In this sermon, the speaker shares a personal story about his father's transformation from an alcoholic to a devout believer in God. After repenting from his sinful life, his father became passionate about warning others about the judgments of God and the need for repentance and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. The speaker emphasizes the importance of persuading others to turn to God and highlights the accountability we will face based on our response to the teachings of the Bible. He challenges the audience to consider if they have ever persuaded someone to seek salvation and warns of the consequences of ignoring the message of the Bible.

Now let's have a short prayer. Father in mercy on all of us, come visit us tonight, for thy glory is that as look at my heart and all of our hearts, the motive, not for the glory of men or a congregation or a denomination, not for anyone's glory, but just for Christ's glory. And our hearts have one thing, one desire, to glorify Jesus Christ. Outside of that, I don't care about a single thing on this earth, in truth. And so please glorify thy name through a very base and weak man who longs to be used of God while he still has a breath in his body. By the blood of Christ cleanse me, should there have been the smallest reaction that is not utterly Christ-like, the smallest thought, the smallest reaction or word that is not utterly holy and Christ-like, forgive me for my baseness and weakness. Wash me in the blood afresh of Jesus Christ, fill me with the Holy Spirit afresh in grace and mercy, and glorify thy name through the weakest of vessels here tonight, the basest of men, a man despised by many, that thou hast chosen the weak things of the world, the foolish things, the things despised, that no flesh could glory or should glory in thy presence. None of us can glory, we live to glorify Christ, and are humbled at the thought we can take such unworthy vessels to do that. But come God, glorify thy name now through thy word in all of our hearts, in Jesus Christ's lovely name. Amen. He will return in flaming fire, he will return in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will return in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. 2 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 9. In Revelation 20 verse 10, John records the revelation given to him by Jesus of mankind's destination, and I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it, I saw a great white throne and him that sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place to them. And I saw the dead, I saw the dead small and great stand, I saw the dead small children and great grown-ups stand before God. And the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and they were judged, they were judged every man according to their works, every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, and whosoever was not found written in the book of life, whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast, cast into the lake of fire, had no mercy after death. The hands that will bear the marks for all eternity, in all eternity, those marks this book declares will be there, of the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Those hands that bear the marks for all eternity as a witness that he tasted death for every man, for every man. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, this book says, though those marks will be there for eternity. And as this happens, with those marks in those hands, it's a fearful thing to fall into those hands, the hands of the living God. If you have not prepared to meet with God before you die, there is no mercy from that God, though he dies for you. If you have not prepared to meet with God before death, it is appointed unto men once to die, Hebrews 9 verse 27. It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment. There's nothing else you are going to have opportunity to make up your mind or change your mind. There's no words you will utter to God that will change his mind. After death, there is no such a thing, even if one comes from the dead to warn them. They deserve what they face, God says. There's a gulf fixed from the moment you die, not only at the great white throne, but no one can leave that place to help. No one can leave heaven to go and assist you. Though you may cry, I am tormented in this flame. Staggering, isn't it, how Christ says this? We die only to find you're not dead, so a soul will never ever die. The second death, what is it? That first death is not the end. The second death doesn't involve flesh, but you can still feel. According to this book, you can see, you can think, you can speak, you can scream. You can suffer. I am tormented. Or did Christ lie? Did he get a little bit exaggerated or fanatical? Warning men of what eternity is? Do you deny, does it offend you what Christ says? The soul will face, he will feel after death without a physical body. You see, he will remember, he will see what he's missed. Can you imagine the torment of what you missed? You will recognize, he believed. Or did Christ lie? And no preacher has the right to preach what Jesus said because it was a lie. You choose if you are offended at what Christ said, so. In Ezekiel 33, verse 7, staggering words. Shall thou, O son of man? He cries out to this prophet. I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore thou shalt hear the word of mine mouth and warn them from me when I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die. If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die. That wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, to turn from it, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. I