It was an experience I will never ever forget. I was at Hays State Prison in Georgia doing a Prison Ministry Bible Study with a group of men. Hays State Prison is one of the hardest and toughest maximum security State Prisons in Georgia. Sitting in the class were two young men. As I shared from the Bible, one of the men said
“IT WAS HARD.”
This young man, in his early 20’s just spoke out “It’s hard man.”
That it was hard to have ANY HOPE or to have any sense of meaning or purpose in here.
I asked “Why is That”? And he said, “because I have “Life Without.” I was not sure what he had just said, and I asked him, What was that? He answered, “I have Life Without Parole.” Then another man spoke up, “me too. I have Life Without.”
My message that day was from Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. How crazy ironic Huh? God Knows our deepest needs.
I shared how God is able, abundantly able to help us and give us His Grace, His Hope and His Help in our deepest times of need. After the Bible Study, as I left the prison that day on my drive back home, I cried and my tears began to flow as I hurt deep in my heart and soul for those young men. I prayed that God would strengthen them and some day, some way their circumstances would change. For God to help them and give them that Hope of Calvary.
Standing before the Judge in the CourtRoom of Law you are shackled and chained and you stand there awaiting the Sentence from the Judge to be rendered.
It seems like a dream or some crazy nightmare that will not end. You never planned to be standing here today, it was not something you wanted or how you would have planned your life to end up. For real no one gets up one morning and decides I think I will go to Prison today.
In reality it’s always a progression.Getting in prison is very often a consequence of bad choices, bad friends and poor judgement.
You ask yourself over and over again why? Why did I make such an awful choice or decide to let life take me down this road that led me here. There are many reasons and causes. Some of them are often very hard to fully understand or comprehend. Maybe it was a poor home life, a bad childhood or very real problems adapting to society that only led to a life of poor choices and bad decisions.
Standing before the Judge and being sentenced to Prison is a hard and harsh reality to face regardless of the reasons and causes that got you there.
In the Bible are many stories to share about men being in Prison and oftentimes at the very end of their ropes.
Joseph was one of those old testament bible characters. Remember the coat of many colors story you may have heard as a child in Sunday School. He was thrown in Prison and was innocent, yet spent many years languishing in the Egyptian jail house because he was framed and set up by his boss’s wife, who claimed he tried to rape her. But in that prison experience God came to Joseph and blessed him. He would eventually walk out of that prison and become a successful leader in the Egyptian society.
There is another amazing story in the Bible of a prisoner that got a big break. Perhaps the biggest break of all. He was on Death Row, awaiting his execution. Hard hearted and hopeless he was. His name was Barabbas. Barabbas had been thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city, and for murder. He was scheduled to die by being crucified on the cross along with a couple of thieves that were awaiting their gruesome fate.On the day of the Crucifixion, Jewish priests who were wanting Jesus Christ to be crucified pleaded with Pontius Pilate and the Jewish people to release Barabbas and crucify Jesus Christ instead. Pilate had offered the people a choice, thinking surely they would choose Barabbas for death and not this man Jesus who had not committed any crime. But the cold hearted Jewish priests and elders got the people to cry out to kill Jesus and release Barabbas.
Barabbas was therefore released and let go. While Jesus was taken to the Cross of Calvary and crucified. The innocent paying the price for the guilty. That is what Jesus did. He died for you and I, so that He could pay the debt of SIN that we could not PAY.
Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.
Romans 6:23 “ For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. “
“Houston we have a Problem!”
We are born in SIN because of the sin of Adam and GOD provides a way to cover that SIN in the Lord JESUS CHRIST.God leaves us a free will to choose. To choose to live in sin and reject the Love and Mercy of Christ or to accept HIM as our Savior and the one who paid the price for our SIN.
DO YOU WANT GOD’S JUSTICE? OR GOD’S MERCY?
Standing before the Judge in that CourtRoom of Law is a very frightful and emotional thing. You can cuss the Judge out, call him every name in the book, plead your innocence but in the end the full Sentence is rendered. Stunned and shocked! You shuffle out of that CourtRoom chained and shackled on the next bus to Prison. The Bible says there is another day of Judgement coming for us and you and I will one day stand before GOD.
Hebrews 9:27 “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”
Like hiking on a steep mountain trail or driving down a long winding road we will come to a place in life where we have to decide. If you walk blindly and don’t watch your step you will step off the Bluff and fall to your death. If you drive the wrong way or make the wrong turn you will drive off the cliff to your death.
We each must make a decision about what GOD’s road signs tell us in LIFE.
The BIBLE tells us that we are sinners, and that we need a savior?
That God sent His Son, JESUS to SAVE us from the judgement and penalty of SIN.
You have to trust God’s word and Trust in Christ JESUS as your Savior.
Admit and confess to GOD that you are a sinner and need the Savior JESUS CHRIST.
Believe in your heart and soul that Jesus Christ died for you and your sins.
Change and Repent from your life of sin through the help and power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Judge can sentence you to Life. ONLY JESUS CAN GIVE YOU LIFE!
Even in Prison you can Be Free.
Dr. Mickey Park, Dminn. Set Free To Serve Ministry P.O. Box 253 NEW HOPE, TN. 37380 www.setfreetoserveministry.org
(A servant & bond slave of Jesus Christ! Missionary to Jails, Prisons and the Lost, Shining the Light of Christ to a Dark world!)