'm gonna do it on my own.
33:19 This was gonna be my new career.
33:21 Now, but I had moral mind you, so I wasn't
33:24 gonna sell to any kids because I had a heart
33:27 for kids always and I wasn't gonna sell to pregnant
33:30 people or anything like that, and I told myself
33:33 I'm not gonna turn anybody on to drugs.
33:35 If they come to me then if I don't sell it to them
33:38 somebody else will. So I might as well benefit
33:39 from it. My God became money.
33:43 First Timothy 6:10 says, the love of money is what?
33:48 The root of all evil. And so my God, my love was
33:52 money, I never had that we were so poor growing
33:54 up. I remember on one day I asked my father
33:57 for 10 cents to get on a bus and he couldn't
34:00 give me 10 cents. We were so poor.
34:02 Now, my father was sick for years and welfare
34:05 thought he was lying and so they would never
34:08 give us any support from welfare.
34:11 So, we were very poor. Now, I have this opportunity
34:15 that I've seen, can bring a lot of money very quickly.
34:19 So I began selling drugs on my own.
34:22 One thing led to another, it went from drug dealing
34:25 to dealing in guns and ammunition, to steroids
34:29 to stolen car rings to breaking and entering rings
34:32 and before I knew that I had 7, 8, 9 people working
34:35 for me and I was making a lot of money.
34:41 Now, of course when you get involved in drugs
34:43 you never ever win at any level. You get involved
34:46 with drugs you will not win. The foundation
34:50 began to crumble under me. One of the guys
34:53 I had working for me got arrested and he gave
34:56 the police my name, then another man a few months
34:59 later got arrested, gave the police my name,
35:02 2 or 3 or 4 of guys got arrested and gave my name.
35:05 So, the police obviously knew about me,
35:06 and I knew that they knew about me and they
35:09 knew that I knew, they knew about me.
35:11 And so I began a cat and mouse thing where
35:14 I get into almost get arrested sometimes
35:17 and get out of it and I was addicted to the lifestyle.
35:21 I hadn't, didn't do drugs at this time because
35:25 I saw the foolishness of that. If you're gonna sell
35:27 drugs you can't do drugs, because you're not
35:29 going to make money. So, I was selling drugs and
35:34 I thought I would never get caught because everyone
35:37 thinks that and eventually lo and behold I got caught.
35:41 I got caught I had just picked up some drugs and
35:45 I never did this but I dropped it at my house
35:48 to go make a sale with somebody else then
35:51 I was gonna come back and hide it and take care
35:53 of it. When I went to make the sale the police
35:55 were following me in unmarked vehicles they,
35:57 I got into a small chase but it was 3 O'clock in the
36:02 afternoon I had a very fast car. It was 3 O'clock
36:05 in the afternoon and there was a lot of children
36:08 coming out of schools and so I always had a heart
36:12 for children and I thought what if and so
36:15 I pulled over and they caught me with a small
36:17 amount of drugs and I got arrested.
36:20 Now, I remember I'm sitting in jail and I know
36:22 what I just did, I just picked up enough drugs
36:24 to put me away for a long time. So you know what
36:27 I did, I prayed. I didn't even know if God existed.
36:32 I'm in that jail cell and I said, God if you're real,
36:35 get me out of this and I'll never do this again.
36:39 Do you ever pray a prayer like that before?
36:41 So God held to his end of the bargain.
36:45 The bail was very high on me and I had an
36:49 attorney already because I knew just in case
36:53 and so my attorney had gotten the bail down
36:55 to a low amount and I bailed out and what do
36:59 you think I did? Right back into it, right back
37:03 into it, started selling drugs again.
37:05 While I'm going to court for this case and after
37:08 about a year or so, a second time I got caught.
37:12 I was sitting there watching the world series game,
37:15 my partner had just left the house and about
37:19 10 minutes later my door came caving in and
37:22 I found myself on the floor with a houseful of police,
37:27 state police and ATF and all others and I got arrested
37:31 a second time and what do you think I did?