want to ask you a question if you stumble over verses throughout the rest of the scriptures here. Do you think that God would only say that to that one man if he failed to warn men he should have warned? Do you think that God's judgment would only come upon that one man and not you and me? Tonight, I'd like to ask two fearful questions. Two fearful questions concerning the warnings of God, of judgment, and hell that are strewn across the pages of this holy book. The warnings of God, judgments, and hell upon the unrepentant souls that are strewn throughout this book. Firstly, I'd like to ask the same. Do you warn men to flee from the wrath to come as God has compelled us to do? How many men have you passed in your life since you've been saved, brother, that you could have warned, that you should have warned? How many men and women and children have you passed in your life since you've been saved, that you could have warned, that you should have warned? And although God has saved your soul from hell, you didn't care. You didn't care that they were going to hell. That's the only reason. That's the only reason. There's no such a thing as another reason. It might as well have been dirt passing through your fingers. You cared so little, though you knew what God says concerning all men, their plight without having found what you found. The second question to the unsaved, does it offend you? I want you to answer your heart and God tonight. Does it offend you if a man from the pulpit or anywhere in life confronts you with these scriptures and warns you and pleads with you, that you know it's you, it's you God speaking to freedom, whether preacher or friend or family. Does it offend you if someone warns you, or could I rephrase it, if God warns you to someone who's willing to be used of God, you're the preacher who know that'll close a thousand pulpit the day he mentions the word hell, but he still does. Does it offend you? Is it offense to you? My mother had nine brothers and sisters. Her elder brother, his name was Peter, Uncle Peter, amazing sort of a person, excelled to the degree that he was South African champion in different sports, in the newspapers, oh what he didn't do, the leading soccer team, football team of the country, he was the trainer, he was the manager, the leading life-saving club, he was the one who founded, he was just something, Uncle Peter. My Uncle Peter, from when they were little boys like this, he befriended my father. My father was his closest, dearest friend from a little boy, as they kicked ball together, they went to school together, my mother came into my father's life through Peter and my father's friendship. They were inseparable, he loved my father like a brother, more than his own brothers. He was always there, Uncle Peter, always there. All I remember is Uncle Peter at the door, he's come, wants to be with Daddy, way until my father was 51 years of age and my father, an alcoholic, his life virtually destroyed, repented from his life of sin, in one moment, never to touch another, drink again till he died, never to touch a cigarette, though he smoked over 20 a day for over 20 years, 60 a day for over 20 years. My father threw these things down in such a way that he staggered everybody that knew him on this earth, was staggered, many to total silence and shock, he so turned to God. The first thing that happened to Daddy was the desperate compassion, not compassion, no, the desperate compassion to warn everyone he loved on earth first, of all he had heard from this book or read concerning the judgment of God upon their soul that they don't repent from the life of sin and find forgiveness through the shed blood of Christ and deliverance by the resurrected power of Christ and faith in it alone. My father went to every friend, to every relative and weeping, sobbing on occasions, begging, begging. He went to Peter and weeping, he begged Peter to repent, to turn from his sin or to go to hell. As he was sitting there pleading and pleading, Peter trembled, Uncle Peter trembled, he shook and he said these words, stop now or I will hate you forever. I will hate you. My father was silent for a while and we hardly breathed as we waited. My father said, I would hate you if I stopped now. I can't. Uncle Peter walked out that door and never saw my father till my father died, not once. He would not come to my father's funeral every one day. In their hundreds there was no place to sit. Daddy was so revered and loved by so many when he died. Uncle Peter would not come to his funeral. He so hated him for having warned him of what God said in this book that he will face judgment in hell unless he repents. My Uncle Peter died in shame, in such terrifying shame that it was on the newspapers, the front pages of virtually every newspaper in our country with his photograph. And the family had great shame the way he died. Though his closest friend that he loved more than anyone in the world it seems, had warned, weeping and begging. Does it offend you, soul, if someone loves you enough to warn you what God assures you of certainty every soul will face for eternity? Does it offend you soul, if someone warns you from a pulpit of what Christ told us? Their blood is on your hands if you don't warn them. I don't know how many sisters can walk from the pulpit if they haven't tried to warn men of hell. I don't know how they can go to sleep. I don't know how they can think of what they're going to say to Jesus Christ if they never ever warned a congregation though they knew what is in this book. I was preaching about two years ago in a town, it stayed in the home of a very godly man, small town but