Men Need Jesus — E.A. Johnston

Men Need Jesus in Every Circumstance

I reckon it was over 30 years ago. The very first public sermon I ever preached was at a maximum security prison. Me and another man were led through several security checkpoints, led down a cement block way to a room with a heavy door.

Inside that room was a podium and about 50 wooden chairs. One by one the prisoners entered that room, led by a prison guard. I had picked for my text that evening, Psalm 40, and as I stood behind that little podium and looked at the faces of those murderers and thieves and molesters, I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

I did my best that night as I knew how to give those men hope of a Savior from sin, a Savior who had the strength and power to lift you out of the deepest pit and the deepest mire. All the time I preached I feared for my life because the prison guard had left me and my friend alone in that room full of convicts.

Any minute I thought one of them could have jumped at me and stuck me with a shiv. When I finished my message I gave them an exhortation of hope that there is a Jesus for the man trapped in a pit or a prison.

And as soon as I stopped talking my worst fears took place as several of the men sitting on the front row chairs leaped up and rushed me. I stiffened my body as I waited my attackers, and soon several men were standing around me and hugging me and telling me how grateful they were that I had come to speak to them.

Every Man Needs Jesus

I saw that night that men need Jesus. It doesn't matter if a man is in a three-piece suit and a banker's chair or wearing a prison uniform. Men need Jesus. Men need someone bigger than they to lift them out of the pit or mire they are in.

Waiting for God's Deliverance

I waited patiently for the Lord, the text says. Some men wait longer than others for help and deliverance to come. Some men are in worse circumstances than others when they realize they need help, but they each have a common denominator, and that is a need for deliverance.

And there was a period of time before that deliverance came. Joseph sat in prison two more years after the butler and baker were let out. Some men sit too long in sin before they call out to a Savior from sin.

Christ's Power to Rescue and Transform

And he inclined unto me and heard my cry. Just because the deliverance hasn't yet appeared doesn't mean he's not listening, friend. Opportunity in prayer gains his ear. My Bible tells me so. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay.

That pit of hell is no place for a man because it was prepared for devils. When Christ enters a person's life, he brings transformation along with him because he is Christ the transformer. He can transform a man's life to such a degree his former friends won't even recognize him.

He brought me up, our text says, up out of two things, a pit and out of miry clay. A pigpen is no place for a man but a filthy hog who likes to wallow in that filth, that filthy mire, when Jesus saves us from the pit of hell by delivering us from the penalty of sin.

He doesn't stop there for there is still that mire that has to be dealt with. A man needs pulling out of that mire. And this can only be accomplished by supernatural power over sin that Christ by his Holy Spirit gives us so we can live the Christian life for him.

The New Life and Praise of the Redeemed

This is seen in the next verse, friends. And set my feet upon a rock and establish my goings. When a man needs a remedy for sin in the person of Christ Jesus and that remedy cures from the penalty of sin and gives transforming power over sin to live for Jesus to the glory of the Father, then you better believe, friend, he'll put an old sinner to singing and he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God.

When a man realizes how much Jesus loves him, having loved us, he died for us, and like how the apostle Paul puts it, who loved me and gave himself for me. Once a man who has been delivered from the penalty of sin and the power of sin, he will leap and dance and sing praises to the mercy and grace of God.

Sharing the Gospel and Rescuing the Perishing

Many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord. A saved sinner wants to see others saved. That's the reason I drove several hours in the dark of night to go to a prison to tell some incarcerated men about the love of Jesus.

And although I was scared for my skin the whole time I preached to them, when they rushed me to hug me and love on me, I saw that night in that southern town just how much men need Jesus. Oh, dear friend, don't you want to go out of the comforts of your home to tell others about the one who came down here so we can go up there?

Where would you be today if someone hadn't told you about that remedy for sin? This old world is a sinking ship doomed for destruction. Won't you go out and rescue the perishing? It may be a little scary like it was for me, but it is worth it because of souls and eternity.