37:35 Worked the first time. So I prayed a second time.
37:38 Lord, I didn't say Lord, I said, God, I know what
37:42 I said the last time, but this time I really mean it.
37:46 If you get me out of it I'll never do this again.
37:50 So, sure enough it was a higher bail and it
37:52 got a little lower and I bailed out and what do
37:56 you think I did. Right back into it, and then
38:00 a third time I got arrested not for drugs this time
38:02 as a matter of fact the second time it wasn't for
38:04 drugs. They didn't find drugs in my house
38:06 they found guns and ammunition. This third
38:08 time I get arrested with stolen property, and so
38:13 I bailed out a third time. So, now it comes time,
38:18 my cases are building up and I'm going to court
38:23 every month I'm going to court now and it comes
38:27 time for the trail, and a district attorney cut a
38:32 deal with me because both my big cases they
38:36 made a lot of mistakes. At this point, I had
38:37 two very high paid attorneys in the Boston
38:39 area and there was a lot of mistakes made
38:43 and so I had an option either I could take it to
38:47 trail and possible win, but if I don't I'm looking
38:53 at least 25 years, 22 years in jail. My son was
38:57 8 years old at the time and so they offered me
39:00 a deal. They would give me 22 years in prison
39:04 in a sentence but it would be wrapped up in
39:07 5 years mandatory. So, I would have 5 years for
39:11 distribution of cocaine, 5 years for conspiracy,
39:15 2 years for this gun, 2 years for that gun,
39:18 years and years and its adds up to 22 years but
39:20 I only serve 5. So I decided to take that deal
39:24 and my partner had already been arrested
39:27 and gone to prison and so he was, we were
39:30 communicating on the phone. And he said,
39:32 Kevin you're gonna have problems when you come
39:33 in here. Now, I had been to prison when I was 17,
39:36 I skipped through that but at 17, I was first time
39:40 in an adult prison. And so he said, Kevin you're
39:43 gonna have problems when you come in.
39:45 Now, there are some people saying some bad things
39:47 about you, saying that you set them up and you told
39:50 on them. Now, I didn't think anything of it
39:52 because I knew a lot of people in prisons.
39:54 So, I thought, they knew me, I knew them
39:56 and it wouldn't be a problem. It wasn't until
39:59 I got into prison I realized what a serious problem
40:02 I had on my hands. Now I was a fighter,
40:04 I would fight anybody and at this point
40:07 I was taking steroids. I was into weight lifting
40:10 and so I thought I was invincible. Now, I found
40:13 myself in this prison and some friends that I had,
40:17 my best friend was in prison. He wouldn't
40:19 even look at me or talk to me, no one would talk
40:22 to me, no one would give me a bar of soap,
40:24 nothing. And then I realized I had some
40:28 serious problems So, when I get in some top
40:32 guys in the prison had a meeting with me,
40:35 wanted to know how my trial went and how much
40:38 time I got and these types of things.
40:41 They were trying to determine what did
40:42 he really tell on people. And so I had a friend
40:46 that I used to box with him. His father used to
40:48 train me and he said, Kevin, you don't understand
40:50 you've been labeled, you don't understand
40:53 what it's like in a state prison. Once you're
40:55 labeled you're always labeled, I can't help you.
40:57 Now, this man had become a Christian in prison.
41:00 He said, Kevin there's nothing I can do to help
41:02 you because if I help you then I'm in trouble.
41:04 So, I knew I was in trouble. I knew I was going to be
41:08 put in a position at some point where I was gonna
41:12 either have to kill somebody or be killed
41:15 and I wasn't a killer. I would fight anybody
41:18 but I wasn't a killer. These guys are killers.
41:20 And so I went back to my cell that day and
41:23 my first cellmate was a backslidden Christian.
41:26 He had seen some things that were going on.
41:28 He gives me a Bible, he says Kevin check this out.
