>>>Facing the ultimate prison....
They all wake up and realize how terrible they had been. Most of them.>>>>
Well, according to the Bible, we are all evil. There is non righteous, no not one. Jesus himself calls us evil. Matthew 7:11.
The closer a person gets to Christ, the more he sees how bad he is. Billy Graham used to say that and it’s true. Paul said he was the chief of sinners.
Only Christ is good. As he told the rich young ruler.....Only God is good. Glad Sammy found redemption. God now considers him to be perfect as if he never sinned. Romans 3:22......he has the righteousness of God credited to him. He is accounted perfect. Declared perfect.
I tell people.....don’t think you don’t have to be perfect to get to heaven. You can’t have ever committed a single sin in thought word or deed. Not a second of sin. Ever.
So that’s the bad news because I’ve already ruined that this morning. But the good news is.....the perfection of Christ is imputed to me. Now. And as I abide in him....I have it.
That is why gospel means “good news.” The reformer Tyndale said the book of Romans is such good news...it makes a man’s heart to sing and his feet to dance for joy. Look at the face on Sammy as he comes up out of the water.
He is no longer guilty of a single sin. Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. We are all wretches. Amen.
“They all wake up and realize how terrible they had been”
I don’t think this is so
His parents were literally “off the boat” from Sicily.
If he’s like any other Sicilian family I know in the NE, he had grandmother or aunt who was praying daily for his conversion and salvation.