The sermon transcript is a mixture of various phrases and statements that seem to be disjointed and lacking a clear central message. The preacher talks about the need for individuals to be open to God's message and not be resistant to Jesus Christ's authority in their lives. He also mentions the concept of salvation and the importance of reaching out to God. Additionally, there are references to the dangers of alcohol and the need for individuals to turn away from rebellion and submit to God. However, the transcript lacks a coherent structure and does not provide a clear summary of the sermon's main points.

It's not often that I get to loaf a little bit, don't have my preaching clothes on me when I'm not in a meeting. I've been wanting to come down here since I met your young pastor. We set two or three dates and something happened yesterday when he called me. I turned him down, then I unturned him, and I'm glad I did. One thing I like about the congregation is the preacher don't have to run to the back door while somebody benedicts and ought to shake hands with folks. And somehow it became like I was wise. The king shook hands with him. I've been in hundreds of churches where if you shook hands with any of the members, you had to beat them to the back door and you had to run off the path. And that's one. I tried to get one lady to start a movement to fire this pastor, this gray-headed lady over there. She's bawling out this morning about hadn't been to see her lately and broken bread with her. And I said, let's get him fired. I'd love to have this church, and the deacons will meet me this afternoon after I get through preaching. I believe he's done his due here. I'd love to be in this atmosphere. It's been a joy to be your guest. I hope I haven't hurt you. Difficult to dip in this way. You've had Brother Parsons a week and this blessed young preacher. But it's been a joy to me, and I've talked all afternoon to this blessed preacher. Another young pastor came over, and it'll tell him the message tonight. But the Lord has been good. I had a birthday this month. I'm 64, the 4th of this month. This September I'll have been preaching, trying to 43 years. I haven't got many more years with the Lord's parish. You do not know how a gray-haired preacher that's been around a while takes courage, thanks God, gets in the big jar of star-navy tobacco juice, fits in the devil's face, tells him to go back to hell when he runs across a young preacher, hardly old enough to shave like your dear pastor, who knows the gospel, knows the spirit, anchored to the book. You dear people here, you go to hell. It's going to be mighty hard on you. You'll go against much flight. Thank you for letting me come your way. And I feel like I want to teach you a little course tonight. We ought to get out for midnight. That'll be soon enough. Some of you don't have to get up till 4 o'clock in the morning. You get ready. And my wife isn't here. She jumped up, and I don't know one note from another. And I haven't apologized. I'm going to try to sing it for you, and the pianist is coming, and she can, and she'll find out what key it ought to be in after I've butchered up every time you come on, lady, and set the piano. And if you don't know this course, you won't be happy in heaven, and I want you to be happy in heaven. And so I'm going to try. Boy, this is hard to start out with a song as married as we are to our pianists and organists. I've held many meetings up in Canada with the wealthy people, and I have one thing about you folks here. You don't sing well. You sing with your mouth closed. In 43 years, I've found you can sing better with your mouth open than you can with it closed. And I advise you to try that sometime. And the wealthy people, they can beat the colored folks. I was raised, that teacher told a lie on me this morning. He said I came from Texas. I was born in Alabama. George Wallace and I are running this country from now on. But if you've never heard the wealthy people sing, and all they've got is a little tuning fork. Do you remember those tuning forks? Whoever heard all these high-polluting organs and pianos? But there's a lovely little chorus that I'd like to introduce the message with tonight. If I can get the key, if I don't, you won't know the difference. It goes something like this. I want you to pick up the words, and if we can get the key, we'll sing it together. Reach out and touch the Lord as he passes by. You'll find he's not too busy to hear your heart cry. He's passing by this moment, your need to supply. Reach out and touch the Lord. It's right there in the reach of your face. If you could just touch it. Power. Dynamite. Like when there was a little woman who suffered at the hands of many physicians and was nothing better. And she said, if I could just touch the hem of this garment, I'd be made whole. And she pressed through the crowd. I think they were having a Bible conference arguing over some doctrine. And she touched the hem of this garment, and the Lord said, who touched me? And the disciple said, you've gone crazy, all this great crowd around you, and you won't know who touched you. And he said, this is different. He said, dynamite, dynamite. Power. Went out from me. Reach out and touch the Lord. While I'm still walking now, I'm calling that salvation, praying a little prayer and calling that salvation. Salvation by grace through faith. Faith is one beggar coming to the one who's got bread and saying, give me bread. And evangelism is one beggar telling another where he found bread. And if you found it, you'll tell it. Reach out. Why don't you? Why do you come to God's house just to listen to some man preach? Ain't nobody got anything much to say now. Ain't the preacher living got anything on the ball. We preachers had the power of God upon us, and the prophets would get killed. They killed the prophets, not because they were bad people. The prophets just kept saying, repent. So the folks had to repent or kill them, so they killed them. They killed the Son of God, not because there was any difference in us, but he just kept saying, repent. For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And they either had to repent or kill him. They killed Stephen. They killed every preacher up to now that had anything to say. Brother Barber, you needn't brag on yourself. We've bragged on you, but you ain't got nothing on the ball. Neither have I. You Christians, you ain't got nothing to brag about. Bless your little heart. You ain't worth the powder and lead to take to kill you. Your neighbors don't even know you're saved. God help you if you had a faith that was on fire. We did. We'd hound this generation until they'd repent or kill us. The Lord's the living Lord. I love that song, He Touched Me, don't you? Oh, he touched me. Oh, what a joy filled my soul. Something happened when he touched me. He touched me and made me whole. If you could just touch him, he'd touch you, brother. Reach out and touch the Lord as he goes, passes by. You'll find he's not too busy to