A message from death row

You may want to give this article to your teenager to read. Below is a letter written by a young man who became a Christian as a young person, but in latter teenage years rebelled against his godly upbringing. He got involved with drugs and ended up killing a man. He is now on death row awaiting execution. It is unlikely his sentence will be commuted. Having repented of his sins, this young man writes to encourage young people to wake up before they share his fate or a worse one.

"At some point in time we all have had something we wanted to do, but our parents told us we could not do it. Yet somehow we convinced ourselves that our parents don't know what their talking about and are just being mean to us. So we go ahead and do it anyway. To go against our parents is not only being disobedient to them, but also to God. "Children, obey your parents" (Ephesians 6:1). It is God's will that we not only obey our parents but parents must train their children that they may be obedient (Proverbs 22:6)."

"Disobedience can cause many things to happen to us. From parents we may feel the pain of the rod (Proverbs 13:24). Or we might find the wrath of government brought upon us (Romans 13:1-4). But even if you do not get caught by your parents, by the Police, or whomever might punish disobedience, you still have one that will judge you. It is not possible to escape the punishment of judgment if you do not repent. "Because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of righteous judgment of God..." (Romans 2:5,6)."

"I personally have, I feel, more knowledge on this subject than most people because I can speak from first hand experience. See, I was rebellious and it cost me more than I wanted. It cost me my freedom. But it could have cost me my soul had I died before I had the chance to repent of my sins. Not everyone that is disobedient has the chance to repent and you would rather play Russian-Roulette with six bullets in a six-gun than play with your soul like that. I thank God I had that chance to repent. I could have just as easily died with my sins and that would have been tragic for me: "Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41)."

Stop this very day and look deep inside your heart and judge yourself so that you will not be judged like those in Matthew 25:41.    --- Pat Jones

   Home    Another Article    Top

Page last updated: March 03, 2003