the church was full. They just came from everywhere. And this man said something that he had done just recently at that time. His brother had died. And at the funeral, in this big church, in this community, with all the farms around, at the funeral, the minister, the preacher, stood up and said, he has been released from his suffering. God has taken him from his long sufferings and sickness and he is now at peace with God in heaven. He even quoted scriptures about death and heaven. He of course was trying to comfort those that loved the deceased. Now this man, this godly man said it was up to him at the end of that service to do the eulogy, how he stood and thanked the various people that are any part of this service or those who had come from near and far. And then he turned and said to this minister who sat beside, behind him, behind the pulpit, Sir, you are wrong. My brother has not been released from his suffering and pain. God has not taken him from his suffering and now he's at peace with God. My brother is in hell. My brother has never ever experienced pain. No human has ever comprehended what sufferings there are until he faces them. My brother faces now the screaming and the torment of his pain physically. There's no scream he ever did on earth in his pain and sickness that could compare with the shouts that he has now shouted. And Sir, it is for all eternity that my brother is in the suffering. According to this book, Sir, do we preach that men are at peace when God says those men are in torment? And although God assures us that those men are in torment, do we preach against what God says, Sir? Everyone in this building knows that my brother lived in sin. Everyone in this building knows that my brother died in sin. I pled with him through the years. I pled with him two days before he died when he was still conscious to turn to Christ in repentance, but he never, ever turned from a life of sin. He never, ever repented or showed remorse for what he was and what he was. And I quoted his sin in his book that God assured him he'd be damned. There's no possibility of him having eternal life. My brother died in his sin, Sir. And as he spoke, this minister began to groan and shake his head in anger at what he was saying. Angry at truth! For anyone who dared to say it in a pulpit, angry! And anyone who dared to quote what God or believe what God says, enough to quote it, even if he was ostracized and offended, everyone thereafter. Others groaning in anger and offense. And he said these words, I know you're offended and I don't know the full consequences of what I've done yet. Yet today, but I did it. Because I didn't want my brother's death to be a lie or so. And if his death could just bring someone to repentance because of truth, truth, then it's worth any offense that has been taken or anything I'm going to face as a result of what I've said here today. If there's just one person in this whole building that's willing to believe this book and knows and accepts that my brother, and you know it, was in sin as he died, he never turned. That accepts truth and turns to God that it's worth what I'm going to face. Does it offend you if someone speaks the truth from this book? Does it offend you so? Staggering question. Staggering answers. Heaven's hearing now from your thoughts, souls. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, Paul says, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade man. Tell me, do you? Knowing. Who did you last persuade in your whole life, sir? When? When did you persuade anyone knowing the terror of the Lord? Answer God. You have nothing to do with this old man, but it's God you have to do with him. You listen to this book, you will be judged by what you did when you heard the words from this book, God says. This book will judge you, God says, by what you did as you heard even these words I'm saying now. Or does God lie about that too? And it won't happen, and you're not going to lose any sleep about it, are you? Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade man. Do you? When daddy looked at his mother, aged and frail, sickly, already we thought she was going to go, somehow she lingered. Daddy went to my grandmother, and in desperation he begged her, he begged her until my grandmother couldn't bear it. She was so offended, she was so offended. She got hold of me one day and said, you speak to your father. I thank God what's happened to you, Keith. You see the change in your life, don't think I'm against it. You see the change in your father's life, don't think I'm against it. Don't you dare tell me I'm going to hell. Your father tells me I'm going to hell. How dare he? How dare he? When my husband walked out of our lives, I had three children, and I had no education, and there was a depression across this world. There was no work. I had to wash clothes and seats, and weep as I agonized for money to survive. And at times I couldn't, and I used to cry out to God, help me to stay alive. And Keith, people came to my door with food when I prayed. God answered my prayers. My boy, since you've been born, there hasn't been a day I haven't prayed for you. When you went astray, I was praying for you. When your father was all the problems, I was praying, weeping to God. But you tell me I'm going to hell now that you people have been saved, you say. Don't you dare, after the way you live, tell me I'm going to hell. Your father's gone too far. He tells preachers to come to my door here. It's a very exclusive home for the aged. They care for them in such a way that he put my granny in. He sends preachers who are going to preach, and I've got to go and sit on my back, and I've