 We overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. And we are so glad you are joining us on this Monday here on Hope Today. I am here with the fabulous and wonderful Amanda. I'm so happy to be with you, friend. And we have an incredible story that's coming up. And I guess that he is in the house right here at Hope Today. That's right. We have Pastor Frank Rocco. And listen, y'all, he was dead. When I say dead, not like physically dead, but spiritually dead. And Jesus made him alive. And what a story, Sidney. He has of that encounter with the Lord. And hey, that was 52 years ago. It's a pretty incredible story. You're not going to want to miss it. Maybe call someone up. There was, you know, he went through a very, you know, hard upbringing just and got stuck on alcohol and other things in life that took him down a very dark path. But God, in the middle of it, I call someone up and tell them, you need to watch today's Hope Today. I love when we have these stories, these testimonies, and he is from this area here in Pittsburgh. So wherever you're watching in Pittsburgh, Florida, Alabama, or anywhere, you know, we just love to have these stories and these testimonies. Because you know, Amanda, one thing, I just, this is my favorite thing to hear somebody's testimony, to hear somebody, what they've walked through, what they journeyed in life. It gives us the inspiration. It says if God did it for them, he could do it for me too. So if you have somebody that's battling with addiction, if you know somebody that is feeling downtrodden and out, I just really believe Paso Rocco is gonna really minister and speak to us, you know. And one thing I know this weekend, it was like a busy, busy time, like for both of us. And, you know, I was just in Columbus over the weekend and I got to see my family for the first time. We haven't seen each other since the pandemic because we're all spread out. And so I got to see my grandfather and his wife and my aunt and like, she's like moving to Idaho. I mean, there was like so much going on, but just the family coming together. And you know, one thing, Amanda, that was really inspiring and encouraging to me is that I just see the like history and the spiritual richness and legacy of my family. And I just want to encourage you today with like all of our families. I know we're walking through things and going through things, but we were praying. I mean, there's things in my family just coming together where I was just like, you know what? This is where God is moving. That we all have a story. We all have things that we've gone through and walked through, but through our families that we can pray together. We can just see shifts and changes. So I just like believe that for your family today as well. Amen. And coming together on God's word, you know, he never disappoints. God will not fail. It's not in his nature. And it's up to us to cling to his word and let it bring life to us. I love that Pastor Rocco, he said, hunger and thirst after righteousness and you will be filled. We'll talk a little bit more about that later, but it doesn't matter who you are. Begin to hunger and thirst after righteousness and you will be filled. It's not a question mark. God is giving us what we need to do and that is to hunger and thirst after righteousness. I have to share with you that this past weekend we had a wonderful opportunity to have a team from Dayton, Ohio, young adults, y'all. They were school teachers, some coffee barista. Anyhow, I don't know all their professions, but they gave of themselves in a beautiful way. And it's amazing how when they just loved on people and the interactions that happen, Sidney, we cannot go in this life without putting into action the word of the living God. That is so true and I just love the just hearing. Like, you know, one of the things I've just realized about love, love is a verb. And in God's, when he says I love my people, it means to give. It is so important for us to give of ourselves, to serve others, to love others, and also to serve, I love others by sharing our stories. Here we go. Well, when we return in 60 seconds, we'll be joined by Pastor Frank Rocco, and he's going to share his incredible story of how God turned his life around. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Remember your childhood joy and excitement when being invited to a party? You felt valued, included, wanted, and ready to have a good time. Best-selling author Bob Goff believes that every day of life can be lived with the same childlike enthusiasm and sense of humor. Inside Love Does, you'll learn that love is a verb, not just a feeling. His insights and joyful reflections will help you discover what it means to live fully alive, even as you serve others. Prepare to encounter remarkable stories from Bob Goff's life as he shares how living and loving to the fullest is the best way to make Jesus known in this world. Request your copy of Love Does when you give your best gift this month. Your gift today will help Cornerstone television show the life-changing love of Jesus through Christ-centered TV programs. Call us at 888-665-4483 or give at ctvn.org slash donate. Well, our next guest has made it his mission to tell others about the good news of Jesus Christ. That hasn't always been his purpose in life, though. In fact, there was a point in his life when he didn't have a relationship with the Lord and his life was empty and void of meaning. Pastor Frank Rocco now serves as the pastor at The Church in Seutersville, Pennsylvania, and he joins us now to share his story and how God intervened when he needed him most. Pastor Frank, it is great to have you today on Hope Today. It's