The Ricky Blackmon Story: How Does The Son Of A Preacher End Up On Death Row?

Introduction

Thank you for being here tonight. I have been encouraged by your enthusiastic and passionate worship, and happy that I was able to share in that with you. Looking forward to our study tonight. Would you take your Bible and go over to Proverbs 13? Like to read a couple of verses as we get started tonight. This is in Proverbs 13. And I’m looking down at verse number 13. Will you look at that with me? Wise man says, the one who despises the word will be in debt to it, but the one who fears the commandment will be rewarded. The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life to turn aside from the snares of death. Good understanding produces favor. But the way of the treacherous is hard.

I’m going to do something this afternoon that I have never done before. To the best of my knowledge, and I did pass 50 last year, so my forgetter is working well. But to the best of my knowledge, I don’t ever remember repeating a sermon for the same group of people that I had preached that sermon for before. Except for you guys. When I held a meeting here a few years ago, the elder said, Well, we know you did that lesson about Ricky Blackman, but we’ve had a lot of new folks come since then. We’d like you to do it again when you come. And so I don’t know what, four or five years ago I was here, and I preached this lesson. And so when we were making plans for this meeting, the elder said to me, You know, remember that sermon you preached four or five years ago about Ricky Blackman?

We got a lot of new. Y’all do have a lot of new people. Who haven’t heard that before? We’d like to have you do that again. So, to those of you who’ve been here like longer than 10 years, you have my deep apologies for having to sit through this again. But there are a little new folks. And so I’m happy to deliver the lesson again. I want to tell you a story. We said we would begin with a story each session of this meeting. This will be more lengthy than the other ones, but I think when I get through, you will understand why it was important to sort of walk you through the whole thing. And then the back end of this is going to be real simple.

I want to make three applications from the story and along the way reference three Bible passages and then we’ll be done this evening. This story I want to tell you centers around some events that took place in the little East Texas town of Haslum. Has anybody sitting in this crowd heard of Haslum, Texas, giving a few nods? Only in Texas. I go to the places nobody’s ever heard of Haslam. It’s just a wide spot in the road up along the border with Louisiana. You might better know Lord Logansport, which is just across the river, Logansport, Louisiana. It’s just classic small town America. It’s the kind of place where a guy will roll up to a 7-Eleven on a hot afternoon, and if he’s just going to run in and grab something to drink, he might leave the keys and the ignition.

He might leave the motor running. It’s the kind of place where people go to bed at night and they don’t bother to check and make sure the doors are locked. It’s a small town. But in late March of 1987, going back almost 30 years ago now, that small town spirit was shattered by a horrific murder. Carl Rinkel owned a local family grocery store in Hasm. It was Sunday morning, about 6 o’clock, time to open up, and when his employees got there, Carl wasn’t there. And they immediately knew that something was wrong. Although he was only 22 years old, he was a responsible young man. He was always there to open this door. And so they began to go and look for him. They went to the most logical place.

They went back to his house. There was no truck in the carport as they anticipated there would be, and they walked in and looked around, the door was just cracked open. They peeked inside and they could see the awful truth. His body was lying on the living room floor. He had been brutally murdered the night before. Of course, if you’ve ever grown up in little town, you will understand that a story like that was just immediate front page news. Everybody wanted to know who had done this awful thing in their little town. And in fact, the people of the town were just scared to death. I visited Haslem about two years after Carl’s murder and went across into Logansport and was talking with the local librarian, and she shared with me how frightened everybody was until they figured out who had done this awful thing and apprehended them.

In fact, it was funny. She told me in that conversation, you know, after Carl’s murder, I started locking my doors when I went to bed at night. But sadly, this kind of awful thing, innocent people being brutally murdered, that’s all too common in our culture today, especially in our bigger cities does do many news cycles pass here in the Houston area without the story of a murder. And so while the murder of Carl Rinkel was front page news in Haslam, Texas, even those of us who lived in East Texas at that time didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t. I was only about a hundred miles from Hassan when Carl was killed. Starting my very first work as a local preacher in Huntsville, Texas. And of course, when I say Huntsville, Texas, everyone in this crowd knows what that means, right?