hear your heart cry. Why don't you come to God's house to touch the living Lord and the Lord of life by faith? You know hell's going to be full of you Baptists who trusted the Lord yesterday, but that's a day late. It's today. Your faith in him today, your faith in Christ today, if you're not, you're going to hell. You repent today, if you haven't, you're going to hell. It's a daily business. Why don't you cut out listening to the radio preachers and send them a dollar to help the poorest in this country worse than it is. Get your Bible. You don't read the one you've got. Get under the Word of God and open your ears and let the Spirit of God teach you. Quit supporting everything on God's earth except the gospel. You'll support any preacher that fights communism. You'll support any preacher that tells the women they ought not to wear shorts. You'll support any preacher that preaches against something, but you wouldn't give a dollar to support anybody. Just preach the gospel of the glory of the Son of God. I'm down on these radio preachers. Ain't one of them got a word of truth. You'd better quit sending that dollar, sister. If they had, they wouldn't stay on the radio. You wouldn't support them. That's the truth. I ain't talking about these independents. You're faster to curse. You don't beg for money, do you? Well, that's white orthodox stuff. Don't you know the devil wants us to fight communism? God may be going to use communism to conquer this world to separate you professors from you professors. We need to do some thinking. Well, I don't know how I got on that. That ain't my message, but I won't charge a thing extra for that. Why don't you get in touch with the Lord? Now, I got that one key too low. Can you get it up one higher? It's in the key. I don't know where that is. What key is it? You know that song, sister? You know the key? I love that song. He's the Lord. He's alive. That's it. That's all right. I'll sing it one more time. Reach out and touch the Lord as He passes by. You'll find He's not too busy to give your heart a cry. He's passing by this morning coming to your side. Reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by. Sing it far. Reach out and touch the Lord as He passes by. You'll find He's not too busy to give your heart a cry. He passes by this morning coming to your side. Reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by. Reach out and touch the Lord as He passes by. You'll find He's not too busy to give your heart a cry. He's passing by this morning coming to your side. He's not too busy to give your heart a cry. He's passing by this morning coming to your side. Reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by. Reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by. You'll find He's not too busy to give your heart a cry. He's passing by this morning. Your need to supply, reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by. Let's stand and sing it one more time. We made a little mistake. Reach out and touch the Lord as He passes by. You'll find He's not too busy to give your heart a cry. He's passing by this morning. Your need to supply, reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by. Reach out and touch the Lord as He passes by. You'll find He's not too busy to give your heart a cry. He's passing by this morning. Your need to supply, reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by. Well, thank you. You learned that. If you want to ask our lady to be seated, thank you for taking care of us, forest lady. And you better learn that. That's a good one. That's got the gospel in it. That's the need of this house. You poor old Baptists have been all over the country and get preaching the gospel and here come the deacons. And say, now, Brother Barney, what you preaching so? But it ain't Baptist stuff. I've had that happen hundreds of times. If one of the Baptists hadn't kicked me out, they would. But you have to treat dumb animals kind, you know. And I brag on the Methodists and the Presbyterians and the Catholics, because I ain't one of them, but I got in for you Baptists, see. Because I remember that your granddaddy believed the gospel and you don't. And that's the reason you're going to hell and he's singing around the palm trees in glory now. They didn't know near as much as you citified folks, but what they knew was so. And it linked them to a living Lord. Now in the book of Psalms, chapter 14, we have the definition, Bible definition, of an infidel. I do not like to bring this message until I've preached three or four weeks to a congregation. But your beloved under shepherd said if I could, he wished I'd bring it. And so, I hope it'll not hurt you. And at the judgment we'll find out whether it's a pill. I, for six years, from the time I was 15 until 21, I professed to be an infidel. My father was the godliest man that I've ever met. He's been dead 40 years. My mother lived to be quite old. She's been dead eight years. I was raised in a Baptist home. Every time the church doors were open, that mother and the kids, he was a small town school. We used to call him superintendent. I think we call him principal now. Boring jokes, turkey. But a godly man. When I was ten years old, I could quote ten times as much scripture as I can now. I learned what you'd call the old sword drill. You've got to know what I'm talking about if you don't quit writing notes and wiggling, I'm going to bop you one. And through the sword drill, I could turn through the Bible. You know what that is? Do they still do that or not? Call it the B-Y-P-U then, I think, training union. Now, I ain't heard nobody say ever train, but it's still the training union. And when I was 15, I joined the ranks of professed infidels. I was educated in a Baptist college. All of that. I was graduated from Hardin Center University in Texas. I was a school orator, school debater, second baseman on the baseball team, leading actor in the Shakespeare plays, worked my way through school, made the highest grade any man's ever made in that college. I'm giving you a little of my background. I went through a Christian college. It took four years. I had to take a certain amount of Bible in order to get my degree from that Baptist college. I graduated and went to teach school. All the years I was there, I'd go to school a year and drop out and teach school a year and go back. It took me six years to do three years' work. All the time, I was an infidel. I want to talk to you a little while tonight how God brought this infidel into a saving relationship with him through joining me in a living faith, not through a doctrine or a creed, but a living Lord. An infidel is described in Psalms 14, verse 1. If you have your pencil or a pen, I hope that you mark your Bible just a little. We do not have the Bible as it was written. You know that. This book that I have is what we call the King James, the authorized version, perhaps still the best of them, I believe it is. But there are many places where men and no man has ever seen the Bible as it was first