41:30 You ever read the Bible before? I said, of course,
41:32 not. He said, well take a look at it.
41:34 Every single verse I opened to, God was speaking
41:38 to me, telling me do not be afraid, every single one,
41:43 though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
41:45 death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me;
41:48 Thy rod and thy staff will comfort me. Psalm 50:15,
41:51 call upon me in your time of trouble,
41:53 I will deliver you and you will glorify me.
41:56 Fear not those that can kill the body and not the
41:59 soul on and on and on. And as I am reading this,
42:02 this incredible peace came over me and I couldn't
42:06 explain it but I could feel the presence of God
42:09 in that cell, and I didn't even know it was the
42:12 presense of God yet. And so I felt at peace.
42:16 I went out to go to the yard that day, just coming
42:19 from reading, must have been 12 verses and
42:23 I knew it was God but I didn't know God.
42:26 And I'm walking by my best friend and
42:28 he didn't want see people talking to me,
42:30 he said, Kevin don't go to the yard, and
42:32 I stopped him and said why not? He said,
42:33 because Johnny Arms, this man was called
42:35 Johnny Arms because he had biceps like this big.
42:39 He said, he's gonna stab you today in the yard.
42:42 And I just come from reading this, I said, Richie,
42:45 he's not gonna stab me. I just knew, fear not and
42:49 he said, please Kevin, don't go out there.
42:51 I went out there, Johnny never came out for the
42:54 45 minutes of yard time. Later that night
42:57 I found out that Johnny was on this way out
43:00 to stab me. Somebody bumped into him.
43:03 He got into a big fight with him, stabbed him
43:06 and one got taken to the hospital and Johnny Arms
43:09 got removed to a higher security. And right then
43:13 I knew that this was God and he was gonna protect
43:18 me, and so this began my search for God in this
43:22 prison. One thing led to another I would go to
43:24 every service that came in, Protestant service,
43:26 Catholic service on Tuesday night I'm doing the rosary
43:29 beads and let me tell you, I grew up Catholic,
43:32 the rosary beads are the most boring thing you
43:35 will ever do in your life. I mean really,
43:38 hence but I would do it because I thought
43:40 that's what he did. You know, that's how you got
43:41 closer. Then on Monday nights I go to the
43:44 Protestant service and during the Protestant
43:46 service one evening the preacher made an altar call,
43:50 I accepted Christ into my life and I'll never
43:53 forget it. Now a lot of guys do this in prison,
43:57 a lot of times its not sincere and whatever,
43:59 a lot of times it is. For me the moment
44:03 I accepted Christ into my life. It was like a ton
44:09 was taken off my chest and I could first time in
44:12 my life breath and I remember leaving
44:15 and I just felt, if the world was different,
44:18 I left there that night, it was the middle of the
44:20 winter, we're walking back to our unit and the stars
44:23 are brighter, the air was thinner, it was the most
44:28 amazing thing, and this began something incredible.
44:33 Those five, so I spent 5 years in prison, it was the
44:36 best 5 years of my life. I had peace every day
44:39 in prison. God blessed me, we don't have time.
44:42 I could tell you story after story in prison.
44:45 He blessed me, he always provided for me and
44:49 I always went to the best, best prisons if you will,
44:52 never even asking to, and there was a line of people
44:55 trying to get into these prisons. One thing led
44:58 to another. In every prison I was in.
45:00 I always ran into, there are some prisons that are
45:04 better than others. And like some prisons have
45:07 better food and that's huge. So, anyways I like
45:11 to eat and so in every prison there was a
45:14 man Milton, Puerto Rican man, backslidden Adventist.
45:18 A man he was weird like always had his shirts
45:20 all the way up and always had his Bible.