Huntsville is the seat of the Texas prison system. it was even 30 years ago. It’s always been so. When I lived there were about seven prison units in Walker County that surrounded Huntsville, including the Ellis unit where they used to house death row inmates. And then right in downtown Huntsville is what they now call the Huntsville Unit. Used to be called the Walls Unit. If you’ve ever been there, massive brick walls all the way around it. But that’s right in downtown Huntsville, and behind those doors is where condemned men are put to death. That’s where I started my work as a preacher for a little group in that town. And it was during that work, late one Thursday night, if my memory serves me correctly, it was, I think, after nine o’clock, sort of past the hour when folks are supposed to call.

I got a phone call. And it was from a man I’d never met before. So when I answered the phone, he had to begin explaining who he was and how he got my number. He was a Christian. He lived up in Oklahoma, and he’d been looking for a preacher in the Huntsville area, and he’d been calling this guy and that guy, and gradually ran enough pathways till he got me and my phone number, and that’s why he was called. He said, Brother David, I need to ask you to do something for me. And then he paused. And there was that long silence that just sort of built the anticipation and said, He’s about to ask me something important. And then he finally continued, and he said, My son has just been convicted of capital murder in Shelby County.

And they’ve transferred him out to the Ellis Farm where he’s to await his execution. So I’ve been trying to find a preacher in the area who would go out and see him and help his life, help him get his life straightened out. And I was hoping that you would go. Now see, as a 50-year-old man, I’d like to tell you that I enthusiastically embraced this wonderful opportunity. As a 22-year-old man, I was not enthusiastic at all. Never been to the prison much at all, had never been to death row, and I did not want to go. But worse than that, I didn’t know how to tell this guy that.

And it is his story that I want to tell you. He wasn’t what I expected when I went to see him. Do you guys have some presuppositions about what kind of person does something awful like kill someone? I did. My problem was that as I sat down and began talking to him for that first two-hour visit. He began to immediately dispel all my presuppositions. He didn’t fit that box that I had created for killers. He hadn’t grown up in the inner cities surrounded by gangs and crime and robbery, so that was just sort of his cultural DNA. He hadn’t grown up in a broken home with drug addicted parents who mistreated him. And though I’m a layman in this area, to the best I was able to diagnose, he didn’t look like a crazy man, didn’t behave like a crazy man.

He seemed as normal as me and you. Just behind the glass, wearing the white uniform. In fact, the truth is, as he sat there that first time and told me his life story, it really struck me that his upbringing wasn’t that different from mine. He grew up in Mount Pleasant. Guys know Mount Pleasant. A little bigger than Haslam, not nearly as big as Dallas, but all kind of in the same area. Little East Texas town. He grew up in a small town. His mom and dad were Christians. Part of the Southside Church in Mount Pleasant.

Not there anymore. They’ve moved it. Used to be across the highway from the Dairy Queen. I know where all the dairy queens are in East Texas. And his mom and dad took him to worship there. Every Sunday. And his dad. His dad did some preaching. That wasn’t his full-time work. He had a secular job, but on Sundays, his dad would go out a little bit from Mount Pleasant to a spot called Cooper’s Chapel, Texas. That’s it, folks. Look at the monitor. That’s Cooper’s Chapel, Texas. Cemetery, old frame church building. And if you could get a little closer to that picture, a few houses kind of scattered around. That’s about all there is. But in the late 70s and early 80s, there was still a group of our brothers and sisters who met in that old frame church building.

I’ve learned later that little spot of ground is sort of the home turf for Ricky’s families. They go back four or five or six generations, still have some old homesteads of their family right out there by Cooper’s Chapel, Texas. And in the late 70s, there were still a group, mostly of his relatives, who would meet and worship on Sundays in that building. And Ricky’s dad would go out and he would he would do preaching for them. And when Ricky was a teenage boy, the age of some of you guys sitting there, he would go for with his dad and he would lead the singing. So I got in the old building, you can tell from the pictures. It was unlocked. I didn’t break in. I could just visualize.

I can see that teenage boy sitting there waiting for his cue. Can you see that in your mind? And I think when I was in that old building, that it struck me like it never had before that this is not the kind of beginning that murderers come from, is it? So how does the son of a preacher end up on death row? It is interesting, the few days before his execution, Michael Graysick, who’s a reporter for the Associated Press and covers the Huntsville prison system, interviewed Ricky and asked him that same question. And when he was interviewed by Graysick, he gave the same answer that I’d heard him give a dozen times in talking to him about this. He’d said, Well, let me go back and tell you about the time I was 15 years old.