written. Those manuscripts have been lost. You know that. But we can go back to that night at close. But human beings make mistakes every time. The touch and the thing in this book that I have is not the Bible. It is the nearest thing to the Bible that we have. Here in Psalms 14, verse 1, there is a verse, and if it tells the truth, as it is written here in the authorized version, most of you have that, I guess, well, then we just throw the whole Bible away. Let me read it like it is here in Psalms 14. I got it on Psalm 4. I just missed it by 10 chapters here. I'll get over here to Psalm 14. The authorized version says, The fool hath said in his heart. Now, you schoolchildren, you boys out in the front seat, do you know what italics are? Do you know what italics are? Some of you schoolteachers, I understand there are some schoolteachers around here. Any of you schoolteachers not ashamed to let it get out on you? What does italics mean? It means these words are not supposed to be in there. Isn't that right? That the translators here thought that by adding these words it would help the meaning. They were honest about it. But now let me just read what they've said. The fool hath said in his heart there is no God. Now, that's just not so. There never lived a human being from Adam to this good day that didn't know there is a God. They say there are no atheists in the foxholes nowhere else. We talk about atheistic Russia, that's silly. Then the person living in Russia doesn't believe there's a God. You couldn't be a human being without two things being true of you. If you're a human being, most of you look like it. Some of you look more like monkeys than you do human beings, but you couldn't help it, you know. I don't blame anybody. If I wasn't born in Alabama, you probably couldn't help it. I don't criticize you. My college president said he was born in Arkansas, but as soon as he was old enough, his daddy told him he was born in Arkansas, he got up and moved to Texas. And there ain't room for all of you to live in Alabama, so you just have to stay in and say right much like you folks do. I'll never forget 20 years ago I moved to Winston-Salem, and I'd say, how far is it to Bill Pickletown? It's right much. Nobody in the world says that right much except you North Carolinians. Right much rain today. Right much humidity. Well, that's North Carolinians. They can tell you all over the country. Now, nobody, nobody, nobody could be a human being and be left without a knowledge that there is a God. God, or man, has done two things straight for human death. He's given them a knowledge of himself, and they start in this world with a knowledge of good and evil. They know the difference. That's foolishness. Talk about somebody that's an atheist doesn't believe there's a God. You've heard this, I guess the true story is that when this first astronaut who went up around the moon, wherever it was, the first Russian, beat us to the punch, and he got back to the Earth, Mr. Khrushchev, who's later fallen on bad days. He went for him, and he said, he was all up in there, did you see anything up there, anybody? And he said, yes, said, I saw God up there. Mr. Khrushchev said, I knew it. But don't you tell anybody it's against our policy. And the next time this astronaut had a conference, he was summoned to the Archbishop of the Greek Catholic Church of Russia, and Mr. Khrushchev had pledged him not to tell anybody he saw God up there, and the Archbishop, representing Christianity, the big Christian arch, said to the astronauts that were around the world going up there around the moon, did you see anybody up there? Obeying Mr. Khrushchev's orders, the astronauts said, no, not a soul. And the churchmen said, I knew it, but don't tell anybody. That's the church. Then you're this generation of church people and preachers get to heaven, I don't want to go there, I'd rather be in hell. It's hard enough to have to put up with them down here. Everybody believes something now except church people. The fool hath said in his heart there is no God. Now leave out the word there is and add to at the end. This is how the Hebrew here reads. The fool hath said in his heart, he's got too much sense to say it in his head. But in his heart, the thing that makes him tick, you know, the thing that makes him do like he does when he knows it's wrong, when he knows he's going to have to pay for it, and that's the way we do, you know. The fool hath said in his heart, that's the whole organ, not this organ, no God for me. That's your average Baptist. That's what you're training in your Sunday school classes. That's what they're grinding out in our school. Oh, I see. So you say, oh, that ain't got nothing to do with my soul. Well, you ain't got no soul to start with. You are a soul. And you didn't come down here to save yourself, you came down here to save you. And you ain't got a soul, you are a soul. God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and he became a living soul. God, that's you. But I hear it everywhere I go, I think the Lord is saving my soul. I heard some radio preacher say that, and they've been quoting it ever since. Well, that's a good thing, he saved your soul, whatever that is, he saved your body, you still live like a horse. Most of you eat enough to fill a meal, to feed your belly all the time. I can talk, because I've got an ulcerated stomach, I can't eat much. Good thing that he saved that part of you that ain't nobody ever put his finger on, you know, because he hadn't saved you. In your daily living you still do as you please to hail the God. Amen. That's right. Hail the fool. The fool hath said in his heart, no God for me. And as that's true, I was a fool. I did what most of you folks do. I believe the Bible, didn't know nothing about it. I believe Jesus died for sinners, that won't save nobody. But if I'm trusting the blood, what good would that do? Hell's only full of folks trusting the blood that don't know the one who shed the blood. There ain't no salvation in the blood, it's in the one who poured his blood out on the cross. The fool hath said in his heart, no God for me. God's not going to run my life. We've invented a salvation now that now you folks can say, thank God for saving me. But you do not bring your thoughts under the Lordship of Christ every day. Be not the Lord of your thought life, you're going to hell. You don't bring your business under the Lordship of Christ every day, you're going to hell. Where are you going? You're in rebellion against the Lordship of Christ. Amen. That's right. Most of you mothers, you hate your kids so much you're bound them to hell. You don't bring them under the Lordship of Christ. The average young mother thinks more of her child than she does the Crown Rites of Jesus Christ. The greatest enemy I've had in the world is my sainted mother. She wanted me to be a big preacher. I was a big preacher to start out with and getting smaller ever since. I've had bombs put under the church buildings where I preached. I had to have two Texas