What must I do to be saved? (TV Audio #544)

'Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.' (John 3.5-6)

When Jesus called me to serve Him, aged 15, everything changed.

I was now in the Fifth Form in Selhurst Grammar School, Croydon; it was to be my last year before I left school. For some reason they had separ- ated my twin brother and myself, so it was just me in that particular class. I remember that year very clearly; for our weekly religious lesson, we had a master who was what one might call a ‘modernist’. He denied that the miracles in the Bible happened; he didn’t even believe in the miracle of Creation but leaned to Darwin’s theory of evolution. This upset and annoyed me very much, because I had been brought up to believe in God as Creator of Heaven and Earth and to accept the Bible totally – with all the miracles.   Week after week I challenged him on the Authority and Divine Inspiration of the Bible. One of my favourite texts was, ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration from God.’ Every week I would counter him with Scripture, and if I didn’t know the an- swer I would go home and ask my father, who could always find the correct verses to help me. The boys in my class seemed to enjoy this, as we were the only class in school that never followed the curriculum; the whole Scripture lesson consisted of my arguments with the teacher. At the end of just one term, he came to me and suggested that we start Bible study and prayer in the school. I’m sure that he had accepted Christ, as every lesson I always brought in a clear call to salvation. Later I also found that two boys in the class went on to become preachers of the Gospel.

As well as bringing the Truth of the Bible to my teacher in my last year at school, I kept up my preaching to the boys in the playground – I was a real ‘Hell-Fire’ preacher. In fact, I was so strong, and I have never forgotten, that two of my school friends, rejecting my offer of salvation, shook hands and declared that they would go to hell together.