Pastor Llewellyn Roberts
I want to share with you the four principles I believe in for Christian living—drink, steal, swear, and lie. You need to drink from the fountain of life every single day, steal a moment of your day every day for somebody worse off than you, and swear that you’re going to be closer to the Lord than you were yesterday. You’ll know Him to a greater degree than you knew Him yesterday. And last but not least, lie on your bed at night and thank Him for where He’s brought you from. Thank Him for where He’s taking you. Thank Him and give Him glory, honor, and praise because He’s taking you to places you never dreamed possible. He’s going to show you things you’ve never seen. He has opened the door for us to come into His presence, into the temple not made with hands where Jesus opened the way. We can come into the presence of God, and we can gain knowledge of Him. We can know Him as His children. He is waiting for us every single day to come into His presence. He waits for us to wake up and talk with Him every day.
The Return of the Lost Son
The most important thing to know is that Jesus is the beginning and the end. He is the bright and morning star, the peace that is beyond all peace. You have to know Jesus. It’s not about the church. It’s about Him. You come to church because of Jesus. God had His hand on my life throughout everything I’ve gone through. He made ways for me. Looking back on my life, I see His hand upon me.
The Bible says that all good comes from God. He is a good and giving God. The devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus said, “Behold, I have come to give you life in abundance,” (John 10:10). He will give you life in abundance ’til it overflows with joy and peace. When I believe what Jesus has done for me and that His promises are true, peace and joy come.
To experience true peace and joy, you’ve got to get to the midnight hour. It’s the darkest and scariest place. The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-31) was lost in that darkest place. He was in the pig pen, and he smelled like a pig. And he was at the end of himself, and he said, “I will return to my father.” And he said, “I will just be a servant in your house.” And you know when that son left his home as you read that story, he lost his identity. And many times, we lose our identity. You’re not a servant. You’re a son that serves. There’s a big difference between a servant and a son. A son always serves at no cost. A servant always serves at cost. And so, you need to be a son that serves.
When I came back to Jesus, I was so excited. But with all the crime and drugs I’ve done, you can’t get out of that world quickly because you know too much. For a month, I locked myself in my room and just listened to the Word.
Faith comes by hearing what you read. You must read it out loud to yourself. Many people are just reading, so no faith comes because you also have to hear. And so, I would just listen. I’d read the word and listen. I was so excited about Jesus. I was so excited about Him. And everybody that came into my life. Because you think that you’re saved now, everybody would just welcome you.
And that excitement about Jesus has never left me. That passion for Jesus has never left me because He found me when I was dying on the battlefield of broken dreams. I was in the mud, the blood, and the beers, but He came and found me. So, I wanted to know Him. But when you’re going through change, not everyone would immediately believe what God is doing in your life.
Mothers, don’t stop praying for your children. It might look dark, you might be in that midnight hour but there’s going to be an earthquake. Suddenly, the light will come.
A Personal Encounter with Jesus
When people say they’ll kill you, it’s not just talk in the world of crime and drugs that I came from. So one day, after seeing someone shoot another person at the back of the head, I was scared that I was next. Not one Christian would believe me even if I said that I’m saved. No one has encouraged me. But while I was hiding, suddenly, I had an open vision of Jesus. I didn’t think it was real. I thought I was hallucinating. I saw Jesus, and I saw Him tied to the whipping post. I saw Him on the cross. But as I was looking at Him, I saw Jesus standing torn to pieces. He was being beaten. His face was marred like you’ve never seen before. Half His beard had been torn out, there was a crown of thorns on His head, and His face was swollen. You wouldn’t even recognize who He was.
As He was being whipped, Jesus’ flesh was torn from His bones. Right around Him was just flesh and blood. But, in a moment, I knew those ropes weren’t holding Him. There it was — His love that held Him there. As I looked into His eyes, He said, “Llewellyn, this is for you so that you can be healed. This is for you.”
You have to have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. And I saw Him dragged and His back was just open. His internal organs were hanging out and as they put a purple robe on Him, and they stood before the crowd, they said, behold You’re the King, and He looked down into the crowd. His tears rolled down through the blood from His head, from His eyes. And He looked into the crowd, and He saw there was one that He healed. There was a man whose eyes were open that He opened. There were those that Jesus fed but they were chanting, “Let His blood be upon us and upon our children!” Jesus stood there, and He looked into the eyes of those He had come to save. They rejected Him, and He stood before Pilate.
