In this sermon, the preacher discusses the importance of preparing hearts for the presence of God. He references 1 Corinthians 14:24-25, where it is stated that unbelievers and the unlearned can be convinced and worship God when they come into the midst of believers. The preacher emphasizes the need for God to manifest Himself in our services and for believers to be aware of His presence. He also shares a story of a boy who effectively used God's holy law to convict people and lead them to seek salvation. The sermon concludes with the challenge for the church to not settle for less than the best and to strive for a congregation that is unsatisfied with the status quo.

Now tonight I want to speak on a principle that runs all through the Bible, the companion message to the little message we brought last evening. Last evening we talked about the fact that no one, whether he be saved or unsaved, can receive God's truth unless your heart has been prepared, so do. You can't sow seed on stones and make a crop. And since we are begotten of the will of God by the word of truth, and since we are not born from above apart from the reception of God's truth, and since the truth must find lodging and it must take root before the new birth happens, every sinner is enjoined to prepare his own heart for the reception of truth. I call to your attention afresh that even if you are a child of God, you can't rush into the presence of God. I know this easy familiarity we have today, everybody's awfully buddy-buddy with the Lord. Your grandpa, when he was called on to lead in prayer, it would take him about 30 minutes to address the deity properly. A couple of you folks, you're all so young, I can't talk to you, but way back when, I remember those old gray-bearded Baptists, you'd call on to pray, it would take them 15, 20 minutes to address God properly. They thought he was a high and lifted up one. They weren't as buddy-buddy as we are now. But you can't receive any spiritual truth apart from heart preparation. Now, every truth in the Bible is non-receivable except as this principle. There isn't a truth in the Bible that isn't against what we were born in, what our nature is. And every demand of God and every demand of his Son, the Lord Jesus, will kill you in the flesh. And if a man wishes to receive anything from God, he just better take seriously what James says, be swift to hear and not so swift to book, and prepare your heart so that you may receive the rooted, the engrafted word, which that word, if it takes root, is able to save the soul. Now, tonight, let us follow up the thinking by stating the fact that God Almighty reserves his best only for people who want his best. Of course, he makes them want it, but they have to want it. It's the principle of the word of God, of the dealings of God in the Old Testament and in the New. For it's the same God and the same dealings that God Almighty will say, for instance, in Jeremiah 4, verse 3, break up your fallow ground. Break up, I'm fixed to do something now, so get your plow out and break up your own heart. Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. And then, then, join to circumcise yourself to the four skins of their hearts. Now, are you prepared to accept the truth? I know you are, I trust you are, and yet, that we're forbidden? In the book of Matthew and the Sermon on the Mount, in New Testament language, he'll say in different words what the prophet used of God to say for God in Jeremiah, sow not among thorns, break up your fallow ground. In the New Testament, my Lord will say in Matthew 7 and 6, Matthew 7 and 6, give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before Sly. If you don't pay attention to what I'm saying here, the principle the Lord says, you go ahead and offer holy things unto dogs, and just indiscriminately cast out the pearls before a bunch of hogs. And you'll wind up being trampled under them, lest they trample them under their feet. They'll just turn aside from the holy things, don't want that. They'll just trample those precious pearls under their feet, and that ain't all they'll do. They'll turn again and rend you, they'll tear you apart. Holy things, precious things, pearls of great price, are reserved only for prepared hearts. If salvation were an offer, it'd be different. But salvation is a gift. It is true that Christ, in the language of some of the confessions, is freely offered to all men. But in the language of the Bible, salvation is the gift of God. And Christ is that gift. And it is the principle of the word of God, God never veers from it, that he does not offer a gift to somebody who isn't prepared to accept it. You don't turn down a gift. You can turn down an offer, but you can't turn down a gift. A gift, you can receive it, but you can't reject a gift. Now, it's true that men reject everything they know about Christ and despise it and all that, but salvation, in John chapter 4, the Lord plainly told the woman at the well, salvation is a gift of God. My Lord bought the right to give eternal life to as many as the Father hath given him. Isn't that what it says? And he has a right to deal with all men, because in that sense he has bought all men, and he owns all men because of creation and purchase price. He bought the right to deal with all mankind. And the gospel is a covenant