And I was in high school. And I started running with the wrong crowd. I wanted to be popular. I wanted to be accepted, and I chose a crowd that was doing things that my whole life that I believed was wrong. But I wanted to be accepted by the crowd. And so as I went along with them, I began to get pressure to do things that I always believed were wrong. But because I wanted to be accepted by the crowd, I began to cave. And do things that I knew that I shouldn’t do. In one of his letters to me, he said, before I knew it, I was in with the ways of the world. I’m talking about sex, dope, drinking. Think my parents didn’t know what they were talking about, telling me not to do this or that.

And I didn’t like someone telling me how to run my life. But as I look back on it now, my friends were running my life. But I was having fun the way they did, and it seemed I had control, but as I look back now, I see that I was wrong. From that moment. Nothing was the same. The entire trajectory of his life was forever altered. He continued to run with the worst people, not only through high school, but into his adult life. He used and abused every kind of drug. He was involved in sexual immorality. If it was wicked, he’d done it. And he continued to live that way for essentially the decade that was his twenties. In fact, not long before he died, he described to me what was what was sort of the cycle of his life during this period.

He said, I would go get a job. Didn’t matter what it was. If it paid, I’d do it. And I’d worked that job for a while, and I would save every penny I didn’t need to live. So I lived minimal, put away all this money, and when I had a little nest egg after two or three months, I’d quit the job and I’d go party. And you understand by party I don’t mean ice cream and birthday cake, right? And when I had played through all the money I’d set aside and I was broke, I would go get another job. And I’d work that one for a while. They just followed this cycle. He was in and out of debt, constantly up and down and up and down, all through his 20s until March of 1987.

He was on the downside of the cycle. Things were so bad he was living out in the state park. Made me reconsider camping. But he was with a woman who said she knew how they could get some quick money to buy some more drugs. Because she knew this guy back in her own town that owned a grocery store who always carried a big wad of bills on him. Carl was kind of brash about that, his mother told me. Liked to carry a big wad of 20s. And Donna would come into his store, and he knew she was down on her luck, and so he’d reach in his pocket and he’d pull out this big wad of 20s. He’d peel off a couple and he’d give them to Donna so she could buy her groceries.

And she repaid his goodness by plotting his murder. That’s what I learned during my first visit. We continued to study together for a couple of more years. And then I moved away to Chicago and later Orlando. And we would write back and forth, got a lot of letters. Visited occasionally when I was back in Texas and could find my way up there to talk to him. But it was in July of 1999 that this letter came in the mail. Now I guess from the very first time he and I visited together. We both kind of knew it would come to this. That one day he would have to write this letter. It says in part, Dear David and family, how are you? Fine, I hope and pray.

Myself, I’m very nervous. I’m in touched with the Lord this day more so than I’ve ever been. My hand feels like I can’t get it to pump enough blood, and or my heart rather feels like I can’t get it to pump enough blood, and my hand feels like it wants to start shaking, but I’m holding fast to the word of the Lord. Just today I was informed of my execution date. I will go to be with the saints that are awaiting for the day of judgment on August 4th, 1999. Yes, my number is up.

God bless you. Love Ricky Dawn. It was a month later, on August 4th, that the state of Texas executed Ricky Blackman for the murder of Carl Rinkel. I had a standing agreement with the elders of the church I was working with that time would come and I would need to go, and so I did. We spent his last three days together Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And then I was with him when he died. We talked a lot about a thing, a lot of things those last few days. We made arrangements for his funeral. Talked about the care of his mother. But more than anything, we talked about what he hoped people would learn from his life. He really wanted his story to be told. He would be delighted very young people in the crowd hearing this story.

He had a special passion for young people. I think the reason for that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? He saw so many of his problems as beginning in his youth, that his choices of his youth were pivotal for him. And I guess that he hoped somehow, if his story would be told, it might help someone avoid making the mistakes that he made. And so, as I’ve reflected on the 11 years that we knew each other and visited through that little window in the visiting room out at the Yellows Unit, it occurred to me that I’d heard him preach a lot of sermons about what people should learn from his life. And so what I’d like to do is share a little bit of his material with you.