I saw Jesus. They put the cross on His shoulders and as He was going up to Golgotha, as He was going up to the place called “The Skull,” the weight of the cross pushed Him to His knees and I heard Him. He pushed Himself up. The weight of the sin, your sin carried by the Master. The weight of your sickness, disease, problems, and troubles was upon Him.
Jesus walked up to this crowd and they were from generation to generation, on either side of the road. They spat into His face, but not once did He turn His face from the Spirit. Not once did He turn His face. Like a lamb led to the slaughter, He opened not His mouth. And He went up and came to Golgotha. As I saw Him there as I got up to the top of that mountain, on top of that place, it was shaped like a skull. There I saw Roman soldiers holding these two men down. They were screaming, “No, no, no!” and soldiers were at their feet and their heads, and they were slamming nails onto their feet. They were screaming, but I saw Jesus just walk with that cross. He just lay Himself down because no one took His life, He gave His love for you and me so that we can be free, so that we can be filled with joy and peace. So that we can come into the presence of God without fear, shame, or even feeling intimidated because He washed us in His blood. The soldiers had a look on their face like they had never seen someone like Jesus before. You see, on that day, the Bible says, God made a sacrifice — Jesus.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 17:3).
You can come into His presence without fear, shame, or feeling intimidated. That’s what righteousness means—to be able to stand in the presence of God without fear, shame, or intimidation. That cross fell into that post. He was the ladder that was sent to connect us to Heaven. Jesus is the only intercessor between God and man. The only way to the Father is through the Son. There is no other way. There is no other path. As I stood at the foot of the cross, Jesus looked at me and said, “Llewellyn, I’m in so much pain. It hurts so much. But I’m looking across time and space, and I’m doing this for you.”
And so I asked, “How can you do this for me? I’m a filthy person. I’m ashamed.” But the Bible says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).”
As I looked up at His face, I’d never seen so much love in His eyes. There was no accusation, there wasn’t anything like that. I’ve always been told that I was going to hell. And if you’re a parent saying that to your child, you are speaking words of death over them. You can choose to speak life and light into the darkness.
Jesus looked at me and He said as the blood dripped from His head from His side, it began to drip into my face. He said, “This blood is for you.” His blood is for you. After I saw Jesus, I was filled with a sense of ability that I can face anything with Him.
I was a bad person. I’m not trying to glorify the devil at all in my testimony. I was a really bad person. But I wasn’t accepted. My family never accepted me. My brother and sister didn’t want to accept me. The only person that stood for me was my mother. One time, while she was watching a preacher, my mother looked at the screen and she saw me in a vision preaching at my church where I am on the stage and everything. She saw me praying for the sick and reaching the lost. When she saw me doing that, she said that she wouldn’t give up on me.
Even if your parents are believers, when you come into the Kingdom of God, you have to have a personal experience of Jesus. You can’t come through your parents or any other way except through Jesus Christ. You must be born again.
Some people have made a decision to accept Jesus out of fear. But you cannot get to heaven in fear. You have to realize the love of Jesus Christ and that’s why I shared my testimony with you today so that you can see His love that will keep and hold you when you go through times of trouble.
A New Creation
You have to realize that when you gave your life to Jesus Christ, something happened on the inside of you. Your spirit man came alive. You become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is why baptism is so powerful. It separates you from the world. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, the blood released from Israel was the water that separated them from their enemies. So, when you are baptized, the old you goes down the drain. The new you arises, and you become a new creation. You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). Because of this, you and I have been justified. God sees us as if we had never sinned because Jesus shed His blood for me and brought peace between me and God. You and I were reconciled to God.
When you’re going through some things, you need to just praise Him. In all these things, give Him glory and honor. When you’re in a time of problem, praise Him because it’s the hardest time. It’s easy to praise Him after the victory but it’s the hardest thing to do a victory dance before the battle.
From the moment I accepted Jesus to this day, I’ve been so excited about Him. He has never let me down, even if I let Him down many times and messed up many times. But a mess up is a time for you to stand up. Even if we mess up, God is not going to fall off the throne. He’s been there too long. He knows what you’ve done. Just be honest with Him. This will allow Him to move in your life. Let God reveal His heart to you. See yourself as God sees you. You are His beloved child. You are a new creation.
