Faith Walk / William Carroll
Faith Walk / William Carroll
Episode 35: Lessons Learned During Booger's Salvation Experience
When I first met Booger, his rough exterior masked a soul crying out for change. Our encounter, a story of raw transformation I share with you, marked not just his journey to salvation but mine as a guide to the lost. On this episode of Faith Walk Podcast, I reveal the intricate dance of leading someone to Christ, a responsibility laden with the whispers of the Holy Spirit and the echoes of personal testimony. It’s a window into the vulnerability of those in search of redemption and the steadfast path we must lay for them, resonating with anyone who's ever yearned for a deeper connection with the divine.
As we step into the walls of a correctional facility, the air heavy with past regrets, I narrate the powerful reactions of inmates as they grapple with their longing for forgiveness. Their hands raised in prayer become a testament to the universality of our search for hope and the importance of second chances. Weaving through the theological threads of the 'prayer of salvation,' I invite listeners to grasp the lifeline it offers, paralleling the nurturing embrace a newborn receives. Join us as we navigate the transformative power of faith and the profound impact of extending a heartfelt invitation to walk with God.
Well, good morning and welcome to Faith Walk Podcast with William Carroll. I'm your host as I talk about the, the signs, wonders and miracles that I've seen in my life through serving God, by taking him out of the box and letting him, having an intimate relationship with him, knowing him as my personal Lord and Savior, knowing him as a, as a friend that sticks closer than a brother, childlike faith. Reading the word, seeing the word, looking up the word, standing on the word and believing the word and just reaching out and believing that God will do what he says he does and then letting God. Let God be God. You know I can't make God do anything, but I can believe what he word says. I can remind him what his word says. And Isaiah says let us contend together. Put me in my remembrance of my word, and that's what I do. You know, when I pray, I pray the word of God.
William Carroll:In the last episode, which was episode 34, I was talking about a booger and Ricky, who are you co workers that I used to work with and how that that that I led Booger to the Lord. Well, listen, in that broadcast I didn't get to tell you this, but that was the first person I ever shared the gospel with and led them to a salvation in the Lord you know. And that's why I didn't know. I asked God, you know, in that last deal I told you. I said we prayed. We prayed twice. I said, booger, you understand that the word of God says that if you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth that you'll be safe, that you'll be safe. He said yes. I said that's all you got to do is pray a prayer. All you got to do is say Lord Jesus, I believe you're the Son of God, come into my heart, be the Lord of my life. I said do you understand that? He said yes. I said okay, do you want to do that? He said yes, and we bowed and nothing happened. Twice, nothing happened. So the third time I said well, you got to change something. So I said, well, just pray after me. And so I pray, I pray to pray. Lord Jesus, I believe you're the Son of God, you know, come into my heart, be the Lord of life, forgive me of my sins. Anyway, and he prayed that prayer.
William Carroll:So afterwards I started asking the Lord. I said Lord. I said I don't understand. And see, this is the kind of relationship I'm talking about that you need to have with Jesus. You know, he gave us the Holy Spirit to teach us all things concerning him, revealing all things into us. And so I said, I say Jesus, but I was talking to the Holy Spirit. You know, the Holy Spirit was and, lord, I don't understand. I don't understand why he wanted to accept the word of God. He believed that you had died for his sins. He believed and wanted to ask you into this heart, but he couldn't do it.
William Carroll:I said two times, I told him exactly what to say and I told him you know, you can make up your own prayer and nothing, nothing happened. Why, lord, why? Why was that like that? I just can't understand that, lord. And I prayed about it and prayed about it and then, finally, I just got a piece about it. I got a piece about it and this is what I felt the Lord shared with me.
William Carroll:He said because he wasn't born again. You see, when a baby is born, a baby doesn't know how to be born. A baby knows that it's time to go. A baby is feeling uncomfortable, it's ready to go. But who birthed the baby? Well, the mother burst the baby. The doctor helps, the nurses help, the mother pushes, the baby doesn't isn't born by itself, there's other that birth the baby into the natural realm. And I just felt like the Lord was showing me that and telling me that you know, he was lost, he didn't know how to be born again, so you led him and he was born again.
William Carroll:And you know now, today, I know, and I've been in a lot of churches I've been in cowboy churches, I've been in biker churches, I've been in Methodist, Catholic, non-denominational Baptist, all kinds of churches and in these churches they don't have an altar call. And they said, well, the altar call wasn't in really in the Bible and they never give. They preach the word of God and they give nobody the opportunity to cross that. Oh, they may say if you wanna talk about it, come on down and we'll talk about no. No, if you draw a line in the sand, I'm gonna tell you that's what preachers used to do.