Rangers sit on the pulpit stand for nine months. I couldn't get out of their sight. I've been through it. My mother, a thousand miles away, I'd read about it in the papers and she'd write and say, Son, they're going to kill you. What she wanted to do, my oldest brother, he's gone to heaven I hope now, and he said, If you just tone down and wasn't so blue and dogmatic and crazy, the Lord had you to do. Hope your mothers don't send your kids to hell, but I expect you will because you want them to be religious and nice, but not under the rule of King Jesus. Yes. You lied. You wished your husband quit getting drunk so you could buy a fur coat and you'd love him to die in the church, but you don't want him under the rule of Christ because it'll show you up. You keep saying, Oh, God save my husband. You don't want him saved. You just want to fix it so you can sleep better at night and live like hell yourself. The fool who has said in his heart, No, God for me. I said it the first time in the Garden of Eden when God said, Don't you eat of the fruit of that tree. I said, To hell with you. I'll eat it. You're not going to run my life. I said it the second time, and you did too, when I said, Away with him, away with him. Crucify him. Release him into the far abyss and crucify that fellow Jesus. I'll not let him run my life. I said it every time I ever heard the gospel. You can't hear the gospel and me bring up people to repentance or rebellion. God, open up the canopy of the sky and let what you are saying in your heart tonight in this nice, respectable, better than average Sunday night congregation with your blessed preacher and your good friendliness. And if he could hear the cry of your heart wide as six Adams up above as you are saying, we are still of the same opinion. We're still not going to be sold out to Jesus Christ. We're willing to be nice folks. That's right. Jesus Christ is not going to be the absolute totalitarian dictator of my life. And apart from that brother there isn't one bit of salvation for anybody this side of hell. I had two strikes against me to start with, my nature. I was born hating authority. So were you. A little baby sticks its tongue out at its mother time at three or four months old. I don't know who started this age of accountability business. Just ain't nothing good. But you cross that sweet little angel. We got a little grandbaby. Now you talk about cute. That's the cutest thing you ever saw. She's a year old. We just had two daughters. We lost the first one. Raised one. Happily married. Now we have a little ten year, little year old baby girl. Now there's your children and there's our grandbaby. You talk about old man Barnum and his wife. Man, we're just nuts about that kid. But she mean as a devil. She's either laughing or fighting. You cross her and brother, her little eyes will come in screaming up and she'll go to boy. Nobody tell her what she can do or what she can't do. When her daddy comes in from work at night he's a brick contractor. As he takes a shower in the evening meal, he got her in the habit of taking a bye-bye to that little old stroller car. She's just a year old. Honey, you better take her too. Every night he got busy about something and forgot it. Time to take her bye-bye. She got on the wall, rolling in the rug, just screaming. Rebellion. Born that way. What's the issue this hour? Authority. I can tell who you are by your reaction to authority. The school kids now, the teachers in Detroit, in New York City, in Chicago, have to take two clubs and some iron mugs and free shotguns to play with and the kids will do it. They ain't gonna be under their party. All the school teachers out in New Orleans holding me for a pressure and the kids just like some of you is acting a little ugly, not much, and the pastor just got on out of the pulpit and picked that 11-year-old boy up from over me and just whipped the dickens out of him. Mama and Papa didn't say nothing. The pastor said, when that boy's inside of this church house, he's under the authority of this church. There ain't gonna be another authority in the church, are you? You either will or go to hell, I'll tell you that. But all rebellion against authority is rebellion against the crown rights of Jesus Christ. For God said all authority is given. God's son said, all authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. And if you want to have authority, you have to be under authority. This generation of church members say, oh, I thank God for saving my soul. But they know nothing of the iron self-discipline that's required in being under the absolute authority of the one who has a right and exercises it and demands that your very thoughts, every activity of your life, be brought under his blessed rule. I was born that way. I was born that way. And when I had another strike against me, I am a covenant child. My father and mother gave me to God as a public preacher. Before I was born. My little girl heard me say that. She said, Daddy, how did your mother and father know you were going to be a boy? I said, I don't know. But some of you white-haired people can remember when Ma and Pa, when they found out a youngster's on the way, they'd go off in the corner somewhere and turn that child over to God. You don't do that. You ain't got time. You're too busy paying for the gadget. Save time. But then Pa and Grandma knew what I'm talking about. My husband, my mother. Now, they never told me about it. They had chance. I didn't find it out until after I'd seen it. They told God about it. They told God knew about it. That's all right. Well, now, if I wasn't in Peter Rothman's hard place in the world, yeah, I am. Born with a nature that hates the very spelling of the word authority. I ain't gonna let God and nobody else tell me what to do. Or what not to do. And yet, till I was born, I didn't know it. Pop and Mom gave me to God. And what you give to God, you never give back. Yeah, I was. I didn't know about it. Now, I'm gonna talk to you a little while about how I was butchered. I want you to feel a little sorry for me when I was ten years old as having a revival meeting like you've had yet. And they stood for the invitation and my training union, B.Y.P.U., sponsor or whatever they call it, came, put a hand on my shoulder and said, Rothman, if you want to be saved, well, any fool wants to be saved. And I said, yeah. Said, don't you love Jesus? Well, of course I did. I had no thing on God's earth about him but Mama said he's a wonderful fella. And the preacher said he's mighty fine. And I could quote scripture about him in my little ten-year-old heart what I knew about him. He's the most attractive, wholesome person this world has ever known. Sure, I loved him. I said, yes, I loved him. He said, don't tell the preacher. And so I followed around, you know, with my little feet saved him. I sat down and they stuck a card under my nose and asked me if I didn't want the bad guy. And I said, yeah. And so Mama fixed up my little combi suit. In those days, those ten-year-old boys wore