arranged in the Godhead whereby the Lord would give eternal life, not offer, but give eternal life to some people, and dispose of the rest as seemeth good in his sight. God doesn't give his gift to people who will despise it. He doesn't say, now here's a beautiful thing and wants you to make up your mind whether you'll take it or reject it. No, salvation is Christ's precious gift. And he has the right and he exercises the right to give his gift to people who would not trample it. They'd be glad to receive it. This is a principle upon which God works. Now whether we can swallow the knock, we are butchers of souls if we ignore the plain teaching of the Old Testament that hearts must be plowed, that the ground must be fallowed, that it is downright disobedience to the principle upon which God works to attempt to sow amongst thorns and expect to harvest. It is true in the New Testament and in the Old that the spiritual laws of harvest are exactly like a farmer in the state of Pennsylvania. The farmer goes out and plows deeply. Isn't that right, first? And then he cultivates and then at a certain time he sows the seed. And then the rains and the sun come and after a while he goes and looks for a harvest. But he doesn't look for a harvest before the plowing has been done. And he doesn't sow the seed before the plowing has been done. And neither does God. This is a law that cannot be ignored unless you wish to become a butcher of your own soul and a butcher of every soul you touch. For it is eternally true that they only get God's best who sincerely want it and long for it and who are capable of appreciating it. Now let me repeat my premise. If God were going around offering, leaving it up to man as to whether he'd accept it or reject it, salvation might be one thing, but that isn't what God does. Salvation is a gift. As thou hast given him authority over all flesh, my Lord said, given me authority that I should do what? That I should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given me. And this is eternal life, that they might know thee the only true God and his son Jesus Christ. Salvation is the blessed boon from heaven and it comes as a gift. The gift of God. The gift of God. Now God doesn't simply give his blessings out indiscriminately. He gives them out only to those who are prepared to receive them. Now if you want to get into theology, if you want to, I don't care to, and of course, if you ever receive this precious gift from God and you start tracing back how it happened, you'll be like the saint at Spurgeon. Everything will go right back to God. And you won't know it beforehand, but afterward you'll find out that the reason you sought the Lord is because he first sought you. But you won't know that beforehand. Will you? And you'll find out that the reason you love the Lord is because he first loved you. But you may not know that beforehand. Don't try to be a theologian. Just try to get the crash. And then after you get the crash, you can trace it back and you'll find that every blessing flows from God. Is that alright? But it is true that holy things are for the holy. But deep things of spiritual experience are not for all men. Follow me now. The mistress of the soul's converse with God are not to be lightly divulged in common talk. I won't repeat that statement. I've written it down. The mistress of the soul's converse with God are not to be lightly divulged in common talk. Such language as the maiden in the Song of Solomon lying on her bed are not for public conversation. Beloved, my beloved is mine. And I'm his. The apostle Paul had an experience where he was caught up in the third heavens, whatever that means, and he saw things and heard things that he said he couldn't talk about. And he didn't even mention the fact that he'd had that experience and he never has until this good day told us what it was. But he wouldn't even tell us that he'd had such an experience for fourteen long years. You see, the deep things that go on between a child and his parents or the husband and the wife are not for the marketplace. They're for the inner circle of the home. And so be it with the deep things that go on between a person and Almighty God. Oh, the easy familiarity. Well, I assume the proportion of blasphemy of us today and our buddy-buddy stuff we call salvation. We're on such good terms with the King of Glory until we've lost all sense of the wonder of being invited to come into his courts and to sit at his feet and to bask in his presence. In the Old Testament, the last book, it said of some people, they that feared the Lord spoke often one to another. But they didn't get out on the street corner and broadcast it. They that feared the Lord spoke often one to another. In the book of Remembrance, you remember. Now, here's what I'm getting at. When we try to stuff precious jewels down the throats of the unprepared, all that they'll do is angrily turn against you and rend you. Let me illustrate. You get ahold of a precious truth in the Bible. You've read the Bible for 20 years and you've never seen it and been like a flesh for all truths is learned like that. It's a revelation. It's an illumination, you see. See what I mean? It comes like that. You've read a text a thousand times, never been a single. And then you read it. There it was. And you wonder, it's been there