good to be here with you. Amen. Well, tell us a little bit about your growing up and that miraculous moment that changed everything. Well, I can't go into too much, too, a whole lot about how I was when I was growing up. Just whenever I was a church boy, never went to church all my life. I was born Catholic. We were Catholics, my family, but my mom and dad never darkened the door of a church and neither did I. And my brother's and sister's not any different, but I never bothered going to church. I never wanted to go. Never had a desire to go. Didn't know anything about God. Didn't care anything about God. Till I was 19 years old, I got married. When I was 19, I knew everything. I was too cold for high school and I had too much knowledge for college. I got married at 19 years old. This year it's gonna be 65 years. It's November that we've been married. That wouldn't have happened had I not met Jesus Christ. Our marriage was on a downhill way, just like many people. We had about 13 years of marriage and I spent a lot of years drinking. I started doing that when I was a young man and then after I was married, we had a child when he was 21 years old. We had a little boy and then we had a little girl right after that, a year after. And I just, I'm ready to talk about it, okay? But anyhow, I was about 31 years old and after I'd get done working, I'd go home and eat my supper with my family, my wife and two kids. They were down 11 years old that time. I would lay on my couch and I would think about dying. I'd always took a nap after supper and then I went down the road, you know? And I would think about dying there instead of sleeping. I'd lay there and I'd think, I'd say, man, if I could die right now, I'm 31 years old. I used to keep me from dying. People died when I was younger or older. I said, I could die right now. I'd never see my kids again. I'd never see my wife again. She was out there doing the dishes and kids was there on the floor playing. I said, I'd never see my mother or my father. I'd never see none of my relatives. Never again, never again. And it was terrible. I'd think about that and I'd get myself to go to sleep. Then next night, I'd do the same thing. That same thought would come into my mind. And it really bothered me. I was in the world without hope, you know? And truthfully, that's the way the world is. We're in the world without hope. Hope is a great thing. In hope of everlasting life, the Bible says. In hope of everlasting life, whom God cannot lie, hath promised us. And so there is life after death, where we could see them again. I never knew this. The world doesn't know this. They don't really know the benefits of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the life that He brought to us. They have no idea. It tells us in Ephesians chapter two, verse one, and you hath ye quickened, that means given life, who were dead in your sins and trespasses, who in times past, He said, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, among whom we all had our formal way of life. We were all dead in our sins and trespasses. We were shaped within iniquity and conceived in the sins, almost 51 and 5, in our mother's womb. And so we all have a death sentence because the wages of sin in 623 is joined, the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So there is eternal life and we can live eternal life. You say, well, who are we and how do we live eternal life? We live inside of these bodies. When God made man, He made him out of the dust of the earth. But before He made him, He said, let us make man and let's make him after our likeness and after our image, God said. Should we serve God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost? We serve a triune God. So in two seven of the sentences, He said, God poured him out of the dust of the earth and he breathed into man's nostrils and man became a living soul. Okay? So man has a body, a soul and a spirit. We don't know anything about the soul and the spirit. We only know about this body, this flesh and we lived after it. But we're dead to God and you have the quicken who were dead in your sins and treasure. We were dead to God because when Adam sinned in the garden, he was separated from God. We was born after Adam's likeness. We were born in sin, conceded in sin, the shape and the iniquity of our mother's womb. So that's how we were born. So every man, woman and child is born in sin, is born separated from God and don't know God and you can't know God until you get the word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You can say I have faith in God up there. I've heard a lot of people talking about different things but it's not just having faith in the man up there. It's knowing the man up there whose name is Jesus Christ. Okay? Jesus says in 17, 3 of John and this is lay forever lasting to know the Father, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. In 1 John 5, 20 he says there and we know that the Son of God has come and have given us an understanding that we might know him that is true and that we are in him that is true even in his son Jesus Christ. This is the true God. Jesus Christ is God. He was there in the beginning. There was nothing that was made without him. All things were made by him. Okay? Jesus is God. Manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen the angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world and received up in the glory. That's what the Bible's at. Without controversy, no argument. Okay? Great as the mystery of godliness God was manifested in the flesh. He did that. He had to come into flesh. He took a body back in Hebrews 2.14 like unto the brethren. Okay? To redeem