By Randy Rudder
“My dad, would always say ‘You’re worthless, you’re not going to amount to anything. You’re going to end up in the penitentiary. I don’t think it was his wish, but it came true,” Larry Clements says.
Larry’s dad was a tough military man who raised five kids. “I wanted to join the Boy Scouts, but because of him being military and we had four other siblings besides myself,” Larry says, “he didn’t want to spend money on a uniform. So I started looking for other friends. We started smoking weed, started drinking, started eating pills. The sense of rejection sat with Larry for years. “I didn’t feel loved,” he says. “I know my mother loved me. I mean, my mom was always there for me, but my dad, I never heard ‘I love you’ out of his mouth. There was no, you know, come alongside me and encourage me.”
Larry committed his first armed robbery as a teen and was sent to juvenile detention center, where he heard about Jesus for the first time. “We were at Joplin Boys’ Ranch, and we used to go to church on Sunday because the director of the camp was the pastor of the church. He was the one that determined when you went home. So you wanted to look good. I heard about Jesus there, that was the first time. So I always I believed in Jesus, but I lived like the devil. I didn’t have an understanding of what it was to be a Christian.”
As Larry grew, so did his drug use. “I don’t know how I got caught up in heroine, but when I did, I fell in love. And then once you’re hooked, its like there’s no return.”
He also began selling drugs and had other arrests, including one for attempting to firebomb a police station after an officer gave him a ticket. “Being on drugs. you think you’re King Kong and you can do anything. So I parked my car across the street and walked over to the gate. I lit it and I threw it and I turn around and I started to run. I stopped and turned around to look to watch it blow up, and the rag is sitting there burning from where I threw it at.”
The next arrest occurred when a state trooper ran his license after a routine traffic stop. “He’s on the hood of the car writing the ticket and his gun’s is right there and so I knew I had warrants out of Kern County and Orange County. I heard it come back over the radio,” Larry says. “So when that happened the gun came out of the holster. He had it, I had it, we were wrestling for it and one shot was fired, and thank God it just grazed his knee. When they booked me into the county jail it was attempted murder. I went to trial and they found me guilty of removing a firearm from a police officer and brandishing a weapon.”
Incredibly, Larry only received a four-year sentence. “I was looking at 80 years to life, because California has a California three strike law,” he says. “So I’m like, ‘I can’t do 80 to life. I don’t want to die in prison.’ So I just kept on fighting it until I finally finally got it down to, you know, the judge dismissed it dismissed a strike and he gave me 13 years.”
One year, Larry was invited to a free meal at the prison chapel, and an Easter service following. “The guy doing the service was a lifer and he held his Bible up and says: “I don’t think this is the Word of God.” And he paused and I’m like “What do you mean you don’t think that’s the Word of God? I even believe that’s the Word of God,’” Larry recalls. But then he said: “I KNOW it’s the Word of God. Just cause my finite brain can’t figure out an infinite God; doesn’t mean this isn’t the Word of God.” And from that moment… I asked God to forgive me and – and He did. I started studying my Bible. I mean, getting studies and studying them and I mean just like all – like hours on end, you know? I didn’t know what was happening.”
Larry says his heart and mind began being transformed. “I said, ‘Lord, forgive me for doubting your Word because I can’t figure it all out doesn’t mean it’s not your Word. Forgive me for that. After that I was like “Teach me your Word. Reveal to me your truth, God.” And started studying the Scriptures and they made sense. And that was the moment, you know, that I repented. Repentance is to change a mind, to turn.”
Larry was granted an early release in 2008. “Before coming to Christ I was, used to be prejudiced,” he says. “And that’s the thing about the Word of God, it convicts you, it corrects you. When I hugged a black brother and I said, ‘I love you’ and I meant it, I knew I was saved then and in 1 John 3:14 it says ‘we know we have passed from death to life when we love the brethren.”
Larry was also able to forgive his father and share the Good News with him before he died. He now has a ministry to prisoners in California, and has written the account of his life in the book The Good, the Bad, and The Saved. “Had I felt God’s love or knew more about God when I was younger, I wouldn’t have had to go through everything that I went through,” Larry says. “He loves us just because that’s who He is. God is love. It’s unmerited, you know. We don’t earn or deserve His favor. He loves you so much that He sent His only Son to die on the cross for your sins. He took your sins upon Himself. That’s how much He loves us. The grace of God is amazing. It is just amazing!”
Larry’s book book The Good, the Bad, and The Saved can be purchased on most websites where books are sold including Amazon.