all time. Why hadn't you been able to enter into it? You hadn't been prepared for it. Your heart wasn't prepared for it. It just bounced off. It just went in one ear and out the other. I've had that experience and I know you have if you're a child of God. It just bounced off. But when God's providence hymned you in from a thousand different directions, you weren't aware of them and hymned you up to where that Word was God's Word for you at that time. And it's just like a flesh. You say, Oh my, isn't that wonderful? I never saw that before. And you're telling the truth you never had seen before. Why wasn't it? Because you don't know. You weren't prepared. You weren't prepared. You hadn't been hymned up into that place where that Scripture could be made flesh to you just in the same proportion as the Son of God was made flesh in the Incarnation. And if you try to stuff spiritual truths down the throats of unprepared people, you're doing them harm, beloved. If you're not willing to be as patient as the farmer is in trying to raise crops, see what I mean? Even in talking to a brother Christian about truth, and revealed truth has to be revealed. You believe that? You don't learn revealed truth. You experience revealed truth. And all spiritual truth is spiritually discerned. And it comes by what? It comes by revelation of flesh and an illumination. That's the way it comes. Now, this is a good place for people who, at least in their heads, would like to be true, as I hope you do and I think you do, to those great doctrines of the Word of God that have fallen into such ill repute in these last years. Beloved, one of our greatest, greatest obstacles is that that which we receive by revelation, we get mad at somebody else that they won't receive it because we told them. And we do them harm. And we shut the door and we ignore a precious truth that blessed things from God are received only by people who prepare. Let me illustrate, if I can, what I'm talking about. That my privilege through the years to be with many, many different bests. And, as I've grown a little older, but I hope a little smarter, there are many truths that I'd like to talk over with the preacher, but I dare not open my mouth until I've been around him a while and see that he has an open heart. And I usually do not bring up any of the deep things of the work of the Spirit and things like that that I dearly love to talk about with a brother until I see that he's opened the door and that his heart's eager to receive some truth. He doesn't know a thing on God's earth. But if you jump in, try to cram that truth down, when he's not prepared for it, you'll make a lifelong enemy and you'll almost close the door, not all the time. You'll close it so tight it'll never be opened again. Now that same principle is true in trying to witness to a blind, blinded, devil-blinded. Well, that's what's the matter with men and women. It's not that they're any worse than we are. It's just they're still blind. We used to be blind, and they're terribly blind because they were blinded by the God of this age. And they're just blind in one respect. They're smart as whips in lots of respects. And they're just blind in one thing. They agree with us on all the truths in the Word of God. But the difference is they see no beauty in Christ. They believe in Jesus. It'd be hard to find anybody in Carlton that said he don't believe a thing. I don't think so. But they don't see the glory in him. They don't see any beauty in him. There's nothing about him that attracts them. Why? The sun's shining, but they've got no eyes to see. People are in a terrible shape. They're blind. They're blind on one thing. They don't see the glory of God in the glorious Gospel of God. They don't see any glory in it. And that's how Satan deceives people. He doesn't lead people into immorality. That's the work of the flesh. Satan has nothing to do with leading men into what we call immorality. That's just the product of the flesh. The old sinful nature. Satan puts all his eggs in one basket and he just concentrates on keeping men blind to one thing. So blind they can't see the glory of God in the face of Christ in the Word of God. He can just keep them that blind no matter about the other. You see what I mean? And here we are. Christ, if we've come to know Him, is glorious to us. And if you had similar experience to me in disrespect, and I expect you did, when you came to see Him for the first time and taste of Him, you couldn't understand how all those years you spent as if there weren't any Christ. Now with some impatience you think that in a sin you can cram the glory of Christ into an unprepared heart, but you can't. Are you willing to be as patient as God is? Have that heart plowed. Have it prepared. Only prepared hearts can work through the veil of mystery and come to save in faith. Let me illustrate one more way. Everybody I ever deal with has faith in Christ. I doubt if you could find a person in Carlisle, Pennsylvania that hasn't got faith in Christ. The Mohammedan believes in Christ. He does. He'll tell you he's as good, he's as great a prophet almost as Mohammed. The Orthodox Jew, I don't know or can't speak about the modernist Jews, but the Orthodox Jew will tell you he believes in Christ. I've had them tell me that numbers of times. He does. I've had them