In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of commitment to the will of God. He shares a personal experience of being tempted by the devil to give a short speech and end the conference early, but he resists and continues to preach about commitment. The preacher challenges the audience to reflect on whether they have taken any action based on what they have heard during the conference. He encourages them to trust in God and surrender to His will, regardless of their age or circumstances.

I find a dangerous, dangerous, fatal almost, misunderstanding on this very point. From start to finish, the Word of God combines creed with deed, and if cursed be he that handleth the Word of God deceitfully, one way to do that is to hear and do nothing about it. Sin will keep you from the Book, and the Book will keep you from sin. I know we've said that through the years, but it's not the Word that's hidden your head, but the Word that's hidden your heart that keeps you from sin. You can backslide teaching a Sunday school class with a Bible in front of you. And the Word of God's not a lollipop to roll under your tongue. The Word did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. There must be a volition or response, as the old song has it, and faith taking hold of the Word. I like that. Well, you say, who do you think we are here? Now we have faith. What kind of faith do you have? Is it obedient faith? By faith, Abraham did what? Obeyed. That's the way he proved it. A Christian who trusts God's promises and obeys God's commandment, that's it. People talk about a break in the meeting. Already. Well, I think they meant a night when they had a lot of emotion, and a lot of folks joined the church, and things got exciting. That isn't necessarily the break in the meeting. The break in the meeting is when you consent to obey what you've heard. You may walk down very quietly to the front and do that. You may shout, and we could stand a little of that today. But obedience is the test of your love for Jesus. You say, but I don't know what's the matter with me. I think I love Jesus, and he's not real to me. What is the matter with me? That somehow it's too much like a fairy story. I wish it were true. Well, he told you how to make it true. It's just as old as the book. John 14, 21. He that hath my commandments, now you've got it. You've got a Bible at home, or with you. And keepeth them. That's obedience. He it is that loveth me. Not everybody that sings, oh, how I love Jesus. And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him. One of the translations has it, I'll make myself real to him. To whom? To the people who have his commandments and who keep them. That's the pathway of obedience. Every duty we omit obscures some truth we might have known. It's not just by reading devotional books. You think you'll find that answer on the next page, maybe. And so you go through a whole stack of devotional books, and you never find it. But you've got the Word of God. When you start doing it, things will begin to break. I used to ride on the B&O and the C&O, and I loved the trains, and I still love them more than I do flying. But you can't get anywhere now on a train much. And oh, I found one that beats the C&O, and that's the T&O, trust and obey. That'll get you somewhere every time. And I have people here tonight that are unhappy Christians. You think you love the Lord, and you're bothered about it. What's the matter with me? Have you flipped the coin and seen the other side? He that hath my commandments, Lord, I've got them, keepeth them. I make myself real to that kind of folks. And as long as you tolerate some known sin or something you're not sure about in your heart, you can't get through to his blessing. But to get people in this day and time to humbly walk down an aisle or in any way say, I have disobeyed God because I've heard it, I've heard enough to convert the whole country. But God help me, I'm not doing it. And I've gone to Bible conferences, and you'd think it said, Thy word have I hidden in my notebook, that I might not sin against thee. And I can tell you everything they preached about since the thing started. But to get one foot in front of the other and get out there, feel like it or not, and do the will of God. I, that's the rub. That's where the shoe pinches. And I grew up and down in this country, and I tried to call on people to do something about it. I was an evangelistic, a statewide evangelistic conference in California a couple of years ago. Preachers, preachers, preachers. And we'd been talking about commitment all day and hadn't done any committing yet. And I got on at 9 o'clock that night in the devil said, now why don't you make a nice little speech, everybody's tired, you want to go home, go to bed. Don't stay here any longer, make a nice little talk. And I said to my heart, now the devil's a liar, and I'm going to prove it here tonight. Because we'd been talking it all week, and I couldn't help it. I said, now we've told commitment all week, when are we going to commit? And I talked about the Lordship of Christ, and we ran another hour, but God turned the tide. And I find it difficult for me to walk out every night in these meetings, and people do nothing about it. And I want to ask you tonight, have you done anything about what you've heard up to now in this week's conference? Or have you got only to the place where if we took a vote tonight, and I've preached my heart out many a time, and at the end of it, if we'd taken the vote, I think they would all have voted, I move we accept this as information and be dismissed. Now, that's not what we're after tonight. That's not the purpose of it. I wonder how many people here tonight, we're going to sing that old one we've sung all these years about, Trust in the Bay 146, look at it. It's in your book. But we're going to sing it this way. Instead of singing, when we walk with the Lord in the light of his word, what a glory he sheds on our way, while we do his goodwill, he abides with us still, and so on. Let's make it first person singular instead of third person plural. We get lost in the crowd. Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the sky, but his smile quickly drives it away. And then that third verse, but I never can prove the delights of his love until all on the altar I lay. Have you ever done that? For the favor he shows and the joy he bestows are for them who trust and obey. And that last one will really put you on the spot. Then in fellowship sweet, I'll sit at his feet, or I'll walk by his side what he says I will do. Where he sends, I will go. Never fear, only trust and obey. I sometimes think more falsehoods are told behind hymn books than almost any other way. It's so easy to get taken up with what you're saying. Oh, sure, yes, I know all of this. And you feel like stopping in the midst of all of it and saying, Hey, have you done it? I can't make you do it. I learned a long time ago, I hope, that no preacher can make anybody do what they ought to do for God. Only the Spirit of God, working through the preacher maybe, can do that. But you've listened so marvelously well. You have not failed in your hearing tonight. The failure will be in your doing. And Bill's going to lead us in this in a moment as we stand, but I'd rather you wouldn't get so absorbed in singing it that it becomes a sort of a substitute for doing it. Very often in my meetings these days, I've quit using songs altogether. Do we have to sing them down the aisle? It can keep them from doing the very thing you're trying to get them to do. But I think you've had enough experience in meetings that tonight I can honestly ask you, how many of you would be humble enough and honest enough to lay up your book, if God speaks to you to that end, and just walk down here and find yourself a standing place somewhere here at the front and say to that, Brother Havener, the Spirit of God convicts me tonight of disobedience at some point in my life. I've heard it. I know enough about it. To do a sight more than I'm doing, but I'm not doing much. I know I'm not saved just by doing, but hearing and doing the will and the Word of God, that's another thing. And I'm walking down here to say I'm sorry, to tell God I'm sorry, not you, but to tell God that I'm sorry and to promise him by the grace of God, whatever it is that's been disobedient, I'll forsake it and put it away and give myself to the doing of the will of God. You're saying that a lot of us are older folks. So am I, but it never was more important for me to make the most of what time's left than it is now, because there isn't much left. But you, young person, and there are those tonight who have ever honestly, squarely faced it, what he says, I'll do. His sins will go. But you've got your fingers crossed. Lord, I'd go yonder, but I wouldn't go yonder. Well, you're not going anywhere as long as you talk like that. And when you throw away all the ifs and buts and reservations and come down and say, Come what may, I surrender to the will of God, young or old, in my life. What little I've got, I'm going to make sure I put it all in his hands tonight.