William Carroll:Preachers used to draw a line in the sand and give people the opportunity to cross it. See, that day, that very day that I prayed that prayer with a booger, I said, lord, if you ever let me share that's what preaching the gospel is sharing. I said, if you ever. Let me share the gospel with anybody and you. Let me draw a line in the sand, lord. I will give them an opportunity to cross it. What good is preaching if it has? No, if it doesn't draw people to a point of decision. See, a lot of times we've just got teachers up in the pulpit a lot of times because they don't wanna offend anybody. They don't. Oh, it may embarrass somebody if I say, hey, if you believe that you feel a tugging in your heart and you wanna accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and you feel that desire, you can come down here or raise your hand. You know.
William Carroll:First it went. Let me tell you the day I knew, the day I knew, I knew man, I hit the floor on my knees and I called out and I said Lord, I need to be born again. You know, and people that sometimes people know, go back and listen to Chris Christofferson's testimony of when he said he was in church and he was in the church in Nashville and some of these old Nashville people churches, and one of them had a brother and was preaching and he said I don't even remember what the message was. I don't know what the message was and he said I didn't even make the decision. He said I found myself up out of my seat, walking down until the after. You know, and experienced something that I didn't even go there to experience. He experienced Christ. That's what he experienced.
William Carroll:And you know, we just don't give people the opportunity and listen, it's okay. If you don't, that's fine. You know, if I'm stepping on your toes and you need to repent and do something about it, how can you share the gospel and nothing happened? You know nothing happened. How can you share the gospel and nothing happened and you're afraid to say? You can even say bow your head and raise your hands if you feel a tug on your heart and you need to ask Jesus into your heart. But we went there first. The church is dead. We went there first. You know, instead of calling them down to the altar because somebody might listen when the spirit of God pulls on your heart, you don't have to be worried that somebody's gonna get embarrassed and not come down, because those that hoops God, the Holy Spirit, is drawing. He's the only one that can save them. But if drawing them, then they're gonna come down to that altar.
William Carroll:And you know, I believe a lot of times in riding my motorcycle, with the chariot slide and going out and doing ministry out in the, at the bike rallies and things. I ask them all the time. You know, I ask them out of a sign. We tell them we preach the gospel, we share the gospel with them. You know we don't preach Adam. We share the gospel with them, we share our testimony. That's preaching the gospel. You share your testimony and you say, hey, do you, do you know the Lord? Oh, yeah, I know the Lord. A lot of them. I say I know the Lord.
William Carroll:Some of them say no, I don't. Some of them will tell you I'm gonna bust tail wide open and I'm gonna go down the hell and be with the party girls. I had one say that and and I told him. I said why hadn't you heard? The party's been cancelled. What I said? Yeah, because it's gonna be total darkness, nationally, teeth and the eternal fire with no light that burns your soul. And I said if you were there the party girls, if they were there, you couldn't see him, because all there's gonna be is wailing and Crying and nationally of teeth. I said because God didn't create hell for you. And I led that man to the Lord. And yes, I let him in a prayer. I said would you like to accept the Lord as your savior? I said because God loves you just like you are. You see, that's preaching the gospel, that's sharing the gospel.
William Carroll:You know there's too many churches that the baptismal isn't used hardly at all Three, four, five times a year. You know, and a lot of times, if you go to those churches You'll realize that that they're not, that the word of God is being preached but they're not giving people an opportunity to, to respond to it because they want to believe what they say. They say that this isn't the gospel. Well, let's just go there right now. I'm on this roll. Listen, I love you.
William Carroll:If you're not asking people, if you're preaching the word or teaching the word or whatever you're doing, and you don't give a People an opportunity, and when you draw a line in the sand and said this is how it is, this is the word of God, this is what the word of God says, and you're preaching by the spirit of God and you don't give somebody the Opportunity to make a change in their life, to cross that line in the sand, to become a Christian, to to deal or just Repentance repentance in your heart. You know I preach this weekend up at the jail and I'm gonna say preach, because that's what I do. I preach, I preach the word of God and this time listen very People that don't have a lot of scripture, don't know a lot of scripture, can't even find it in the Bible. You don't have to use a lot of scripture, but I used my testimony this weekend and I shared a part of my testimony that I'll get to later in some of these other broadcasts. And I was sharing that part of my testimony and and Sharing what I had gone through and how I felt and and I could see the me and poking each other and and I had talked about, you know, depression and divorce and and the loss of my two best friends and in a time when I was needed them the most and man, I could see these guys poking each other and you know, and I knew that, that they were identifying with what I was saying and I said, you know, and I told them. I said you know, I said and then I just knew I had to go to church. I said I. I said I try to go to church, try to repent. Nothing would happen. I went to church, went to church, in that service I felt the Lord nudging me. You know, lift your hands. I said no, don't feel like it. And he said you check down on me. He said you've been mad at me and me and him had a little conversation there and I just began weeping and weeping and weeping. I didn't even know I was mad at God and repenting.