1. Be Careful About the Friends You Choose

It dawned on me as I was looking over this afternoon that I have now preached someone else’s outlines twice today. It’s pretty good stuff. I want to share it with you because I think it’s some things God would want us to know. And if you’ll let me do it, you’ll help me keep a promise to a friend. And his story would be told. And then maybe out of the tragedy that was his life. Maybe something good might come. So, if he could be standing here today instead of me, what would Ricky want you to learn from his life? Let me give you three quick things. That’s the end of the story. These are the three applications, and we’ll tie those with three scripture. First of all, I think if Ricky could be here, he would want to say emphatically that the lesson to learn from his life is be careful about the friends that you choose.

You’re shocked to see that up there, aren’t you? Of all the sermons he preached, I heard this again and again and again. And it’s not a surprise because it’s so clear when you hear his life stories that so much of what happened to him boiled down to this choice and that not us passing judgment on his life. That’s how he saw his life. He wrote to me in a letter, and he said this. I was baptized at 15 years old, and I helped my dad by leaving singing every Sunday. As I got older, I started to have friends that were not Christians. And the things that they did were fun. Sometimes it seems that way. Some of the things I didn’t want to do, but my friends would say, come on, it won’t hurt you, or what’s the matter?

Are you scared? And after a while I thought it was okay. I started smoking cigarettes because my friends did. I started drinking because they did. And when I was in the ninth grade, I was introduced to smoking dope because my friend said, Oh, you’ll like it. And I did. Before I knew it. I was in with the ways of the world. It has always been astonishing to me. Scary. And here’s a 40-year-old man reflecting back on his tragic, awful life, and saying, let me tell you the decision on which everything turned. The friends I chose in high school when I was 15. My whole life boils down to that moment and that choice. Isn’t that terrifying? That just sent a chill up your parents’ mind. Scary thought.

He valued the wrong people. He pulled the wrong people close to him. He wanted to be accepted by that crowd. He didn’t want folks to think he was afraid or out of step with what they were doing. And so when the pressure came to do things his whole life that he believed were wrong, he caved to the pressure. What his friends thought came to be more important than all the things he’d been taught his whole life, more important than what his mom and dad were saying, more important than what he believed God wanted him to do. I want to tell you something. We’ve got to get our handle on the impact the crowd has on us because when it’s turned loose, it is power.

I told you that I wanted to share these things with you because I think in making this point, is it Ricky reflecting what God has already said a long time ago? God’s way ahead of him on all this. And so what passage do you think I would go to this evening? How about 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 33, where Paul said, Do not be deceived. By the way, whenever the Bible begins with those four words, it’s time to sit up, turn the brain back on, and engage. This is something where we tend to think it can be other than what the Bible says. And the Holy Spirit is in essence trying to say, do not fool yourself about this. Don’t think you’re wiser than God is.

Do not be deceived. Evil companions corrupt good morals. I’ve always been impressed with how absolute that verse is. You know, this Holy Spirit didn’t say, you know, if you run with the wrong crowd, it’s not a good idea. There’d be some bad consequences. They might take you in the wrong direction. That’s not what he says. He’s so absolute. If you pull close the wrong people and warm up those relationships and let those people become here, counselors, the people you lean on and depend on, if that’s your crowd, they will take you away from me.

I think about the crowd that’s described in John 12. That is a remarkable passage to me, down in verse 42, where it talks about many of the rulers who believed in Jesus but wouldn’t confess Jesus. Have you ever just let that sink in? They believed in Jesus but wouldn’t confess Jesus. Here’s what I assume because of what is said about these guys. They had seen Jesus, they had heard Jesus, they had witnessed his miracles, and they had come to the right conclusion. He says they believed in him. How do you not go the next step? So they wouldn’t confess it. They were afraid.

They could be put out of the synagogue. They could be rejected by the crowd. That was important to them. Jesus says it this way. They love the approval of men more than the approval of God. They are too concerned about the crowd. And we look back on that and we think, well, that’s ridiculous. Who would ever choose? They would ever choose to do that. We do. Every time we allow wicked influences in our life to pull us into sin, we’re choosing the crowd over Christ. Do you see? I want you to see that in Ricky’s story because I think it illustrates how desperately awful that choice can become and the potential destruction it can bring into life. So what would Ricky wants to say? Be careful about the people you choose to be your friends.