short breeches. You know what they are, do you? Yeah, they do. Huh? I don't know about the boys, no. And just had one little old son underneath his combi suit. And he washed it and brushed it and I ducked in it. I just as sincere and as honest as you folks were when the preacher got to you to make a decision for God's sake. I wasn't a hypocrite. Just some butcher had to me. Well, when I was eleven years old, a missionary came to our little town where Dad was school principal. On Wednesday night, he talked about what they're doing over in China. Just broke my little old heart. And when they stood up and sang, they sang, I'll go where you want me to go. I'll be where you want me to be. And he says, anybody here that will surrender to do whatever the Lord wants you to do and be whatever He wants you to do, you come down. Before I knew it, I was there. Of course, I didn't know a thing on God's earth about what I was doing, but I was just as honest and sincere as I could be. Now, isn't that butchery? God knows, look at your hands, you Sunday school teachers and deacons and Baptists that quit the gospel years ago and went into the butchering business and a filling hill full of your people and all in the name of zeal. I stand here tonight in God's favor in spite of the ignorant butchers that claim to be in the service of God. I got along pretty good. I tore my butt when I was a nice little Christian. I tipped my hat when I'd pass a lady on the street. Ain't none of that going on now. I knew better to keep them in the house of God. Sometimes I can't preach for seeing the jaws working now. They're all the same people. I was 15 on the fourth day of August and September in college and still wore new breeches and they called me a peewee. Boy, that wasn't all. And after I got away from home I found out I didn't know the Lord. Hear me, young person. I'll tell you exactly how I found out. I had no power within me to resist Satan and overcome temptation. And if you haven't got it you ain't safe. I didn't say you could be perfect, but brother, if you're ever touched and you're able to touch the living Lord, that's what power is. That's power to transform and keep on transforming until one day you're just exactly like the Lord, Jesus, and that's final salvation. And if you haven't got it, you can tell me how orthodox you are, and you're blue in the face, but when a man touches the living Lord in faith, power is transferred. And when temptation comes, you've got something that enables you to resist the devil and he'll free from it. And there hath no temptation overtaken a child of God, but such as he's able to withstand, for with the temptation, he'll give you the strength and power, if you're in touch with the vine. And I didn't have it. I never touched a drop of liquor, though I got to run with that before. If they all drank, I didn't want to be a citizen anymore. I committed everything in the catalog, except under God, I never touched any woman, except my wife. My mother raised me to respect women. I wish to God there's some women now that deserve to be raised. The good Baptist boys in that college, they'd put a pint of liquor in their hip pocket every Saturday night, go down to their armory, and get some good Baptist Christian girl drunk, go out, rob her of her birth. They'd all save. Want to save, you know, all this? Have you heard that? I made my way partly through college playing poker. I was a good poker player. I'm ashamed of it. I won a hundred dollars playing poker one night from the president of the senior class. It was during the revival meeting in that Christian college. It wasn't the fault of the college. And he got saved the next day in the morning service, gloriously saved, and everybody hollering and hooting around about the president of the class is saved. And he won that hundred dollars back that night. Ladies and gentlemen, young folks, I'm not as foolish as I think. I know what passes salvation the next day. It's as rotten as hell. If you want to know how you get out of know how you get out of You have to have to know how you get out of You have to know how you get out of You know how hell. hell. Hell is- You know how to get out of hell if you went out in But you know, my father and mother gave me to him, I didn't know it, but Pat knew it! Had God hewned up, praised God, I wish Mom and Pop would do their kids this way now. If you put God on the spot, he'd have to come across you if you couldn't have fun. There's a lot of fun out there saying, isn't there, God, raising over the hill, doing everything except chasing the girls. But Pop and Mom gave me to God, I didn't know about it, all I knew was that I came to such a terrible place when I found out what salvation meant for me! It means the will of God made central in your life! When I found out what that meant for me, I lived in hell for six long years. He didn't tell me there's not any hell, man told me he thought we got all the hell we'd deserve on this life. I tell him, I did too, brother, there's anything worse than that, no, yon, than the one I went through six years, it's bad, brother. You see, I had to come to the place where I could sleep at night. When I found out what I'd have to do in order to be saved, I wasn't willing to do it. Oh, my God, if there ain't a mess to be in! I never doubted I'd go to hell, I never doubted the Bible, I never doubted that Jesus is the Son of God, I never doubted that he died for sinners, I just found out what God required of me, and I said, I ain't going to do it. And I recommend to most of you dead people, if I was you, I'd become a drunkard. I didn't become a drunkard, I became an infidel. I said, there ain't any God, there ain't any God. In the daytime, I got by with pretty good, and I got to where I could sleep at night and graduated from college and went to teach school. I recommend that this generation of Church members do something. They said, mind me, I'd recommend becoming a drunkard. I'm honest about it. I'd rather have a Church full of drunkards than what we've got now. You're either drunk on booze or on the Holy Spirit. You have to take a pill to go to sleep by and a pill to stay awake. If it wasn't for the good doctors and dope, most all of you would go crazy, this preacher included. We're miserable because we don't want to go to hell, but there's one thing we ain't going to do, we ain't going to do the will of God. And you can't live in God's will and not do God's will and experience anything but hell. This is God's will. So I became an infidel, no God. I went as far as to organize an infidel's club in a Baptist college, and I had 300 young Baptist students join the club. I wasn't all infidel, but they had guts enough to join. Every Friday night we'd have a meeting, and somebody would get up there and prove there wasn't any God. That's right. You ought to have heard me tell God. I'd cuss him. I seen the Communists in Chicago and New York City, they'd shake their fists and say, but but but but, you're up there and you don't like water. I'd say, come down