got to suffer. You tell him to stop sending these preachers. And he comes to me, and there's all these markings all over the Bible, and says to me, now look, you read these. I'm coming back, and I'm going to speak to you about them, so you read them. And then he comes the next day, he's got more things to mark, and I've got to read them. So I said, I can't read. My eyes are so sore. Look at my eyes, Keith, look at them. Pretend they were bloodshot. I can't read. So your father goes and gets this Bible. It's so big. It was such big print. He says, now you've got no excuse. He's marked them with highlighted people. All of this, I've got to read about hell and damnation and judgment. Everything's about me going to hell unless I do these things. You tell your father to stop now. I've had enough. I've had enough. But Daddy didn't stop. I went to him and said, Daddy, you know, you need to be careful now. You're going to close Granny's heart. I understand you're compassionate, and you care for her soul, and I respect you, Daddy, for that, but I think you're going too far now. You've got to just lay off a bit before you really make her hardened. My father looked at me in such shock that I was shocked by how he looked at me, and he sobbed. Oh, Keith, I stood and watched my father die, and I didn't have the gospel, and he died in sin, Keith and I. It haunts me, the way he died with such fear, with such torment of dying in his sin, and I didn't have it. Don't you tell me not to do everything I can to reach your Granny, that I don't see her die the same way I cannot face that, Keith. Don't you dare tell me to slow down, to lay off. She came to cry. How could she not with a son like that? She was so gloriously saved, it was beyond comprehension. Instead of dying, God gave her better health than she'd had for about 20 years. Why? Because Daddy said, I want to see her live at God before she dies, so I'm sure, and she died, leaving the world behind that knew she truly was born again. She had no doubt. Oh, suddenly, there were no pains in her back. She was in every meeting, dragging everybody, and did she devour this book, and in her own sweet way, witnessed to everybody of her son's salvation, her grandson's salvation, and her salvation for eternity. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, did your mother have such a son? Or is she in hell? Could you have warned her? Could you have warned her? But you didn't. For fear of offending, you let them go to hell. When my brother, three years older than I, turned to Jesus Christ, he didn't want to go to church, but he was dragged. Some of them, you've got to snatch from hell, from the flames, pulsing. With fear and trembling, you've got to take them and drag them to hell. My brother sat in this building, and he was determined to switch off to all this fanaticism. He went there just to pacify these people who just couldn't bear him not hearing this godly preacher. The godliest man I've ever met in my life, Wilmette Farnham, and they dragged him, begged him, and he went. But he didn't go to seek God. Amazing how you can be in meetings and you haven't got one iota of a thing in your heart to seek God, have you, young man? You're here for others, but not for God. My brother had nothing in his heart for God, but he was there, and he heard a man, for the first time in his life, from the pulpit speak about hell. Judgments, courting, passages upon passages upon passages. How few knew the Bible like Wilmette Farnham. This man wept. He so believed. He had never heard a man once in a pulpit in his life speak about hell. We used to change churches as we changed girlfriends in our unsafe state. We had never heard one preacher in our life, in any denomination, in any congregation we went, ever talk about repent, ever talk about hell, ever talk about judgment, or being born again. He'd never heard the word hell in his life in a pulpit, from a pulpit. The only time he'd ever heard that word was in blasphemous jokes. There was a man, he didn't only believe it, but he wept at the prospect of those he's preaching to, not knowing about it and not repenting from it. My brother trembled. He shook in shock and fear of someone quoting the scriptures that he'd never heard in his life, from a pulpit. And my brother led on the rocks to come because one man was saved. He fled, pushing his way through the people as they left that building. He put and fell to seek God because someone preached of judgment. You say it's love that reaches them. Of course it is, but show me how few ever came to that love unless they knew that that love had made a way for them to escape eternal damnation. Show me how few would flee to love and from sin if they didn't know there's judgment. It is love, sir, but don't you dare preach about God's grace and love if they don't know what sin is and judgment is, how few would truly turn from it. Would you? Would you turn from sin just because of love that had no judgment if you didn't come? Oh, beloved, do we have compassion and then show it? John Wesley said staggering words, words I've never recovered from. I'm so sensitive with Christ's sting. The world, the world is my parent. Think of those words now. If you say it, you find one soul in a hundred or 200 years that says it from his soul, not to impress anyone. The world is my parent. I don't have a burden or an ability to have a burden just for this little four walls and this congregation, this denomination, those who agree with me doctrinally that I have some form of responsibility. The world is my responsibility. And John Wesley shook this world to this day. Because he said that. So don't judge him as someone who was a