2. You Need to Listen to Your Parents

Be careful about your crowd. Make good choices about the people you pull close and build ties and relationships with. People you choose to make your counselors and your friends. I know we say that all the time. How long have you been here? Sorry? Almost six years. Six years. Surely you preached on this. Surely it’s been said in Bible class. Surely your parents have hassled you about your friends at some point. So why does it bear reiterating? I think Ricky hope that coming from someone whose life ended up like his did. Maybe it might really make you think about all those things you’ve heard again and again. Be careful about the friends you choose. Okay, let me give you a second lesson. I think if he could speak to us, a second thing he would especially want to say to young people, he would want to say, you need to listen to your parents.

Some of the most moving conversations I had with Ricky were about his mom and dad. He loved his parents. They shared a very close relationship. In fact, when he went to prison, it was really tough not being able to spend much time with them. They lived, they lived a good distance away up in Oklahoma. And they came as often as they could. It was a nine hour drive from Oklahoma. Nine hours down, four hours’ visit, nine hours back. Did you do the math? It’s literally a whole day. And they were older people. That was a hard trip. And they made it again and again and again. It was never enough. I mean, it was like a man desperately thirsty. He could never get enough to drink from that relationship.

He hated not having physical contact with him. When a man goes into the death row system in Texas, he doesn’t have contact with the outside. Not ever again. You see some pathetic scenes in that visiting room out at the LSU. Sometimes I would sit out at my little window as I was waiting for them to bring him in. You could see the fingerprints on the glass where wives and children had pressed their hands against the glass. Sometimes you could see lipstick. Where some mama was trying to kiss her child, some wife was trying to kiss her husband through the glass. No contact. That’s kind of pathetic, isn’t it? Sad. And it shook his faith to the core. 1993. His dad died suddenly, unexpectedly, of a heart attack.

He had to be notified. Nobody could come tell him. He couldn’t have family come and comfort him. And he couldn’t go comfort his mother. He worried about her. Her health was not good as the time for his execution drew close, and he lived with the pain of maybe when they put me to death, that’ll be so traumatic. Maybe it will take her life too. He loved his mom and dad. But the sad thing is that there was a lengthy period of his life when he did not value. I want you to know that Joel and Arvin, blackmen, didn’t just sort of step back and watch their son go off the cliff and just watch it happen. Everything that he did, he did over their intense protest.

And one of the letters he wrote to me, he said, Daddy would try to tell me, if you keep living like you are, you’re going to get into trouble. But I didn’t think so. Remember? He didn’t want anybody telling him how to run his life. One of my most vivid memories of my visits with Ricky was that very first visit as he came to this part of the story. I can still see his face. I can see the tears welling up in his eyes and running down his cheeks as he gritted his teeth. And he said, David, I wish, I wish I had listened to my dad. So I think if he could speak to us, he’d want to say something about that. If you’re a young person in this crowd and you’ve got a mom and dad who love Jesus, and they’re trying to get you to love him too and follow him, Ricky would want to say, you need to listen to those people.

I want to let you know a little secret about your mom and dad. When you go to bed at night, your parents will go back to their room and they’ll close the door, but they don’t go to sleep. They sit up some nights after you’ve gone to bed and sit in their bedroom and they talk about you. They sit back up in there, and what they’re doing is figuring out some strategy on how they can make your life more miserable tomorrow. Did you realize your parents do that?

And if you think that’s so, you’re you’re probably wrong about a lot of stuff. Your mom and dad do go back to their room at night and they do talk about you after you’ve gone to bed, but we just sit up and try to figure out how to get it right, don’t we?

And we pray and we shed tears and we worry about messing up. And we do. Your mom and dad aren’t perfect. But that’s okay. You aren’t either. We all mess up. The great thing about parents is first of all, they do have, I know y’all hate to hear this, but they do have some mileage, some years and experience, some things they’ve seen, which gives them wisdom about helping you along the way in the journey. And God has told them that they’re supposed to help you. Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 4. The Holy Spirit, through Paul, commanded parents to bring up your kids in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. You know that, right, Mom and Dad? That’s marked in your Bible. Well, these days your mom and dad will stand before God on judgment.

And no answer for whether or not they did this. This is serious business. Sometimes I hear young people say, I don’t like my parents being all up in my business. Well, you need to take that up with Jesus because he’s the one who put them there.

Ricky would say, if you’ve got a mom and dad who are trying to help you serve Jesus, listen to them. And when he says that, he just echoes what Paul says at the beginning of Ephesians 6. Are you there in your Bible? Because Ephesians 6 1 says, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, with mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. Is that one marked in your Bible? I think we’ve got the old bay part down pretty good, right? We’ve got to do what they say. I don’t think it’s the more important instruction here. Do you? I think verse 2 is more important.