us, okay? To keep us under the bondage of Satan, okay? Through the fear of death. Okay? Come to deliver us from that bondage. He took a body like what we have. He had to become a man to be a human substitution sacrifice for the sins of man. And only God could do that because God's the only one that's righteous. All right? I want to ask you, how did you come to this knowledge of Jesus? How did you come out of this darkness knowing that He is the Word? How did you get to that place? Praise God. Well, I'll tell you what, that's how I just started thinking about it. Well, then I got that out of my mind, but then how I just went on living my life. And I got into insurance business. I was in insurance business in 1966, 67. And I spent five years in insurance business. And after I was in insurance business for five years, you know, out of nowhere, I got up one Sunday morning and I was getting dressed. Well, me and my wife, we've never gone along real good. You know, you can't, you can't have a marriage around a beer bottle, okay? Or anything else that goes with it, with that lifestyle. You can't, it doesn't, it's not going to work good. But then how I got out of bed one Sunday morning, I went out and I put my suit on. My wife, you know, she thought I was getting ready to go to work, you know, it was Sunday. She says, what are you doing? You know, where are you going? I said, I said, I'm going to church. She said, you're going to church. I never went to church. I mean, never went to church. So I got married and I was 19 years old. I went Christmas and Easter faithfully until I was 28. I was drinking with a man when I was 28 years old. Another agent, he's a little older than me. And he sent people out of nowhere. Them people that talk about God, he said there ain't no God. And I never talked about God because I didn't know anything and didn't care, you know? But I thought to myself, when he said that, I said, yeah, I said, where's the God? Where's he at? Right? Where's he at? I had no idea where he was at, okay? And I didn't know him and neither does anybody else until he reveals himself. You know, there's a scripture in John chapter 14, I believe around verse 21 where he says, he that keepeth my commandments, he that loveeth me, and he that loveeth me will be love to my Father and I will love him and I will manifest myself unto him. I'll make myself known unto him. And that's what he does. Okay? I just remember these things that happened. But I just got up this morning out of nowhere. And when I got up and I says, she says, where are you gonna go to church? I says, I don't know. I never thought about none of this. I said, I just have, I've talked good, I got up, I'm going to church. And I said, well, I said, I'll go out there with my sister, and on her church, I says, my kids go there, the neighbors were taking our kids because my wife used to sing and acquire and go to church all the time, but we got messed up, okay? And anyhow, I got my sisters, my sister said, what are you doing here? I said, I'm going to church. She said, you're going to church. I said, yeah, okay, come on in. So I went in, I went to church. I come home from the church. I said to my wife, I says, I'm gonna go back here next week. I like that, you know? But the Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. I didn't know that. I wasn't going to hear it where I was hanging up. Okay? And I heard the word of God. So I wanted to hear it again. I went back. It's what God draw me. Jesus said, John 6, 4, no man can come to me except my father draw him. And it's what God was doing. And I didn't know then, you know? But I know it now. And so I went down. I started going every week. I was going for about a how long, maybe a month, two months. I don't know for sure. And about, maybe after about two months, my uncles, my uncle in the bar there in Shootersville, it's called Jimbugs now, but it was Moreno's. And it was a hotel. And me and my two uncles, they worked in a coal mine. I worked in a short business on the weekends. We was going to panel all the upstairs, all the rooms up there. So I had to miss church. My first time I missed. And after I started going, so I'm up there nailing the nails into the paneling and we were hanging up the paneling all over the place. And, you know, the devil was talking to me. Now, I did. She says, well, how do you know? I didn't know your stuff then, but I had said, no, okay. I'll tell you how I know, no, okay. But he told me, he said, you don't have to go to church. You know, I said, yeah, you know? Cause it was the first time I missed church when I was going. And he says, look, he says, and people go to church. They'll be closer to God than you. Your family look at you. You never, you never killed anybody. You just tap a cake of beer. You don't have a lot of love. You love a big family. We have a big family. You know, you ends will be there, but you just want to be close to Jesus like the people go to church. That was good enough for me because I didn't know Jesus anyhow. So I just wanted to be there. He said, you'll be there. I says, yeah. So I wasn't going to go back to church. Okay. I was on Sunday, Monday morning, Monday afternoon, I come home from my devil and I'm coming up the hill. There comes a pastor down. He flagged me down. Hey, I missed you yesterday. I says, yeah, I thought that my soldier was going to miss me a lot more because I'm not coming back, you know. And here he says, you know, I got a good message next week. I'd like for you to come out and hear it. Well, I couldn't say no. That's why I got in so much trouble. But anyhow, I says, all right. I says, I'll come out. And so I went and told my uncle, I said, I'm