tell me that they believe he's as great a prophet as Moses. The modernists, it's a little hard to corner one of those fellas but we hear a lot about them. They believe very deeply. They have great faith in Christ. But there's a difference in that and saving faith. We ought not to be blinded here and misled that we're living in a heathen land. No! You live by God above. You live by the melody who believes in Christ. That's right. That's so. But only the prepared heart can receive. And Christ is never offered to any except those who are prepared to receive him. We can't wish Christ off on people as hard as we'd like to do. Now, if you rob him of his glory and rob him of the awful scandal of his cross, you'll have no difficulty getting people to accept that kind of a Jesus. But if you refuse to strip him of his absolute glory and sovereignty, sitting on the throne with the reins of every human being in his hands, controlling the destiny of everything that rises and wriggles, and if you will not present the cross as a nice little Sunday afternoon picnic sentimental thing, but as the awful scandalous agony, agonizing, bloody, butcherous, terrible thing that it really was, of course that's offensive. If you rob Christ of his absoluteness in his work on the cross and his ministry on the throne, people will receive him. Because an unprepared heart doesn't want to go to hell, if there is one. But only a prepared heart wants King Jesus to be the absolute ruler of his life. Hearts must be prepared. Give not holy things unto dogs. Don't cast your pearls before the swine. If you do, they'll just trample them under the feet, and then they'll turn and wrench. That's about the best picture in the New Testament, as far as this old preacher is able to see, of the average church now, present company, I hope they accept it. Boy, it's a pretty bad place. It's sort of dangerous to be a church member now in a lot of circles I run in. Especially if you have a business meeting. I'm telling you, you've got to have a sheriff and two deputies to keep order and keep folks from getting shot. Oh, the wrenching. What is it? People who've had Jesus wished off of them. People who've had holy things given them, they never did receive them. They're just going through the motions. And it doesn't take much of a firecracker to start a pretty big explosion in a situation like that. Well, sir, they'll wrench you. I don't know many pastors, and I know quite a few, that aren't looking for a place to move. Surely it won't be as much hell in that church just over the hill as there is in that one. You see, what we did some 640 years ago, we thought we were smarter than the Lord. We'd ignore the laws of the spiritual heart. We'd get people who didn't give a hoot about the glory of God. Looking out for number one. And we vitiated and perverted the gospel. And fixed it so God was of no use except somebody to turn the ice cream freezer for us. And got people in our churches and they've been trampling holy things under their feet ever since. And rending everybody that got in the way. Until now, the greatest task facing the churches of America is that they need to be evangelized themselves. And I know a few churches today that have got anything to say to an outside world. They are such a hotbed of rebellion against the holy claims of Christ inside. They can't press those holy claims on anybody outside. Our hearts have to be prepared. John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way to make a what? A people ready. Isn't that right? That is his job. The Lord sent, organized his disciples two by two and sent them ahead. In every village where Christ was to come, he sent the two disciples to prepare the way. And they were given instructions that if they were not received, shake the dust of the cities off of their feet. Jesus withdrew himself in such circumstances that records in the Bible says he did no mighty works there. We need to remember afresh that there is no gospel. There is no good news for the impenitent sinner or the uninterested, the take it or leave it, or the happy-go-lucky. The gospel is not for secure people, the old Lutheran theologians used to say. The gospel is for people that are uneasy, lost their moorings, or weary, or hungry, or thirsty, and so forth. The law is to be preached to secure people and the gospel to people who have lost their way. Now this principle, let me make three applications of it before I quit. God deals with the church after this principle. I would not wound anybody for I'm in the same shape, but a church that's willing to settle for less than the best will get less than the best. Is there any hope in our day for a congregation of people that will not be satisfied with things as they are? Mr. Spurgeon said, give me hungry people, give me broken people, we will not rest as long as the crown rights of King Jesus are ignored by the multitude. Have we come to the day when the only thing we as church people gather together in a local assembly, the only thing for us is to say we can't have anything better? God deals with churches after this principle. We do not have the best because our hearts will accept less. And he doesn't give his best to churches unless those churches are prepared to appreciate it and cherish it. I believe that with all my heart. It's still true that God gives bread to the hungry and He exhausts the lowly and brings humbles the high and mighty. It's still true. Let me just read one verse of Scripture. This would fit a church, wouldn't it? Or it wouldn't be the real interpretation. In Isaiah chapter 66, Shall I bring to birth and not cause to bring? Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? And then listen, I've never been able to handle this next phrase. I'll just read it to you. For as soon as Zion prevailed, as soon as she prevailed, she brought forth children. As soon as she prevailed, she brought forth children. What do we want as brothers and sisters in a local congregation? Do we want a deep moving of the Holy Spirit? One of the things that's been a cross that's weighed awfully heavy on this poor preacher is for nearly 38 years, this September will be 38 years I've been preaching. Most of those years trying to be preaching a gospel that can be believed but not understood. Shutting men up to abandonment of all hope in themselves and casting themselves utterly on God. The thing that hurts me so, I'd shut my eyes and think all over the country, the thing that hurts me so is the prayerlessness of our congregation. I do not know of a church, I hope this is the exception, that's a praying church to you. I mean a congregation of people. Oh, that Brother Jones, Sister Smith, Deacon Tutwiler, three or four members have some devotion, some agony in their home life. We'll call a prayer meeting and hope our folks will show up. Oh, is it hopeless with a spirit of grace and supplication that would come on a local congregation and you'd have a church praying for what we, what do you call yourselves Ronnie? I don't like any of the terms men use of us, but praying for people who dare to believe that only the Holy Spirit can open a man's blind eye. He uses means, but he's the only one who can do it. I can't. Trying to preach a gospel that won't get, you won't see a fiend bat his eyes, unless the Holy Spirit takes charge. That's what we're trying to preach. It cannot be understood by anybody. Salvation by grace too deep for the wisest man that ever lived to understand it. No wonder the unsaved man said, I wonder what on earth those people are talking about. He cannot receive the things of God. The natural mind cannot receive. And that's what the scriptures say. Do we believe it? He cannot. I don't care how hard he tries, he cannot. Their spiritual desire, and the cross that breaks my heart even tonight, is young preachers and old churches and Sunday school teachers coming together all over this country now, and their numbers are getting to beliege it now. And they think we can preach this message without being baptized in the tears of real intercessory prayer and see results. You can't preach what you call the Calvinistic approach of the gospel of Christ and get results unless it's bathed in prayer. That's it. How much longer are we going to think that truth in itself will get the job done? It will not. Mr. Spurgeon's putting as good a preach as I am. That poor little fellow was so weak that 300 of his choicest men never did get here and preach. They were underneath the pulpit, the pulpit down in the basement of the tabernacle in London on their knees praying together every time he preached. And we talk about, oh, just look at the soul rushing into the kingdom of Mr. Spurgeon. Now you listen to me. He couldn't beat me preaching much. There's not that much difference in men. There isn't. There's not that much difference in men. He had 300 men on their faces praying that the gospel would run well. They used terms like that. Praying for the progress of the gospel as it was being preached upstairs. I wish we could go and see his theologian so much and face the fact that Mr. Spurgeon didn't believe that what he preached would get the job done unless the Holy Spirit took charge. And although he couldn't explain it and neither can I and neither can you, prayer has something to do with the outpouring of the Spirit of God. If we wanted the best, I believe we'd get it, beloved, even as a congregation. I kind of believe we would. I don't know because I've never had any experience, but I'd sure love to be around where it's tried, brother Pastor. Some people that at least spend as much time as a congregation meeting together, praying together as you meet, to hear you expound the word to a bunch of people that have no hearts to receive it. Hearts must be prepared. Do we want the glory of God in our midst? Going over to Lancaster Wednesday night, we listened to a tape by the Englishman, Brother Packer, delivered over, I think, at Westminster Theological Center, and he called attention to the 14th chapter, 1 Corinthians, where the pattern is set that if an unbeliever or an unlearned one come into your midst, if the circumstances are right, he'll fall down on his face, he'll be stabbed in the ear, he'll be convinced of all and the very secrets of his heart, things that he himself is not even conscious of, will come out in the open. They'll be manifesting. He'll fall down and worship God, and he'll go away. And the first fellow he meets on the street, he'll say, you know something, God's up there. It made my heart hungry again as I thought of that chapter and of our services today. I've been in so many of them. I was there. Some people were there. I don't know whether God's there or not. He didn't make himself manifest if he was. Nobody had the secrets of his heart pulled out, made so he couldn't ignore them any longer. He was convinced. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. As long as we're content to have nice services, I expect we're going to have them. I can't speak with us hardly now because I don't know by experience much about what I'm talking about. But I do believe in my heart that a church must be prepared, and it must prepare its own heart, break up its own fallacy. Don't sow among thorns. Don't expect a crop if the seed falls on stony ground. Only ground prepared can receive the gospel. The evidence of the reception being bringing fruit unto perfection. I think God deals with an individual child of his on the same principle, Blessed are they that hunger and thirst read much of the Psalms where the highest peak of Old Testament sainthood is thou safe to manifest. I will I seek thee, my soul passeth for thee, for thee the living God. The longer I live, the more I know. By experience, I think a little bit that the seeking that started when God first arrested you way back yonder is to continue and it must get hotter and hotter all the while until you see the Lord. A Christian is a seeker. He's not somebody that's satisfied and settled down on his knees. He's a seeker. He's a comer. The book of Hebrews calls a child of God somebody who's always coming to the Lord. He's just forever and eternally coming to the Lord. It's like the Lord would get weary but like the little child stumps its toe. Mama! Or when they get a present. Mama! Or when they're hurt. Mama! Or when they're happy. Mama! Or when they're hungry. Mama! Or when they're thirsty. Mama! What do we want as God's people, as individuals? The fullness of the Spirit and insight into the Word of God. Power and prayer to be used as a witness. I think God deals with lost people this way. All the invitations of the Bible are limited to folks who are hungry, thirsty, weary. Not a one of them addressed to anybody who wouldn't be glad to hear it. Oh, everyone that's thirsty. Somebody says, I'm not thirsty. Well, I wasn't talking to you. I didn't come to call the righteous. I'm all right. Well, I wasn't talking to you. I came to call sinners to repentance. In the very midst of the temple where the hostility against Christ was the hardest, where in just a few more days, seven, I think it's six or seven more days, it leads this crucifixion. He turns in that hot bed of hostility and cuts his hands to his mouth and says, If any man thirsts, out of that cloud, if any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink. They said, well, we're not thirsty. Well, I wasn't talking to you. I said, if any man thirsts, if any man thirsts, if any man thirsts. The last invitation of the Bible is to thirsty people. Thirsty people. You see, we don't believe it, but God's Spirit don't go around offering water to people unless they're thirsty. God's Spirit knows that you can lead a mule to water, but unless he's thirsty, you can't make him drink to save your life. As that last invitation, read the Spirit and the bride say come, and let him that killeth say come. And whosoever thirsts, let him come, and whosoever will. Well, if a fellow's thirsty, he will, won't he? If a fellow's not thirsty, he won't, will he? No, sir. Down in Mississippi, I was on the radio, and I wasn't being made to get a crowd, and I thought I'd do a little something. I was desperate, and on the radio, I said I got $500 I borrowed and paid to the person who phones in or comes to me and tells me where in the Bible it says whosoever will may come to Christ. Well, I got lots of phone calls. Folks going to get that $500, and every one of them was from the 22nd chapter of the last book of the Bible, which begins in verse 17. And we had pretty good Bibles. I had the privilege of having them. When they'd come to me to get the $500, I'd say, well, let's read that. And I'd have them read it. And if you read it, you don't say that. Does it? Oh, you don't say it. Of course it's true. Whosoever will may come. God won't say no. But that don't mean a thing because nobody will. Nobody will. Except thirsty people. Thirsty people. Amen. And whosoever will, let him be the first. Come on. Are you thirsty? Would you like a drink of the water of life? But if you drink of it, you'd never thirst. Okay, come on. Are you tired of sinning and scared of dying? Come on. Are you hungry? You're tired of eating, scratching the hogs for the husk. Would you like to eat the bread of life? Come on. Come on. Somebody says, I'm not hungry. Well, I didn't say anything to you. I don't know anything the Lord's got by way of blessing. I don't know any gift the Lord has for somebody who wouldn't be glad to receive it. Years ago, I went down Wednesday night through Sunday night at the request of a friend who had a good deal of money. He said, if you fly down to Mississippi and give a little church out there those days. There's a young preacher. He's a student in the Baptist College in Mississippi and he's hungry and he needs help. And he said, I'll pay the bill and help you if you'll come. And so we set it up and I went down. Young preacher met me. He got off from school Wednesday, I mean Thursday and Friday. He'd come