William Carroll:And after I shared that testimony with the men, I gave them the opportunity. I said some of y'all had been in church, some of y'all have known God, some of y'all have worked, you know, known who he is and what he is. And I said because you lost a job, or because you got arrested, or because you did this, or because you know a wife left you or something traumatic in your life, you may have been a Sunday school teacher, you may have been, and you just quit, you walked away from it all. Then you don't even know it, but you're mad about God and you need to check in. You need to check back in. God wants to check back you, back in today and get you on the right path.
William Carroll:When you know, we had 16 men and two women in the service. We had one woman answered the call and we had nine men that raised their hand Cause I said, if that's you and you need to repent and you need to get right with God, raise your hand. And let me tell you, men in the prison, with the you know wound, those hands went up fat. I didn't ask long. I said I'm not going to take long. I asked one time and, men, the hands went up, you know, and I led them in a prayer and they prayed a prayer and they said thank you, pastor, for coming in, thank you, pastor, for talking, thank you for sharing your word, your testimony with us, thank you. I said no, thank you for being here, cause you know, I'm just doing what I feel like the Lord has called me to do.
William Carroll:Listen, the word of God says this in Romans, in Romans, chapter eight. I'll start in Romans 10,. Romans, chapter 10, verse seven. I'm gonna start in seven. It says it says who shall descend into the deep, or that is, bring Christ up again from the dead. But what sayeth he? The word of God is native, even the mouth and in the heart. That is the word of faith, the word of faith which we preach. If you shall come fast with your mouth the Lord Jesus and shout believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart, man, believe it, it's under righteousness. And with the mouth, confession is made until salvation.
William Carroll:You know, I hear preacher says well, there's no such thing as the prayer of salvation. Well, if you're saying that you need to repent, you need to repent because there is such thing I just read it to you and you need to repent because you're deceiving your flock. See, people don't know how to get born again unless they be led, just like a baby. A baby has to be birthed by the doctor, the mother, the nurses and those that are helping the mother, cause the baby doesn't know how to just say hey, open up, I'm coming out, but it's the woman's body, it's the nurses, it's the doctor that helps guide and lead and birth that baby. See, we've got a lot of people.
William Carroll:I mean listen, I'm not talking about any particular church, I'm talking about I've seen, you know, I've had somebody ask me. A pastor said hey, william, you want it? Well, we're having this thing over at the Bible, at the cowboy church, but it's gonna be a biker event and would you mind being the speaker and I said, well, let me tell you, because I had been to his church, I knew. I said I'm gonna tell you something. I said I promised God a long time ago that if I share the word of God and I draw, he allows me, he allows me to draw a line in the sand. I'm gonna give people the opportunity. I knew that he didn't have altercalls at his church. He didn't, you know, he didn't whatever believe in him or whatever. And I said but I don't mind speaking, but I want you to know right up front that I'm gonna give an altercall. And he said okay. He said all right. He said, well, I want you to be the speaker. So at that deal, that was a whole bunch.
William Carroll:This biker deal was for Christian bikers, for not just Christians. I mean any biker club could come, but it was all of the chaplains. It was the chaplains. It wasn't every biker club, it was the chaplains that were invented to a you know a conference kind of, because it was other speakers. I was the final speaker, but they were invited to come so that we could have fellowship with these other chaplains of these 1% clubs and everything. So I got through ministry.
William Carroll:Now I can't tell you what I ministered on there, I don't remember, but I ministered the word of God and at the end I drew. I mean I felt that God had drawed a line in the sand through through my words and through my testimony. So I said, I said look. I said I know we're all supposed to be Christian, we're all chaplains, we're all this. And I said but I know that when the word of God goes forth, it's to convict us, it's to convict our hearts, and there's some of us out there that need repentance. Some of us need to repent of our sins. And I said if this message is spoke to you and God's tugging on your heart and I had already asked them to stand up I said raise your hand right now. Now, look, this is a bunch of ministers in there right. And I looked across the room and the hands went up everywhere across the room and I said okay. I said you know. I said repentance.