going to go to church next week. You know, I said, I've seen the pastor. I said, I'll come down after church. You go to church. And I said, you know, I needed it. I was a black sheep from a family. I said, okay, I'm a guy. So I went to church, you know. Well, I'm in church and I was sitting there that day. And the other thing I heard, I can just see where I was sitting. I couldn't see the whole scene. It's in my mind. It's in there forever. And the pastor's up there preaching. And this is the other thing I heard. He said, Jesus said, except a man is born again, he's not going to see the kingdom of heaven. And he said, and Jesus said, except a man is born again, he's not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. And we're powerful words. We pray, our Father was born in heaven, held it be thy name, thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth. And people pray that repetitiously, thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth. But if you're not born again, you're not going to see the kingdom and you're not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. They need to hear that. John chapter three verse three, in verse five or seven there with Jesus says, except a man is born of water, end of the spirit. Water is the word. It's a wash of the water by the word. And the spirit is the Holy ghost. It takes the word and the Holy ghost to give you life. You're not going to get us just sitting in the bar room or sitting in your living room. You could get sitting in your living room if you're watching this program or if you're maybe watching on TV. But once you meet Jesus Christ, you want to meet his family. You become part of the family of God. Okay. And anyhow, I heard them words. And when pastors spoke them words right then the spirit of God cut my heart. The Bible 412 of Hebrew says the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two that sort. It cuts deep into the divinity of the soul and the spirit and into the joint, the marrow of the word cut deep into my soul and my spirit. We have a soul and spirit. It's dead to God and you have the quicken. And the spirit of God is the only one that can quicken or give life to your spirit. The God spoke to my heart right there. It convicted me of sin. And Jesus said, except you repent you're going to all likewise perish. That's what Jesus said when he started his ministry. It takes repentance. Well, what am I going to repent of? If I don't know what I'm repenting of just ask Jesus come in your heart. I mean, oh, Jesus come into my heart. You know, you're going to do it. But you're not repenting. The doctrine is repentance. You got to repent. You got to turn away from that life. You got to turn away from it. You got to walk away from it. Okay. You're done with that life. If any man being Christ, he's a new creation. Old things are passed away. An old life is passed away. And all things are becoming a brand new life started for me. A beautiful life. A life where I have understanding and I have wisdom, I have knowledge. Okay. I make different decisions, better decisions. It's what a lot of people need. Homes are being broken and being divided. The devil came up with the steal to kill and destroy. And that's what he's doing on this earth. That's why the world just shaped it as sin right now because they want to keep God out of the picture. People too busy for God. Jesus had to be like it was in the days of Noah. They were eating, drinking, marrying, building, buying, selling to the time that Noah entered into the ark. Okay. And they were taken away with the flood. They were too busy for God. They were too busy as eating, drinking, marrying, building, buying and selling. That's the way it is today. People don't have time for God. They don't have time to go to church. They'll grab it on the radio or grab it here, but they don't fellowship. They don't get into the fellowship and they don't grow in that grace and the knowledge of the Lord and putting Him first in your life. Jesus wants that first place. He's first in my life. When I get out of bed, it's Jesus. Here I am, Lord. Use me this day, wherever you want, however you want. And let me be pleasing to you, amen. This is the fire of God. This is the life of being filled in the spirit. Like to go from what He had described, you know, that drunken state, brokenness in His household to the infilling of the spirit of the living God. And He was literally brought to life. And how long have you had your church? Like the church's been here, I think it's gonna be 35 years. This is the power of the word of God. And with that being said, we wanna just reiterate on that scripture that Pastor Rocco said, it's in John 3.3. It says, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And I would love for you just to, you know, I believe there are people watching, Pastor, that they are on the edge. They identify with a lot of what you're saying, but they have not committed to making Jesus the Lord of their life. Would you just speak to them right now? Amen. You know, you spoke before you said, you know, that blessed are they which hunger and thirst after a righteousness where they shall be filled. A man doesn't know the righteousness of God has no knowledge of it. Pastor Paul said in Romans 116, he said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ which is a power of God and salvation unto the Jew first and also unto the Gentile. He said, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. In the gospel of gospel, God has revealed the righteousness of God from faith to faith as we read and as we learn it, as we start walking it. As a newborn babe, he said, you're gonna desire the sincere milk of the word