out and practice on them every weekend. And Wednesday night I preached and Thursday young preacher was a go-getter. He couldn't be on the field much and so he came and got me early and I wasn't sick then like I've been every time you've seen me except now I'm feeling good, praise the Lord. But we went out knocking on doorbells. Preach Thursday night. Friday we spent all day knocking on doorbells, talking to people. Saturday we spent all day resting around the community, talking to people. Saturday night after the service was over I'd already gone to bed and the knock came on the door while I was being in the room while I was being entertained and come in and the young pastor came in. He was torn all to pieces and he sat down and he said, Brother Bond, I don't know what to say. He said, you're older than I am. You're here as my guest but I'm just a young fellow but I'm going to ask you not to preach tomorrow. He said, I don't want you to preach for us anymore. He said, I just can't stand the way you're doing. And I said, well what on earth am I doing young man that's hurting you so? Well he said, Brother Bond, all of our visiting you've just talked about the gospel to one person. Well I said, I haven't found but one sinner and I haven't. You see, I'm forbidden to sow among thorns. I take that pretty serious. I'm forbidden to give holy things to dogs. The Lord said for me not to. I'm forbidden to cast pearls before swine. All they'll do is trample it. It's not that I'm so mean. It is that I do not want to ignore the plain teaching of the Word of God. I remember we went, boy we went, we went in lots of homes. Everybody was alright. Some of them was going to try to come to the meeting one night before it closed if it didn't rain. You know I'm doing that. And some of them they was aiming to come last night but just got ready, some folks came in or something you know. I just heard all the excuses. Everybody was just fine. And all I do in that home, this is sort of sneaky, but I'd ask if it was alright for us to have a prayer. They'd say it wasn't. I'd pray to them. That's alright. And I'd preach them a sermon on the holy demands of a thrice holy God. I wouldn't invite any of them to come to the meeting or anything else. I'd just leave. But we came to one place and after in a nice little way you know, you personal workers, you've been told how to be tactful, haven't you? And you know, talk about crops for 30 minutes and then the old milk cow for 10 and the riding horse for 15. That's why I maybe get a chance to put in a word for the Lord. We went through all the motions and directly the fact that we got to go said it would be alright if we had a word of prayer. Oh no. And so he led in prayer and then I peaked one eye and led a little bit. While I was praying I noticed a woman, just a boy. And I quit praying. I thought, the Lord forgive me. I said, what's the matter with you? And she said, I sure wish I could be saved. But she said, I can't. I said, why couldn't you be saved? She said, I'm such a big sinner that I sinned so long. There's no hope for me. Boy, that's the kind of folks I like to be around. And I just wound up and I told her about the aim to justify the ungodly. I was forbidden to tell those bunch of self-satisfied in-for-hell church people I'm not going to sow among thorns. I'd be sinning against them. I preached. And I explained that to the young preacher and he said, well I understand. I said, young man, if you'll let me tell you something. Instead of going into the home trying to get them to take Jesus, go in the homes and do what the Scriptures say. Break up some farrow ground. Get your big old middle bust and go to pine. What do you use? Get the holy demands of a holy God. No man will ever receive Christ as Lord and Savior until he's stripped and slain and conquered by the claims of God's holy law. And we are butchers of souls if we ignore that fundamental truth that God gives His best and that's Christ to prepared hearts. You know what that boy did? He took me literally and his vision from then on out was scriptural. Where he found nice little secure people, he just shot them with God's holy law. If God's holy law won't route you out of feeling how good you are, you just have to go on to hell. That's his only weapon. And in six weeks after the meeting, he'd had 37 grown people in that little old country community come to him asking if there's any hope that they might be saved. I'm telling you, God gives His best and that's Christ. For Christ is everything to people whose hearts have been prepared so that it's so wonderful. The Lord tells us, and I must close now, I've talked too long, I understand that, but He says, now before you go out and talk to people, spend about a half a minute and say, Lord, you go ahead of me. Didn't they used to into something like that in the Bible? You go ahead of me. And He said, don't get your little tract that's got the same pill for everybody. Take no thought of what you shall say. You'll never find two individuals in the same shape. Depend on the Holy Ghost. Of course, He won't use you if you're not full of the Word, but depend on the Holy Ghost to lead you to that portion of truth that will be neat and do season to that place. If He needs His heart clouded by the Holy Spirit and His claims and blood, He'll do that for you.