here and do something about it. Well, that's what we'd do in that infidel's club on the campus of that Christian college. Oh, Lord, but you don't like what we say about you, so and so, so and so. Come on down here and do something about it. He didn't make a move. And I got to where I could sleep pretty good. Man, you talk about criticizing the preachers, I could tell you about it. And the church members everlasting and what was a hypocrite. I had to have something, you know. I recommend you get you a bottle of booze. If you get all you folks drunk here some Wednesday night, you can pay off this bill in one service. Drunk people are usually liberal. And most drunk people are friendly. Isn't that right? And most of them are happy, man. They just own the world and they give you the shirt off their back. I was your old type, Tim. Church members, you get drunk once in a while, loosen up, you know. The scripture said be not drunk with wine. But if you're not going to be filled with the Spirit, for God's sake, get your quarter liquor and have a good time and have one nice good night's sleep before you go to hell. That's right. That's right. That don't go against all these fundamentalist preachers fighting the liquor traffic. I mean it, honey. You'd be a lot better off drunk than you are dead like you are now. Why, sir? I want to talk to you a little while about how God brought me to himself. I'm nearly through. Your rebellion is going to be crushed. You ain't going to get by with it. No human being from Adam down to the last man is ever going to win this fight. Your rebellion is going to be crushed. I like to read a book. When I was a boy, most of you all are so young you ain't got sense enough to tell you anything. Some of you gray-haired people, some of you boys used to read Horatio Alger. Did you ever read Horatio Alger's books? Huh? You're the dumbest folks I ever saw. If you didn't read them, I don't know what. Horatio Alger. Man, that little boot-black orphan boy comes to New York City with a dime in his pocket. He's got more trouble. And looks like he's just going to go down the sluice. And I always read the last chapter. When he married the president of the bank's daughter and got to be the cashier of the bank and built a big house and lived happily ever after. And when I turned back and started and went and had him in a corner and looked like he wasn't good, I said, that's all right, bud, I know how he's coming out. And I like to tell him the word of God. When all hell's stopping him, the devil climbs up on my pillow and says, Bud, you ain't getting nowhere. I like to turn to the back of the book and I read, For he must reign until all authority and everything else is borne under him until this old world is brought back into the sovereign rule of God. Oh, I know how it's going to turn out. Yes, sir. Rebellion's going to be crushed. He crushes rebellion by persuasion and the sweet wooing of the spirit and the faith of men and women in the gospel. But if he can't do that, he'll crush you by putting his foot on your neck and forcing you to bow. Your rebellion's going to be crushed. You're born with it and God's going to crush you. Now, in order to save a man, God Almighty crosses your will at the point where your rebellion heads up. I've been taught that God won't invade your will. You'd better pray for him to do it. If he don't, you're going to split hell wide open. If you have your will about it, you're going to go to hell. If God saves you, he'll have to crush your will right at the point where your rebellion heads up, and it always heads up in one place. The Bible says if you offend the law in one place, you're guilty of all. That's what it's talking about. Let me illustrate it. Amen. If anybody here tonight wants to go to hell, and you're perfectly willing for Jesus Christ to be the absolute Lord of everything about your life except one thing, and if you win that battle, you're going to go to hell. If he doesn't crush you at the place that you're in rebellion, you've got a fence built around one thing in your life, a ten-cent sin or a billion-dollar sin like mine. If you are able to live in that state of rebellion, and if you ever get to the place where you sign a treaty of peace with any known sin in your life, you're sure for hell that I'm preaching to you. Where you can sleep when you know there's any part of your life in rebellion. If you can sleep good tonight when you know there's something in your life, not under the rule of Jesus Christ, there's no salvation for you. Now, if there's anybody here tonight that's still going to hell, I'll tell you it's only for one or two reasons. You've never heard the gospel, you can't be saved apart from hearing the gospel, or there's a rotten part in your life. And every time the gospel comes, you say, ouch, I've had people say, preach, I'm not ready, and they're telling the God's truth, there's something in your life that you're not willing to lay at the feet of Jesus and say you take charge. And if God don't crush you there, you're gone, see. You better pray that God Almighty be good to you. That in mercy and longsuffering he'll invade that old stubborn will of yours. It's got a fence built around the least little thing in your life, not under the rule of Christ. Break your stubborn will. And enable you to take your hand and reach in and grab that awful rotten sore spot laid at the foot of Jesus. Come clean with God, or there's no hope. The point of my rebellion was the matter of preaching. And yet I went to hell, because my mother and father gave me to God to be a preacher. And of course anybody that's a public preacher, and God got his stamp on him, he was called to be a preacher in his mother's womb. Did you get that? You might have said, I believe God called me to preach. Well, if he did it in your mother's womb, that's so. But it came later, didn't it? Jeremiah and John the Baptist. The Apostle Paul. My wife plays the piano. She's a good one. And I couldn't go and play the piano for nearly a million years. You've got to be born to be able to play the piano. I can't preach perfectly, but I can preach. I was born to be a preacher. I couldn't build a house. You've got to be born to be a pastor. God has to. If you're not doing that, that you're born to be. Whatever it is, sweeping the floor, that's what God calls you to do. That's all right, isn't it? Oh, I knew I had to preach. Thank God I'm old enough to have some preachers in those days. I had sense enough to know I couldn't be a Christian and still be in rebellion against the will of God. I heard, oh, Brother Barber, I've been saved 30 years, but I never surrendered to the will of God. So I said, well, yes. You ain't been saved 30 years, you've been in bound for hell 30 years. Somebody says, well, God called me to be a missionary. Yeah, he did that when he saved you. You haven't been a missionary all this time, you're still on your road to hell. All this tomfoolery about, I believe God called me to be a missionary. If you're saved, you should. Now, the