that you might grow there by, if so be, you have tasted that God is gracious. So milk belongs to the babes who seek after righteousness. Okay, your first time, my first baby step in righteousness, I did something that was right, I made a right decision. I rejoiced in myself, it felt so good, I did something right. Okay, the fear of God's the beginning of wisdom when a man departs from evil, he gets understanding. Okay, everything changes in your life, your decisions are different, everything's different. He said, if Thou shalt confess back in the book of Romans in chapter 10, verse eight, he said, this is the faith which we preach onto, the eight is nigh, the even in thy mouth. Yet if Thou shalt confess with your mouth, the Lord Jesus Christ, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, Thou shalt be saved. That's what it takes, it's a belief in it. Actually, you've moved first John 1-9, he said, if I confess my sin, if we confess our sin, he said, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. How far away is God, he's right in your mouth, that if you should confess God, forgive me, I'm a sinner, acknowledge that I am a sinner. I was shaped into an iniquity in my mother's womb, I was conceived in sin, God, I need to be delivered. Romans in 323, first above that it says, the law, in the law there's no justification, people think I keep the Ten Commandments, that there's no justification in the law that we are saved in 323 there, or 26, or there are five. He says, that we are saved by faith in Christ's blood from our sins which are past. That blood was shed, God had to be a man, come to be a man and die a substitutional death on that cross for you and me and by faith in his righteousness and what he did, okay, what he did, God, I believe that Jesus died for my sin, I believe that he was wounded from my transgressions, bruised from my iniquities, God, I believe it. And I was separated from you and he became separated so I could be joined, God was in Christ Jesus, reconciling his back unto himself. He said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he took the sins of the world up on himself and God turned it back on him, so that God would turn his face to us through the blood of Jesus, he loves you. He loves you, God loves you. He wants to come into your life. He wants to give you a beautiful life, you're fighting it, man, you're fighting it, I was fighting it, I was going the way I thought I would satisfy my flesh, satisfy my flesh. And really, oh yeah, I love my family, I love this, I love that. But this first wrong, wrong, Jesus is first in my family. I'm a great-grandfather, I just had three great-grandsons this past year, three of them, and three boys. And I never adopted great-granddaughter as well. And how many years married to your wife? How many years married to your wife? 65 years. 60. That's incredible. It would never happen to have enough of Jesus, it would never happen. That's right, you have such. I wouldn't be here, I don't know, I'm at Jesus. You have such, like just hearing, you're just like, you're storing what you've walked through, that you taste and you see that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is good, and just hearing what you walked out of. I mean, so many people can relate right where Pastor Rocco is, addiction and drinking, and just seeing your whole life all apart, but in Jesus, that's where we find life. And today, we just want to encourage you, if you've been watching Hope Today, and you've heard Pastor Rocco's amazing story and testimony, and he's just pouring out the word of God, that this is an invitation for you today to come to taste and see that Jesus is good, that Jesus is the way, Jesus is the truth, and Jesus is the life. And give us a call at our prayer line at 888-665-4483, because we'd love to pray with you, and we want you to experience the abundant life in Christ Jesus. And I know we only have like two minutes left, final thoughts. I think, well, one thing we were talking in the green room, and I just, I loved the morning of preparation even for today, but I asked him, you know, in all of ministry, he's been about 40 years doing ministry and pouring out into others, and his words of wisdom were just that God takes the lowly and he uses them for his glory. So us who are in ministry, we should never look upon anyone around us as if they're too far gone or that they couldn't be used, because in his own life what he experienced was when the Holy Spirit came in, he began to seek after righteousness and hungering for God. And the Holy Spirit did such a work in him that God would choose to use Pastor Rocco or you or myself or Sidney. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. He desires to take the lowly, fill it with the spirit of the living God, us, and to use us for his glory. And I just, I'm gonna leave with that today and your testimony is absolutely amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. I mean, I just feel this like, just a refreshed by the word of God and just, just top and think about the darkest place where you've been. And I love that in the Bible it says, even if I make my bed in hell, he is there. So grab hold of that today. No matter what the circumstance, no matter what it looks like, know that he is a manuel, that he is God with us. He is the God that is with you through everything. He is our redeemer. He redeems us out of the pit of destruction. He is our rescuer and he is our deliverer. And our sincere heart, our sincere hope for you is that you experience his love, his power and his freedom and his life like never before. We love you. God bless you and have a wonderful day. We'll see you tomorrow.