Obedience speaks to what we do. Honor speaks to the motive and the spirit that drives the actions. Honor your father and mother. What does that mean? How long you got? There’s another sermon to be preached today. Literally, the idea that it root at its root is to value, to attach value to what mom and dad say so that what they would contribute in the way of counsel and instruction, of guidance would influence what you do. Let me make it real simple. If you’ve never changed your mind about something because of your mom and dad, and they weighed in on it and what they thought, you don’t honor your parents. That’s what it’s all about. I’m not saying that everyone who doesn’t listen to their parents will end up in prison.

But you may end up with some friends that pull you away from Jesus and get you in trouble. You may end up married to someone who makes you miserable. Might lose your soul. I want to say to you tonight, don’t do what Ricky did. Don’t ignore the pleadings and counsel of godly parents and wake up one day with tear stained eyes saying with what Ricky said. I wish I had listened to my mom and dad. Don’t make that mistake.

3. You Need to Stay Away From Sin

One more. It’s getting kind of late. Ten minutes over this morning. Ricky won’t say, You need to stay away from sin. Someone says, Well, that’s real profound. Like I needed to come back and hear that. Well, yes, I agree with that, but we don’t do a very good job. I’ll stop saying it when we start doing it. You know, Ricky never imagined his life would end up like it did. It wasn’t as though he went to a guidance counselor in ninth grade and said, My ambition is to be on death row, help me get there. He never imagined that just having a few friends who were into the wrong things that one day would lead him to get involved in those things. And then when he was experimenting, taking that first puff of a cigarette or first drink, he never imagined that it would lead to a life of addiction and those first those first seemingly small steps in the wrong direction.

He never he never imagined that it would lead to a life of complete rebellion. And when he was there. When he was completely in rebellion against God’s will, he never thought he’d kill somebody. Ended up on death row.

Because the fact is that for a good period of his life, during the 10 years that were his twenties, he was doing as much wicked stuff as you can imagine and conjure up in your mind. And listen, he didn’t seem any worse for the wearer, if you don’t mind living in your car periodically.

It just took one night. When all the choices sort of converged. The crowd, the drugs, the lifestyle. One night where they all just kind of came together at the wrong time in the wrong way, and now he’s paid a terrible price. That was interesting. You ever talk to somebody in prison about what’s hard, about being in prison? I had a box. I imagined presuppositions, what that would be like. I would be afraid that the guy sleeping in the bunk above me was going to cut my throat in the middle of the night. Because that happens in prison. He never talked about threats to his physical safety. Never. He talks about not being able to hug his mother almost every time we visit him. He talks about looking out in the bars of the prison, and he could see sort of rolling hills and trees and ponds and wishing he could go hunting and camping and fishing, things he loved to do, things he knew he would never do again.

He complained about not being able to partake of the Lord’s Supper.

I was thinking about it. Only two times in 11 years. We talk sometimes about living with a death sentence hanging over your head. You’re sort of naive when you go in. He doesn’t stay that way. He made friends. And then one day they came for his friends.

And they didn’t come back. And as he learned about what happened to them, he could begin to see his own case proceeding toward what was his inevitable end. We all kind of knew how this was going to turn out. There was no question about his guilt. And so, although he had received two previous execution dates that were stayed, when the third one came, we knew that it was the last one. And then you think about that last month, and then the last week, and then the last day. When he had to say goodbye to his mother.

And then the last moments before his life was taken. I just tell you, folks, I haven’t never seen anybody go through anything so difficult. And I don’t say that to you because I want you to feel sorry for Ricky. You want to feel sorry for someone? Feel sorry for Thomasine Crow. Carl’s mother. Some of you will remember the last time I preached this sermon here, Thomasine was in the crowd. She came to hear.

All that I want you to see is that he never saw it come. And in that, I think he would want us to see a warning. We deceive ourselves about this. We think that we can dabble in sin just a little bit, only to suddenly and unexpectedly get swallowed up in his trap. Does 2 Samuel 11 and King David come to your mind when I say that? Here’s a guy walking around on the rooftop of the king’s house, accidentally catches a glimpse of a woman bathing. I think that whole thing was an accident. I don’t think David was a peeping Tom, and I don’t think Bathsheba was doing anything inappropriate. It was just circumstances, a bad situation, and David made a terrible mistake. He looked too long.