45:22 And I had become a Christian, didn't know
45:23 how to be a Christian. So I would stay away from
45:26 him because he was a little too freaky for me
45:28 at that time. But he would always say, hi
45:30 and I had respect for him. One thing led to another
45:33 I'm in the last prison, a minimum security
45:34 I had made my way down about a half way
45:36 through my sentence and I had the best job
45:38 in the prison. I would leave the prison, didn't even
45:41 know the job existed until I got it, there was a
45:44 line of people waiting, some people waiting
45:47 for a year and half to be next on this job.
45:50 I didn't even know it existed and they called
45:53 me down and said, Kevin we're giving you a new job.
45:55 You're gonna work at the fire department.
45:56 So I would leave everyday at 8 O'clock in the morning
45:59 and work with the firefighters all day
46:01 and then come back at 3 O'clock in the afternoon.
46:03 I'm leaving prison. It was incredible.
46:06 Well, what happened was I got a little too
46:08 comfortable. The firefighters were a little wild and
46:11 we hit it off and so I started getting away
46:15 from the Bible, not studying as much when
46:17 I came back, not praying as much and I started
46:20 getting I guess you would say Laodicean before
46:23 I was even a Laodicean Adventist. I was Laodicean
46:28 before I was Laodicean Adventist, and so
46:32 I started smuggling things back to the prison.
46:34 Now not anything bad but there was a sub-shop
46:37 across the street and food is huge in prison.
46:39 And so for my buddies back I would load up with
46:42 sub-sandwiches and I got along good with the guards,
46:46 so half the time they didn't search me and I remember
46:48 one time I was sitting in the back of that car
46:50 when they come to pick me up and I'm like loaded
46:52 down with these subs and they were like all steak n'
46:55 cheese and so they were all hot and they smelled
46:58 and I'm sitting there and I am thinking man,
47:01 I never thought of this. All I can smell is steak n'
47:04 cheese subs, I am gonna get caught and so praise
47:07 the Lord I got back. They never searched me,
47:09 I just went right up to my cell and one day somebody
47:14 however they told that I was doing this and
47:18 I got caught. They came and got me. I lost the
47:20 job and right away I knew this was God's hand was
47:25 over me. I knew what I was doing. I was getting
47:27 away from studying the Bible and that day I lost
47:30 my job. I was depressed, I am sitting on my cell
47:33 Milton, comes in. He gives me an amazing facts
47:36 Bible study guide, you've seen the amazing facts.
47:38 He said hey check this out, is there anything left
47:40 you can trust. Tell me how you liked it? I read it
47:43 wow! This is unbelievable stuff I never knew this
47:45 stuff. I want back to his cell I said you have any
47:48 more of these. He said yeah, he gave me the next one.
47:49 On the Great Controversy, first time reading the
47:52 Great Controversy theme, it just blew me away.
47:55 Third one, I said man so I kept going back,
47:57 in two days I read 27, the entire 27 lessons.
48:01 I couldn't get enough, from that point on we began
48:05 studying the Bible together, Milton and I and this man
48:07 knew this Bible and I got in good with the guards,
48:11 so they would let me use the phone, the prison phone.
48:13 I hope they don't see this if it ever gets to the
48:15 Framingham area. This is a huge security breach.
48:18 So I would call the ABC in the South Lancaster
48:21 and I would order these books. So in my, and then
48:24 the property officer was, he kind of liked me
48:27 he would bring them up cause they were contraband.
48:29 He would bring them up to my cell for me in the
48:31 backstairs. So in my cell I have these complete
48:35 Seventh-day Adventist commentary set,
48:37 I had the Conflict of the Ages series.
48:39 I have all these books and we would everyday for
48:43 12 hours a day we would pour through those and
48:47 it was the most, we study together,
48:49 The Desire of Ages we studied the Great Controversy.
48:51 We studied the Bible 12 hours a day I could not
48:55 get enough. Never heard this stuff before,
48:57 New England where this message was born,
49:00 never heard it before in my life, like most in the
49:03 New England mind you. So I couldn't wait to get out,
49:06 couldn't wait to meet some Adventist people like wow!