bit unrealistic, sir. He shook the world. The King of England, John Wesley, lies in Westminster Abbey with the monarchy. Right from the year 18, 810, 90 something percent of every monarch lies there. The King said, John Wesley lies in Westminster Abbey with the kings and our queens. For no man ever did a greater service to England in our history than Wesley. And there he is, his remains out of respect, turning a notion to God. When he was about to follow France, that killed royalty, that slaughtered in there hundreds of thousands in those days, that was something. Everyone that had nobility or royalty in their blood. God saved England through that man, from a bloodbath. Because the world was his America shook through that influence of that man. And to this day, men are staggered and unable to be quiet when they read of his life and his statements and his compassion. And how God honors those who want to be used to the degree they want to be used or dare to want God to use them. He still shakes our heart. Oh, there are many men in this world. I have met many godly men and women who have the world in their heart. I believe that. I've sat with some that it is beyond all human comprehension to what degree they want, believe, trust, and endeavor to win every soul on this earth, even if it's impossible, they try. And I love them for it. And I've sat with some of the greatest preachers on this earth and the greatest soul winners have walked up to me that I couldn't believe who God sent right up to me, whose books I read. Suddenly they walk up to me, I want to pray with you young man. I just think I wasn't even able to pray also. And who, oh, I thank God for such a man. Who God honored. In our mission in South Africa, I never had the privilege of meeting the most fruitful preacher, the most used man of God in the history of our mission, which is one of the two oldest missions in Africa. And many, many, many, many hundreds and hundreds of godly have served God in that land and in that continent in our mission. Many died in their forties, some in their thirties, burnt out for Christ through diseases in the Congo and throughout Africa. But thank God for them. But the most fruitful of all of them was Ethelbert Smith, no doubt of that. I never met him. The day I was saved, he died. But I heard of him and I trembled and I was affected for good. By all I heard of that man from the smallest detail of his reactions and his sense of responsibility to the souls and the way he preached affected and influenced me. And when I listened to his tapes, my heart trembled and longed to be like this man. I never had the privilege of meeting him, but his family took me under the wing and loved me and prayed me through to this day. And when I was just saved, his daughter, Heta, when she was very young, when I was very young, she shared with me about her father, though, as I asked questions and they said, I was so interested because everywhere, everywhere, they would talk. It was like a silence. Firstly, we talked about Ethelbert Smith in homes and congregations. And then when they talked, oh, and so I sat with his family now trying to just get everything I could about his life. And she told me he had a sense of humor. I don't think sense of humor is sin. Continual joking is ridiculous. If you want to break fellowship with God, there's nothing that will do it as fast and swiftly and completely as just joking all the time. But a sense of humor is different when something really is just humanly, naturally funny that happens. We laugh because we have been made in the image of God. It's not sin to laugh. She's a funny. Well, he had a sense of humor. It seems this godly man. And his daughter, Heta, said how he took her to school in this car. Now, the A.B. has this tendency, especially in our old days, to take old vehicles and oh, they were old, but they would paint all over the car scriptures of hell and damnation. Oh, white paint, careful. They didn't want to anywhere not to be preaching. He said, well, you know, you pass people on the road, flee from the wrath to come. It's the points done. The man wants to die after this judgment. Where will you spend eternity? Oh, all over this big. It was a van, by the way. It was the best he could do. He was never had the privilege of being a small little decent car, but there was all these on this black thing that he would use to cart all the pilgrims around all the young workers. So she said he would take her to school every morning and she would get out in front of all these children who would always stop in dead silence. Great crowds just shocked as she got out looking at this car and she would look at the crowds and she walked and they just looked at her in silence. She said she dreaded her father. Well, she said, Daddy, why don't you drop me off just a little bit before the school gate. I want to walk just a little walk. It's not necessary. And so cars always a little bit before. Okay. So she got out of the car and she walked with human dignity. With her head up high, not crawling in shame and shame with smiles. She was going to the gates and as she walked past and going up the steps. She knows that. Hooter. Bob! You don't say Hooter. What do you say? Horn. Bob! Okay. So eventually, all right. And there he was. Bye-bye, Hector! Everybody looking now, never before. I have to do with such people. I suppose I thought to myself, well, that was cruel. And she said, no, it was daddy. He had a sense of humor. He thought that would be really funny. Because he knew why I asked to get out of the car. One of my great joys in your country has to be the fellowship with Otto Kuhnig, the pineapple story. I made the