He should have turned away. And it would have all been over. He didn’t do it. He looked too long. I tell you, folks, there were no thoughts of murder that night on the rooftop in Jerusalem. And who would have ever imagined it could come to that? But then there was the looking and then the lusting and then the inquiry and then the adultery. And then the pregnancy. And then all those vain attempts to cover up. Then the desperation when they fail.

Then the murder.

And cost us more than we’ll expect to pay. It’s true. How many people learn that lesson the hard way? How many people in their youth decide to be like Ricky and they’re going to experiment with drugs and alcohol, only to get hooked on drugs and alcohol and then get to fight addiction the rest of their life? How many people think they can be recreational about sex and be promiscuous and it’s no big deal because you watch that kind of stuff on TV, and there are no consequences. Just sexual immorality, but then an unexpected pregnancy or disease changes life forever. Vicky would want us to learn. It’s going to cost you more than you think. It’s going to take you further than you want to go. It’s kind of like skiing.

Any of y’all ski? Skied one time. Will not ski again? Ever? Because I failed to master one skill. Yeah, y’all have done this too. Never figured out how to stop. And if you come up at me and say, pizza or wedge, I’m going to be mad at you. Because I could pizza and I could wedge, and I kept flying down the hill at breakneck speed. Okay? I did figure out one undeniably safe way to stop. Fall down. That’s exactly right. I’ll tell you what. You strap those things to your feet, and they unload you at the top of an icy hill, and you start down, and you can’t stop. That’s not good. That’s what happens when people decide that they’re going to step out on this slippery slope that we call sin and start going down that hill.

And I’m just going to go, I’m just going to go a little way. You think you are.

Truth is, we don’t know where that’s going to go. We don’t know where it’s going to stop. So what’s the answer? Here’s the answer. Be scared to death to get out on the hill. That’s the answer. I want you to be terrified with me about ever wandering out onto sin’s slippery and uncertain slopes. It’s never cheap. Psalmist had the better idea in Psalm 34 and verse 12, when he said, You must do these things to enjoy life and to have many happy days. You must not say evil things. You must not tell lies. Stop doing evil and do good. Look for peace. Work for. There’s the answer. That’s what I wanted to say tonight. I want to take you back to Proverbs 13 and verse 15.

Conclusion

Good understanding produces favor. But the way of the trust, the way of the treacherous is hard. I wanted to share this story with you because I don’t want your way to be hard. I’m not trying to suggest tonight that everyone who chooses a bad crowd or rejects the wisdom of their parents or foolishly dabbles in sin will end up on death row. If that were true, we wouldn’t need to preach sermons like this. I will tell you that Ricky’s greatest fear was not the death chamber at the walls unit in Huntsville. His greater fear was of the second death. That he might die separated from God and be forever separated from God in a terrible place. Now he’s worried about that. Which is why he spent his 11 years on death row reforming his life and turning back to God.

But the truth is that all of us, all of us who are of an accountable age are living with a death sentence. That’s the reality. We’ve made the choice to sin. And in doing so, have separated ourselves from God and faced the penalty of the second death. It’s an awful story. And yet, through Jesus Christ, there’s good news. That’s why we call the gospel. Good news. That Jesus came and paid that price for us, became the sacrifice that would wash us clean from our sins so that we could be delivered from the second death. And so the question you and I have to answer is, will I pay my own penalty, or will I allow Jesus to cleanse me through his sacrifice, wash me clean from my sins so that I can have a relationship with him and go to heaven when I die?

I’ve got to make a choice about what I will do with my death sentence. You know, we could never imagine a condemned man who’s offered a reprieve turning it down. Can you? The phone rings while he’s strapped to the gurney, and there is a phone in there. Governor says, Turn that man loose, I’m giving him a reprieve. The condemned man says, Oh no, hey, we’ve gone this far, just go ahead with the execution. God’d have to be crazy to do that, wouldn’t he? Yeah. What about the man who’s sitting in this crowd tonight? Who’s still bearing their burden of sin? Knowing now that Jesus Christ, in him, a reprieve has been granted, and he’s waiting in heaven tonight to bestow it on you as you come to him.

He wants to give you that. What would we say of the person who would know those things and go out the tour tonight and reject their reprieve? Don’t make that choice. You need to make things right with God. Let’s do that right now. You make your way to the front now while we stand, while we sing together. Come right now.