commander in chief's got a right to transfer one of his missionaries. If he wants to say, now I want you to go to China, I'm going to transfer you, that's all right. But if you ain't a missionary where you are, you're on your road to hell. There ain't no difference between being a missionary and a Christian. That's it. And I knew that the will of God for me was to be one of these hitchhike, two-bit preachers. I'll have you understand, I had a scholarship in the world's greatest law school, pay all my way through law school. I had a junior partnership in the biggest law firm in the state of Texas waiting for me when I got out. And the men tell me I was going to be a little old preacher. Whew, no wonder I was in there. I could have been somebody, brother. Not many boys have a junior partnership in the biggest law firm in the West waiting for them when they get out of law school. Not many young men have all expenses paid to go to law school. And here I knew if I got saved, I'd have to go to prayer. And if you haven't been saved, you'll have to go do whatever the Lord calls you to do. That's right. And so I lived in hell. And I had graduated, went to Panhandle, Texas to teach school, pay a few debts before I had to go next year to law school. Well, I was a good Baptist all those years, been a Baptist ever since I was ten years old. And you wouldn't be a Baptist with good standing, never even darkened the door of the local church building for six years like I did. And so the first thing I did when I moved to teach school, in those days you couldn't teach school in Texas unless you was a church member, and I walked down the aisle across Baptist Church, Panhandle, Texas, and joined the church by letter. They took me in. Well, of course I didn't go back that night, and I blame being religious, but they used to be foolish about it, you know. And of course I didn't go in tonight, and when tonight they had a business meeting, and they came to see me next day and said, last night at the business meeting we appointed you teacher of the men's Bible class. Well, I had to take it. I didn't want to lose the job. And so for several months there I taught the men's Bible class. You talk about going through hell. I'd have to open this book that I knew was so, but I wasn't going to do what's said, and teach those men. I knew more about it than they did. We had the time of our lives. And then, lo and behold, the pastor resigned. And for several Sundays I went up after Sunday school and didn't have nobody to preach, you know. And so we all went home. One Sunday morning I had all I could take. I taught my Bible class. And I went to my room. I never know why I did. Took my Bible, went in the bathroom, locked the door from the inside. I could have got out, but I didn't want anybody interfering. I put a Bible down on the floor and knelt on my face and said, If I've ever got saved this how I got saved, God, I'm going to start preaching. And then when joy came. Old Bud Robertson, the old Nazarene preacher, had a terrible issue. He was a Methodist until he got saved and kicked him out to join the Nazarene. He said, You know, brothers and sisters, I got so miserable I didn't want to live. He said, I knew I was going to hell, and I didn't know how to be saved. And he said, I'd go to preaching, and after the preaching I'd go up and tell the preacher, I'm lost, and I want to be saved. Tell him how. And said, he'd tell me what to do, and God wouldn't save me. And said, Yes I'm going to preach the next Lord's day, and I'd go up and I'd say, I'm lost. I'm scared, and I don't want to go to hell, and I don't want to be saved. You tell me how to be saved. And he'd tell me, and I'd do what he told me to do. But the Lord wouldn't save me. And he said, I got so miserable I didn't know what to do. And he said, I just prayed and I prayed and I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. And I prayed, but the Lord wouldn't save me. And he said, you know, I just sought the Lord, and I read my Bible, and I did everything I knew to do, but the Lord wouldn't save me. And said, one day the old lady said, Bud, you go down and get the cow. I had her staked out on a rope, you know, a little old stake. Bring her in so I'd milk her. And said, I went down there, and I knelt down on my right knee to untie the rope from around the stake. And when I got down on my right knee, I couldn't get up. And I just put my other knee down and said, Lord, since I'm here, I'm going to stay right here until you save me or send me to hell. And he said, when I'd done that, the Lord dropped a chunk of gold in my soul, and it's been burning ever since. And when I said, God, I'm going to go to preaching, he's talking about there ain't no emotion, honey, just like the air coming out of the flask. Thank God. I'm going to hit you if you don't get with it. I'm saved. That's how it happens, brother. If you ever get saved, that's how it'll happen. Let that shotgun down, sister. Quit claiming to be a Christian. You ain't got a fence built around anything in your life. Come clean with God. He bought you. And through the blood of Jesus Christ, he owns your lock, stock, and barrel, and he demands unconditional salvation. And I was so happy, I didn't have good sense, and I skedaddled over to the Sunday school superintendent's home, and he was sound asleep while they were getting dinner ready. And the kids had one of these old-fashioned phonographs playing that played Red Hawk Mama. I never will forget it. You young folks never heard that. And I woke the old superintendent up. I thought he was just going to rejoice, you know, that I got saved. And I told him what had happened, and I said, I'm going to preach next Sunday, Brother Mullins. And he said, it's about time. That's all he said. He talked about letting me down. That just deflated me. And I said, well, I don't understand. Well, he said, things been going on you don't know about, son. He said, before you got here, we got two letters. One addressed to the superintendent of the Sunday school, the First Baptist Church. The other addressed to the pastor of the First Baptist Church. An old gray-headed woman down in Abilene, Texas said, my boy's coming up there to teach school. And said, he's called a priest, and he's not even saved. And said, he said, get miserable. And when he gets there, I'd appreciate it if you'd build a fire under him. And the old superintendent said, we met together at the church conference, and we decided, even though you aren't a Christian, we're going to let you member of the Bible class. And said, make the fire a little hot. And said, we've been meeting once a week. And said, Lord, stoke up the fire. Thank God for a mother who'll give a boy to God. And they never told the altar until God invades the stubborn will of that sinful boy. Brings him to the priest, he'll drop his shotgun and say, Lord, camera. I surrender. And since that time, these 43 years, I've made awful crooked steps. But I found out what my Lord said, come unto me. All you that labor in the heavy