terrible mistake of saying the pineapple man. When he was sitting in my meeting once and he just looked at me, it wasn't really the right title. But Otto Kuhnig has become a dear friend of mine and the honor God gave me of knowing this dear man. What a blessing he's been. Oh my, have we had times together, that man and I. Don't want to go into those times. The moments we've had, they've been genuinely exciting. Oh, I wish I could share with you things, the braveness of that man and the things we did. Anyway, I have been so grateful how he comes even last year, traveling hours to get to where I preach. And then they say to me, do you mind if Mr. Kuhnig, who's here in your meetings, if we ask him to preach also? Well, how could they not? Such a godly man. I've just been delighted. Oh, please don't deprive the people of such an amazing blessing. Otto Kuhnig. In Africa, the young people just want to hear Otto Kuhnig. His tapes have taken off. You can't believe. Jenny says it's amazing. They're these teenage boys from four to be all lying on their backs in the lounge in the dark, listening to two o'clock in the morning, screaming with laughter, roars. No one can sleep. She says, you've got to sleep. No, no. Where do you hear young people? Two o'clock in the morning said, no, please don't tell us. Give them Otto Kuhnig's tapes. Trust me. You'll have to try and put them to bed, but they don't want to. And very few preachers can do that. Hallelujah for such a man. Well, he travels in a hearse, a black hearse that's got a coffin in it. And there he is with his white mop up hair, you know, like the real thing. And on the hearse, it's just big shine, not just painted. And she's painting like I said, you know, where will you spend eternity? And all sorts of other things. Now he goes along. He comes along to the meetings last year or the year before. Anyway, and there he's in his hearse. And I said, Kuhnig, what do people do? I mean, what do people do as you're driving down the streets all through America with this? He says, you want to see these big trucks, you know, they're all there, these guys with their muscles in the truck. And as they're passing, you think of something, like you can't believe the noise. The horn. OK. And they put their fists out the window and scream obscene, offensive language, cursing and horrible, evil signs with their fingers. And he says, others come past with their little hooters, you know, hallelujah, brother. And I said, you don't mind when people shout obscenities and give horrible, obscene signs, gestures with their fingers? No, he says. Then we know who's unsaved. And as they're giving those signs and screaming, you're going to hell. Oh, God save his soul. We know to pray for everyone that passes us. You can be sure. Well, not everybody's like Otto Kuhnig. But hallelujah for such a man. Well, in our country, when we were first saved, there was a man who preached the truth, but he became so frustrated because so few came to Christ in this rather strange area. I won't go into the details, but so few had really responded that he became desperate. And one day they walked into church and there was a coffin in the front of the church under the pulpit, flowers, all these floral things, little cards, and he'd fall over. It was something. And the lid was off the case. There was deadly silence. As everybody looked, deadly silence. He walked up in gravity to that pulpit and he said, I suppose you're all sitting there saying, who could this be? What has happened? I'm going to let every single one of you fire past this coffin before I preach this morning. In the face you see in that coffin, I guarantee you will face eternity in hell and damnation. Never repented. Though they heard the gospel. I come. Front row, come. And they came. Stunned silence, nobody hardly breathing. He looks in. Oh, he put a mirror in there. Do you know that within weeks that congregation had turned to Christ? Because a man resorted to something utterly offensive, shocking, but desperate enough to do it. Anything to get the message home. And you want to judge him? How many souls did you bring to Christ, did you judge him for resorting to that unethical approach? I read in the newspaper of a preacher who was caught by the police. That's a terrible thing. In his car. My word. Terrible to have these signs on the back of a car, you know, about being born again and you break the speed limit. You defy the law. God says you've got to obey, be in subjection to. But this man saw police trapping cars coming, you know, he passes them there, they're pulling the cars up the road who broke the speed limit, who went over the speed limit. So now he's driving the opposite direction and he knows what they're going to do. So he flicks his lights, all these lights on and off a couple of times. Of course, they know something's there. The only thing a man would do that for is the police are catching him. So the car's all slowing down. Nonetheless, police the other side saw all these lights flickering and realized what he's doing and stopped him. What are you doing? I'm warning people. Are you mad? The people was very offended. Well, I'm a preacher. Well, then you are the last person in the world to do such a thing, to hinder the law. Well, he wouldn't pay the fine, so he had to go to court. And the judge said, what sort of a preacher are you? He said, I, as a preacher, warn people if they're going to face any judgment. So I was doing my job. I was warning them the judgment they're about to face to stop doing wrong and not face judgment. You know, the preacher was the judge was so impressed, he said, you can go. He had never heard anything like that in