William Carroll:You know, every time you have a call at the altar, it's not for salvation. A lot of times it's for repentance. When I was a young Christian, my gosh, I spent more time at the altar than I did in my chair because God was working on me. God was cleansing me. God was revealing to me the things that I needed to repent of, the things that I needed to get rid of, the things that I needed to lay at His feet. You see, we've got it wrong. The church is thinking that every time I give an altar call, it's for salvation. No, it's not, it's for repentance. You know, salvation is not a one-time thing. Salvation is, oh, wow, I asked Jesus into my heart and I got saved. And now I'm on a walk. It's an everyday walk to repent of your sins. It's an everyday walk for to let the Holy Spirit show you what you need to repent of, to show you what you need to get out of your life and to change your life.
William Carroll:See, after you get saved, you don't. You don't go out there and you don't just start quitting things. You know, oh, I got saved, I quit drinking. Oh, I got saved, I quit doing this. No, you don't do that. If you do, it's by works. If you're drinking and God lays it on your heart, hey, you need to quit drinking. You know, because you're saved, you need to quit drinking. If God starts dealing with you to put it down, and you put it down, then it's through the power of the Spirit, it's through the power of God and not because if you lay it down on your own, you'll pick it back up and it'll be seven times worse. You got to let God clean out. That's the Holy Spirit's job. He comes in as a fire and he refines you and purifies you and cleans you out and clears you out, and he speaks to you about the things that you need to repent of, the things that you need to give up. Listen, I'm gonna tell you something. This is just one of my things. You know the church.
William Carroll:You wonder why the church isn't doing what the church is doing. It's because we're afraid we're gonna offend somebody. It's afraid because we want to say there's no such thing as the sinner's prayer. Well, I just read you the sinner's prayer. Go look it up, romans chapter, romans chapter 10, 7, 8, 9 and keep on reading because it goes on.
William Carroll:Listen, if you're one of those that are saying that and say we don't need to have an altar call, we don't need to let people cross the line that we've just preached and ministered to their hearts about, and it's tweaking their hearts, the Holy Spirit speaking to them, and they, what are they gonna do? We just go home, go home, that's what we do. We go home, quit going home. Give them an opportunity to cross that line that the Lord allowed you to draw in the sand. Draw in there, right there. When you're preaching a message, you're speaking to somebody. If it's not, then what are you sharing a message for? Sit down, sit down and let somebody else get up there that knows how. The power of God. I'm sorry, listen.
William Carroll:I love y'all and you know, one time I took my son he was a little video fella then. I mean he wasn't but about two, three years old and there was a preacher and he was preaching, he was shouting, he was heartache and he was getting excited, kind of like I was. My son grabbed me by the face with both his hands and he turned my head. He said who's he mad at? I said who. He said who's he mad at? I said I said Bryn. I said he's mad at the devil. That's who he's mad at. He's not mad at these people. He loves these people, but he's warning these people. He's mad at the devil because the devil are taking people to hell every day and there's nobody out there.
William Carroll:The church is like a. It has no power. The church is like it has no power. You know, in Jesus's day they remarked because the church had lost its power. But Jesus poked with authority and conviction and compassion. And Jesus reached out his hand and healed the lame, the sick. That's what the church supposed to be doing today, but we're even afraid to ask somebody to repent of their sins and to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. My God, my God, we are missing a great opportunity and we need to get busy because there's people out there that need to be saved, amen.
William Carroll:Well, listen if you like this broadcast. If you don't, I guess you turn me off for good. Now, right, I hope it stirred up your heart. If you don't know Jesus, ask him into your heart. Pray that simple prayer Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive me in my sins, forgive me where I failed. You Be the Lord of my life. And then go and confess that to somebody else. Tell somebody, tell somebody what God did in your life, how you changed your life.
William Carroll:Listen, there's a subscribe button on there. If you like this broadcast, hit that subscribe button and then hit the little bell that comes up and it'll notify you when a podcast has dropped and if it's touched your heart and you think of somebody, somebody came into mind, share it with them. Share it with them. You can also donate on there if you want to. It starts out at $3. Any donations that I get from this if I get any I will use to upgrade my equipment and so that it will be a better podcast.
William Carroll:Listen, you can find me on Spotify, apple, google Intune, alexa, bussproutcom that's where. At FaithWalkWilliamCarolatbussproutcom. Faithwalkwilliamcarolatbussproutcom. Listen. You can also write me at faithwalk1960atoutlookcom. Faithwalk1960atoutlookcom. So feel free to drop me a note. If something I said just encouraged you and lift you up, you know, or just sparked something in you, send me an email. Send me an email, remember. Hit the subscribe button. Hit the bell. You'll be notified on the next one. Until then, share Jesus with somebody. Start your FaithWalk today. Share your testimony, share how God has changed your life since you've asked Him into your heart. You must be born again. John, chapter three. Go read that. Until next time, william Carrol, I'm gone.