49:11 Adventist people, like from 1844, couldn't wait
49:14 to meet Ellen White by the way. Didn't know she had
49:18 passed I am like, I wonder what Church she goes to?
49:20 And like, and I'm thinking you know I especially
49:24 could meet the youth. I'm thinking man these
49:27 are going to be like halos, white robes like covering
49:31 and I really thought that they would know every
49:35 word that Ellen White ever wrote, the young people.
49:38 Couldn't wait to meet them, a Pastor forget it,
49:40 an Adventist Pastor like wow! And so I got out
49:45 and kind of went through a culture shock for a little
49:47 while especially in New England it's difficult to
49:50 find a Church in the Boston area and one thing led
49:54 to another I found a Church eventually got baptized,
49:57 Pastor Eric Doran, he's a Pastor here in Florida
50:00 in this area. He is Mark Finley's brother-in-law.
50:05 He told me that at that time he said, you know
50:07 I'm Mark Finley's brother-in-law.
50:08 I said oh really! Is he a Church member?
50:13 And he said, you never heard of Mark Finley, no,
50:17 and so don't tell if Mark's here, don't tell him
50:20 I said that. So this began, I got baptized
50:24 and right away they put me in the youth ministry
50:27 and I was leading out the youth and one thing
50:29 led to another, and at this time Pastor Doran
50:33 had left, we were about a year and half without a
50:35 Pastor. And the head elder Paul Maxwell, a friend
50:39 of mine said, he gave me a pamphlet he said,
50:44 Kevin I want you to check this out, tell me
50:45 what you think of it. It was a flyer on the
50:48 AFCO program and I looked through it and
50:50 I see Pastor Doug on the front, you know,
50:52 that's how I came into the Church and I looked
50:54 through it wow! So, I was praying about it
50:56 and on my knees praying about it, my phone rings.
50:59 I answer my phone its Paul he said, Kevin what
51:03 did you think of that flyer. Have you got a chance
51:05 to read it? I said, Yeah, I would love to go,
51:07 but I can't afford to it. He said, don't worry
51:09 about it. I've already brought it to the board
51:11 and we're gonna pay for you to go.
51:12 Every week we're gonna raise money for you.
51:14 They raised enough money for me to go,
51:16 they raised enough money for me to pay my bills
51:19 while I was gone. So, I went to AFCO, didn't know
51:22 what to expect, didn't what a Bible worker was,
51:24 didn't know what evangelist was, although
51:25 there was one stipulation. He said, Kevin there's
51:28 one stipulation if we sent you, you have to come
51:30 back and do a series and use the new beginning
51:33 I said sure, whatever, I'll do it, I wanna go.
51:36 I had no idea what he was talking about,
51:38 do a series, like new beginnings, what in the
51:41 world is that. But I knew I would do it 'cause
51:43 I wanted to go then I was in AFCO I realized what
51:46 I had said yes to. Now I had a public speaking
51:49 phobia my whole life. I had ran restaurants and
51:52 could never have a meeting because I was
51:55 so afraid to speak and I thought Oh! Lord,
51:57 what did I get myself into, like I'm gonna preach
52:00 a series, are you kidding me. And one thing led to
52:03 another, AFCO was a mixed blessing and struggle.
52:08 I did good in the academics, in the class
52:11 and did terrible on the outreach and couldn't
52:13 get a Bible study if my life depended on it,
52:15 got two Bible studies in 4 months and losted them
52:18 both and praise the Lord what did I become
52:22 when I got out of there, a Bible worker.
52:24 Couldn't get a Bible study if I had to, and the Lord
52:27 blessed and I just wanted to work for God.
52:30 All I wanted to do was work for God with this message.