his life, it seems, in a newspaper. Well, I thought to myself, well, the poor man can't be saved. But the point is that I began to think at least he had some sense of compassion and responsibility as an unsaved preacher for people who were going to face any form of judgment for what they were doing wrong. Tell me, have you any sense of responsibility? I want you to answer God tonight. You say you're saved. You say you're a preacher. Do you warn anyone of judgment? Have you any sense of responsibility at all of men about to face eternal judgment of God? And you know they're about to face it. But you don't warn them. What are you there for, sir? A house, a salary, a good car? What on earth are you doing in the pulpit of God with the Bible in your hand that you won't preach? God have mercy on your soul, preachers. You dare to stand there with a book that you don't believe in. And don't you tell me you haven't seen it in this book. God have mercy on your soul. And I might be the only preacher on earth that would dare to say it, and I don't know the consequences, but I'll face it if someone has to say it in this generation of a social gospel. I didn't put my alarm on. Oh my. Let me end with this, though. In the denomination and the congregation that I found Christ, I suddenly found myself soon preaching. And I was told that the man who had been the preacher in the pulpit of the church I was saved was in this other city where I was now a young preacher. And I went to find him. I went to this big, beautiful, gothic building in the center of the city that held enormous crowds of that city that had a consciousness of God and attended the church because of it. And he sat there in his study quietly as I introduced myself and told him I'm from his former church and that I had found Christ and that over 300 had come to Christ in the movement of God within this preacher that is there now to preach truth. And God had so honored and I am born again. I was saved from hell. The man looked at me in a very strange way in silence and it confused me. He didn't say amen. Hallelujah. He looked at this young man, a training preacher that was doing his practical after the years and years and years of theology, much of which is against this book. But anyway, they just sat there looking at each other. You know, I really haven't got the time for this. I said, sir, have I offended you? I don't believe all this rubbish you're speaking. Rubbish. Don't come here and tell me this rubbish. I don't preach that. I don't believe that. Rubbish. You don't believe Jesus said, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. You don't believe it's true. He must be born again. That Jesus said, and you don't believe in this rubbish called born again. That Jesus told us no one will ever see the kingdom of heaven unless he's born again. You don't believe it. You don't believe there's judgment and hell and damnation. And I quoted scriptures and my zeal and limited knowledge as a young preacher, but quoted and I was trembling. You don't believe in hell. That God says all men are going unless they're born again. You don't believe it. What do you preach? He stood up and shouted and ran around that table in such anger and began to come at me physically. How dare you? You young, and he said some horrible word. Who gives you the right? What right do you think you have? Who gave you the right to come and speak to me like this? To ask me that question, such questions. And I stood trembling and I started weeping and the Bible was in my hand and in my heart. God gave me the right to ask you, what do you preach? If you don't believe this book, what do you preach then? God gave me the right and I wept a laugh. Their blood is on your hands because you don't believe this book that you pretend you're preaching faithfully from. He pushed me out of that door screaming. I did fall the way he pushed me. A few years later, I was in a town preaching and a man says to me, would you come to my home and have lunch with my family tomorrow, sir? It was the minister of a certain denomination of that town and he spoke about the Lord. I said, when did you come to know Christ? He says, through you. Do you remember that day when that man pushed you and screamed and you shouted and you wept? I'd never heard in my life a man defend truth, not once in my life until that day. That I knew was in this book, but I never knew anybody could take it seriously. And I was training in a university to be a preacher. I lay drunk outside of the buildings of the theological faculties throwing bottles against the wall and I wasn't excommunicated. They let me get into it. And I was doing practical unsaved. And I sat there that day when you did that. I trembled. I couldn't sleep. I wept in the nights. I feared for my soul. And I came to Jesus Christ through what you said, the verses you quoted. I gave my life to Christ and God's Holy Spirit bore witness with my spirit that I was saved from hell. And I have brought numbers of the preachers of this denomination to Christ telling them what you did. What you said. And I wanted you to come to this house today to tell you it wasn't for nothing you went through that. You didn't go through that for nothing. You're standing for truth, no matter what the consequences, even to be thrown out physically in such a way as you were willing to. Brought me to Christ and other ministers and most of my congregation have found Christ because of you, sir. I wept again when I realized God was just saying to me, let me encourage you, Keith, just for a moment, that all the offenses that have been taken of this man. I cannot tell you how many preachers have walked up to me, weeping