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Prisons

Prison is an area where a Bible is often read in solitude, perhaps in a prison cell, with
wonderful results, times when God’s word speaks when no other person is present.
Andy is just one such example.
Serving a life sentence for murder, the result of a drunken argument, Andy’s outlook
on life was very bleak and hopeless, until one night in his prison cell:

“While in prison, I decided to take my own life. My situation had become
so hopeless I’d lost the will to live. I had made a noose and decided to
fix it up at the window then let myself hang to death. At that moment a
quiet voice spoke to me: “Just read that Bible.” On the shelf sat a copy of
the New Testament and Psalms. I opened the book at the beginning of
Matthew’s Gospel and started to read. At Luke’s Gospel, the story of the
lost son, my tears started to flow, my hopelessness disappeared and the
wretchedness I had suffered went. Most of all the idea I firmly believed,
that I was unworthy of forgiveness, was taken from me.
The angry, frightened, desperate person I had become ceased to exist
there and then. When Jesus’ words spoke of the brother who was “dead
and is alive again; he was lost and is found”, I was found indeed. I wept
openly with joy. Suddenly I had hope. I couldn’t have told you what for. I
just knew I had hope. I wanted to live. There wasn’t any difficulty I wasn’t
ready to face. My words do an injustice to the event happening in and
round me.
If no Bible had been in that prison cell, I would be in Hell right now instead
of living my life in the joy of the Lord!’’

The power of the word of God. No one else in that prison cell but the word of God
and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray that many will hear that voice
that speaks.

12 Finding Jesus