Smith, Harold: Great For Kids-A Hockey Player Saved

I have a story today about a hockey player, a professional hockey player who grew up in Toronto, and he, uh, learned to skate at a very early age in that city where hockey was quite popular. He soon made the, uh, semi-pros and soon became a professional hockey player. Nineteen fifty five, he married a young lady, and whose parents were gr- uh, devoted Christians, so this hockey player come under the influence of the gospel. It wasn't long after his wife became saved, and Reg, the hockey player, showed signs of concern too, and he attended all the meetings he could, but sometimes he'd be away playing hockey. It was during the nineteen sixty eight sixty nine hockey season that he had the best record in camp, and he felt certain of a good year ahead, even though he was thirty four years old. And as the season opened, he lifted the paper one day and learned that he had been traded to another team. The shock was so great, he thought, I'm not going. So he resigned and retired from hockey, and he s- and he started, uh, uh, an evening college course, uh, a little bit, and he also was able to go to gospel meetings. Well, he went to these gospel meetings, and and he got really troubled about his soul. And one Saturday afternoon, a friend spent two or three hours talking to him from the scriptures about the Lord. He showed him that wonderful verse in Isaiah fifty three and six, how all we like sheep have gone astray, and we turned everyone to his own way, but the Lord have laid on him, Jesus, the iniquity of us all. Reg could see from that verse and other verses that he was lost, that he needed to be saved. He was lost, and he was going to hell, and he couldn't do anything about it. But it seemed so difficult for him to be saved. He didn't know really how to be saved. He knew he'd turned to his own way, but he just couldn't really grasp the truth of salvation. He was despaired at being saved and threatened not to go back to the gospel meetings at all. But reluctantly, he said, I'm going to go. So he got ready and he shaved, and it was as he was shaving, suddenly he thought of the all in that verse. All we like sheep have gone astray. He said, I know I'm in the first all, but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Ah, he saw it in a moment. The same all that had gone astray were the same all that the Lord Jesus died to save. Right then and there, he trusted the Lord Jesus as his savior. He went to meeting that night, uh, telling people that he trusted the Lord as his Savior. Have you trusted him? Trust him and be saved.