and said, I was a blind leader of the blind, sir. But since I heard your sermons, I now see. I'm saved. Sitting, listening to you preach, young man, after 40 years in the booth, going to hell, a blind leader of the blind, before you made an appeal, I gave my life to Christ. Because I never heard a man in my life preach truth until tonight. I cannot tell you how many preachers have come to Christ because although so many were offended and fought me as if it was the worst enemy they'd ever found to fight in life with such venom. In spite of that, so many preachers came to Jesus Christ that I worship God to the glimpses and those that I know of, let alone those God's going to show me in heaven. Is your soul the only soul you've ever cared about? Show me the rest that you care about, since you were saved. No, sorry, show God right now. In the last week of every soul you could have, should have. Just tell God about me, please. I make appeals that probably no preacher on earth dares make. To those of you that have sinned, grievous, terrifying sin in the light of this book, concerning souls and the responsibility you have towards souls in this book. You have neglected souls as if they're as good as dirt. That's all they were. They might as well have been. You didn't lose a blink of sleep. And you could have. God gave you moments, God, you didn't even ever try. You didn't even try. You didn't even say a prayer to those of you that need God's forgiveness and cleansing in the blood for failing to warn the sinner of the error of his way and the consequences. Because you didn't care. No, you cared about your soul enough to be saved. You need God's forgiveness, and you need to say tonight, God, take my life. Here am I, God. Come this night, send me. And no matter what the consequences, God, of course, by thy grace, I'm going to be faithful where I can, beginning with my family. Even if they never see me till the day I die, I'm going to warn them. Those of you who've neglected souls, that desperately need God's forgiveness and cleansing, and who need to say these words to God from your soul tonight, and know he wants and requires of you, I want you who need to desperately to lose your pride for God's sake, and what's left of life give to him for God's sake, and the souls who come near you there. I want those of you that desperately need to ask God's forgiveness and to give everything over to God from this night forth till you die by his grace to witness. I want you who need to say these things to God desperately to stand right now, please. Everyone standing, come stand in the front, please. The rest will just pray for you and not judge you. They can only thank God for you. Come stand. We have no place to kneel, so don't kneel. It doesn't matter. Just bow your heart. Everyone in the front here, bow your heads. Pray aloud with me, please. Oh, my God, forgive me for the grief I have been in not caring for souls that thou didst die for, though I knew the truth and their eternal plight. I have no doubt of it, but walked past them, without one groan, one eye out of compassion for fear of offending. Forgive me. Wash me in the blood of Christ from such grievous sin and failure and neglect of the things that matter. In the light of this book, in the light of eternity, have mercy on me. I lay my life on the altar of God tonight. Thou who does seek and cry, whom shall I send? Who will go for us? Here am I. Send me. Take my life. Let it be. Consecrate, Lord, to thee. Take my lips. Take my heart. Take my intellect. Take my moments, my days. I lay everything on the altar of God. Fill me with the Holy Spirit, that I may be a witness for thee, that my life will be a witness to give me the right to witness with my mouth. To my family, to my enemies, to every soul I approach in this life, help me to study from this night to show myself approved, a workman that can handle the word of God, a writer that needeth not be ashamed, that knows how to answer every man that requires of me an explanation of why I live the way I live, and witness and warn of men to flee from the wrath to come. Give me wisdom not to speak where it will justify, but to bide God's time, but give me the grace not to keep quiet when it is God's time, when it's the moments God gives me and expects me to care enough to speak. Don't let me fail thee, Lord, but don't let me go ahead of thee and just close hearts for no reason. And I know that if I bow before thee and soak myself in the Bible and meditate this holy book and speak my heart unto thee, crying for anointing daily, guidance and wisdom and leading, I know thou would lead me and keep me quiet, but thou would also lead me to when to speak, to know what to say, that no man will argue, even if he's been to a university for seven years, that he will have no argument, that his conscience will not cripple him if he dares to. So equip me, as I study, to be able to give an answer to every man from this book. Give me the grace never to neglect thee, morning and night, for then I so walk with God. And every step I take, wherever it's possible, I know God will speak to hearts, mostly before I open my mouth. Use me as a channel, as an instrument of revival. Take these lips and speak through them. Take these eyes and look through them. Take this life and use it from this nightfall to stagger the powers of hell and to bring many to righteousness. In Jesus Christ's name, for his sake, he who died and tasted death, for every man, the love of Christ constraineth me from this nightfall till the moments I'm dying. Help me to lead doctors and nurses and other patients lying beside me to Jesus. For Christ's sake, in his holy name, amen.