laden, I'll rest you. Take my yoke upon you. Here it is, let me put my collar on you. And learn of me, my yoke is easy. I've worn them both, brother. His yoke's easy. In the 13th chapter of John, and I must quit, the sweetest picture I've ever seen in the Bible. At the occasion, we're soon going to have the Lord's Supper. It says, Jesus, knowing that the Father had committed all things into his hands, he found out the Father turned everything over to him. You know what he did? He took a towel and a basin of water, and he washed his disciples' feet. That's the sovereign rule of the universe. In all his glory and sovereignty, washing the disciples' feet. It's like when I was a kid with a stump in my toe. I'd run to Mother, she'd kiss the hurt away. Blessed Jesus, glorious Son of God, poured out of his soul unto death. His yoke's easy. I wish you'd receive it, gladly. He'll make you one day. I beg you to receive it tonight. Our Father in Jesus' name, have mercy upon us. Deal with people that seemeth good in thy sight. We'll give you the glory. Let's stand and sing. Pass me not, O gentle Savior. Hear my humble cry, number 201. Your blessed young under-shepherd's going to stand here. If you want to throw your shotgun down tonight, I don't care what it is. You know what it is. If you want to do it publicly, I beg you to do it. I hope you can. Because if you keep it, you go into hell. If you can drop it at the feet of Jesus, he'll save you. Amen? Let us stand and sing. God bless you. Walking this aisle won't do any good, but drop in that horn of rebellion will if you can. Come, come, come. O gentle Savior, hear my humble cry. While the devourer calls me to the pentecost. Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry. While the devourer calls me to the pentecost. Now, this is a solemn moment. Chances are I'll never see you again, but I'll meet you at the judgment. If there's any controversy between you and my Lord, I hope you don't win that fight. I hope you'll be able to drop that controversy. Surrender. I don't care what it is. I don't care what it is. And this is, I can't make it any easier. If I did, I'd tell you a lie. It's unconditional strength. And then the thing about it is you'll have to do it all over again tomorrow, you see. And the next day you'll have to do it again. Because there'll be choices you'll have to make tomorrow of who's going to be Lord, see. You'll have to. You are the Lord every day, am I right? But that's what salvation's all about. For Christ's sake, like this boy, and what it's all about. He's got sense. He's here praying about something. Let me at thy throne of mercy. Still a throne of mercy. One day you'll be a throne of judgment. Find the sweet relief. Anybody here in hell like I was, six months, God didn't make a public preacher out of you, that is my point of rebellion, see. You wasn't drinking liquor or anything like that. I'd say I ain't going to be a preacher, see. What is it keeping you out of the kingdom of God? I'm not going to do this, or I'll not do this, or God can't do this. Whatever it is, I hope you can drop it and surrender to Christ. That's why I was saying this second verse. Come on. Let me at thy throne of mercy. Find the sweet relief. We will carry thee, my Savior, Here by thy feet. Savior, Savior, Be by our side. Christ, Christ, as it's ever calling, Give us rest, be good. Any issue with God, if it's a ten cent sin, if you win, you'll go to hell. I had a fellow in New Orleans, he said, I ain't going to walk the aisle. I don't believe he'd get saved by walking the aisle. Now, I want to be saved, but I'm not going to walk the aisle. I said, well, you'll walk the aisle or go to hell. Had a coal miner, coal owner in West Virginia, said, I've made five public professions of faith, been baptized five times, ain't saved yet. I want to be saved, but I'll never make another profession of faith. I said, you will or you'll go to hell. You make any issue with God and he'll break you at that issue or he'll damn you. With me, I said, I don't want to go to hell, but I ain't going to preach. You just tell God you ain't going to do. I don't care what it is, and you'll do it or you'll go to hell. This woman telling you the truth. Beg him a little if you feel like a preacher, but I don't, sister. If you could drop that shotgun, I hope you'll do it tonight. Maybe you can't. Whatever it is, nobody but you and God know about it. Trusting only in thy merit, we shall be dropped in. Come on, Dick. We're going to sing just one other verse, and I want to say amen to what's been said. If you've got a controversy with God, it proves that you're not saved. Unless you let down, God won't save you. And it can be as little, and what you might say a silly thing as lipstick, but you make a controversy, and you don't have forgiveness. I've experienced it, and I've been born again to experience it. It works that way. These folks here tonight, you ought to get right with God. You ought to lay down your obeying. God's shown you. God's called you. God's spoken to your heart. God'll help you to get right with God. We're going to sing another verse. We're going to open the doors of the church. If you're here, and you're saved, and you want to seek to serve the Lord in this place, as you are led by the Spirit, then we give you an invitation to be obedient to the Spirit of God. If you're not saved, and you want God to save you, if you're willing to vow and call Jesus Lord and lay down your obeying, God'll save you. Will you come while we sing one other verse? Christ is born in my head Lord, I seek Thy praise Heal my wounded heart and heal it Save me by Thy grace Savior, Savior Here I am, on high Glad that You have called me With a fasting heart Now, some have come for different reasons. I want you to think about that precious verse while we continue. For one more verse, if others come, we'll continue. If not, we'll close. To me, this is the sweetest verse song I ever heard. Thou, the spring of all my comfort. Who's that talking about? More than life to me. I'm 64 years old. I'm just about able to tell you it's the God's truth. He is precious. He is more than life to me. Whom have I on earth besides Thee? Whom in heaven but Thee? That's my Sovereign Lord that died on a cross to pay the penalty for sin. Give Him the right to give eternal life to His people. Hallelujah, what a Savior. While we sing that verse, if you want to, you come along and tell us what you want. Come on. Thou, the spring of all my comfort. More than life to me. Whom have I on earth besides Thee? Whom in heaven but Thee? Savior, Savior, hear my humble cry. While we sing that verse, if you want to, you come along and tell us what you want. I've got to drive 85 miles home, but I'm not in a hurry. And I want to sing a verse that says, take the name of Jesus with you. Child of sorrow and of woe. It will joy and comfort give you. Take it then. There you go, precious name. If you don't know that, we're going to turn you out of the church. What number is it? Number 293. 293. You have to turn.