52:34 There is power in this message that we have
52:38 and I know that if I had become a baptized
52:40 or another denomination in prison I wouldn't be
52:44 here today. There is power in this message,
52:47 I just wanted to work for God, he opened one door
52:50 after another, he right away opened a door when
52:52 I got out of prison to go into a department of
52:55 youth services one of the worst in the country
52:57 in the Boston area, to begin studying the Bible
53:01 with youth that are locked up, some of
53:03 them will never get out of prison. They'll
53:05 go right from the youth to an adult facility,
53:08 and the Lord blessed me in that and then one
53:11 thing led to another through Bible work,
53:12 I end up working with ASI youth for Jesus program,
53:16 amen, and had never, Amen, and here are some
53:20 from youth, so I just love coming here especially,
53:22 this is my first year and I had done this for 5 years,
53:24 last 5 years in-charge of the youth for the
53:28 Jesus program and it's the greatest program in
53:31 the world for youth today, the best in the world
53:35 hands down, and I never thought I'd be working
53:38 with Adventist youth always thought it would
53:40 be you know others and what a blessing
53:44 it was for me. Now, let me tell you this,
53:46 this short story, I am running out of time.
53:48 I'm in AFCO and I understand that if
53:51 I wanna be involved in evangelism that
53:53 I'm gonna need a computer, now I didn't
53:55 grow up in a computer age. We had type writers
53:57 when I went to school and been in prison while
54:00 the computers were getting big. So, I understand
54:02 I'm gonna need a computer if I am gonna be
54:04 involved in evangelism, so I prayed. Lord, I have
54:06 some money, I don't know if you want me spent
54:08 it on a computer but if you do then you've got
54:12 to make it so plain to me that I cannot make a
54:14 mistake, because I don't want to spend this
54:16 money foolishly. About a week later, now my Church
54:20 was such a wonderful Church,
54:22 the Stone Memorial Church, they would send me
54:24 money every week, make sure I had enough money
54:27 to eat and whatever. And, so all of a sudden
54:30 a week after this prayer the door bell rings,
54:34 I answered it, it's a UPS guy, big box, I said Oh!
54:39 Look at this one of roommates got something
54:40 good he said, Kevin Sears? I said yes.
54:43 He said, I have a package for you. I said, for me!
54:46 And so I sign right away, took it in, I opened it up,
54:49 it's a laptop computer. Someone in my Church
54:54 before I was praying decided they wanted to get me
54:58 something while I was in AFCO. They knew the
55:01 Church was sending me money, they don't
55:03 wanna give me money they prayed about it
55:04 and they were impressed to buy me a computer.
55:06 At that point I knew where my life was going to be
55:10 leading, I would be involved in evangelism,
55:13 no question about it, and so that is what happened,
55:18 I got out of prison, one thing led to another led
55:21 me to ASI youth for Jesus. ASI has been my life
55:25 for the past 5 years. It hasn't been a summer
55:29 program it's been my life for last 5 years.
55:32 It's been the greatest 5 years of my life working
55:35 with these young people, seeing their lives
55:38 transformed for evangelism and seeing
55:41 the incredible miracles through that program
55:44 and I myself have grown so much over this time.
55:49 I want to share a scripture with you in closing.
55:53 We're gonna to Second Corinthians,
55:55 you're very familiar with this verse.
55:58 Chapter 5, verse 17, Therefore if anyone is
56:07 in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have
56:10 passed away; behold all things have become new.
56:14 My friends, at some point in every person's life
56:18 we're gonna run face to face into Jesus Christ.
56:23 And how we react to that will determine the direction
56:27 the rest of our life will go. No matter how bad
56:30 things are in your life I want you to understand this,
56:33 no matter what's going on in your life you're
56:35 not too far for God to reach you and when
56:38 you look at others, no matter how bad some
56:43 kid seems or some adult seems, he is not out of
56:47 the reach of the power of God. I hope that you've
56:50 seen the power of Christ working in my life.
56:53 You haven't seen me but how incredible our God is.
56:57 matter what's going on in your life you're
56:58 not too far for God to reach you and when
56:59 you look at others, no matter how bad some
57:00 kid seems or some adult seems, he is not out of
57:01 the reach of the power of God. I hope that you've


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Revised 2014-12-17