In this sermon, the preacher shares personal anecdotes and emphasizes the importance of having Jesus in one's life. He warns against the negative consequences of worldly pleasures, such as broken homes, jail cells, and mental institutions, which are not shown in beer commercials. The preacher also highlights the significance of having standards based on God's Word rather than comparing oneself to others. He concludes by expressing his love for America and encouraging patriotism.

If you have your Bibles now, I want you to turn with me, if you will, to 1 Timothy, chapter 1. 1 Timothy, chapter 1. And I want to share a little bit of my testimony with you tonight, Lord willing. And I want to share with you this. I just ask you to come back tomorrow night. I'm going to be preaching a message. It's become the most requested message that I preach. I'm going to be preaching a message to the family tomorrow night. And if you love your family, I pray that you'd come back tomorrow night and see what God would have to say to us. I'm going to be dealing with the whole family unit, all the way from the daddy, the husband, that is, the mama, the wife there, and the children. Because if there's any place we need revival today, besides the church house, it's in your house, in my house. In fact, I believe that, Brother Todd, if you let mama and daddy and bub and sissy get sold out to Jesus, when they get to church, you'll have no problem out of them. You won't have them in your counseling office every other week, you know what I'm saying? And you won't have to preach for three days to get them up where they're ready to have revival. Amen? I mean, it's going to be hallelujah and left foot and praise the Lord in their right, and it's going to be Jesus in the morning, Jesus at noontime, and Jesus when the sun goes down. Amen? And I tell you, that's what we need. We need families. Like Joshua said, it's for me and my house. We are going to serve the Lord. Amen? That ought to be able to be written over every home, not just in a little plaque sitting up there, but it ought to be a reality in every home and every family. And so tomorrow, I tell you, I pray if you love your family like I love my family, that you'll be back here tomorrow night. There's a bunch from Lismore over here. We had a great night the night we preached on the family at Lismore. Anybody like to just raise your hand and say how God dealt with you and that message on the family during that service? Brother Jack? Amen? God dealt with us, didn't He? And so, praise the Lord. I Timothy chapter 1. Let's all stand together in honor of God's Word. I Timothy chapter 1, beginning at verse 12. And Paul said, And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. Who was before? When Paul said before, he's talking about B.C., before he got saved. Here's what Paul was like before he got saved. He said, before, he said, I was a blasphemer. Apparently, Paul had a foul mouth. Quick tongue there. Persecutor. Paul had no use for the church. As far as he was concerned, that bust out of the church was a bunch of hypocrites. Amen? Ever heard anybody like that? Eh, I don't need to go to church. A bunch of hypocrites is all that wants your money. Persecutor. Injurious. Paul would hurt you before he got saved. He said, but, he said, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly. In unbelief. Here's a man that wrote more books than anybody in the Bible. You know what he said he was before he got saved? Ignorant. Wrote more books than anybody else in the Bible. He said before he got saved, he was ignorant. I'm going to tell you, I don't care how many Ph.D.'s you've got after your name. You know how you spell Ph.D.? You know how you say Ph.D.? I ain't got anything wrong with education. But listen, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer now. But before I got saved, man, son, I'm telling you, my life was ignorance. Anything without Jesus, any life without Jesus is absolute ignorance. No wonder your life don't make sense. No wonder you don't have meaning and purpose. You can have all the money in the world. Hey, where's my brother that's the dentist? Brother, amen. I love what he's sharing with me back there. He said, Brother Jack, before I got saved, just not long ago, he said, Brother Jack, I had what money could buy. But it didn't give me meaning and purpose in life. It didn't give me no peace. He said, when I found Jesus. Woo, son. You make sense out of things. You won't be ignorant then. Verse 14, the Bible says, Paul said, And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant. Amen. I don't know how much sin you've got, but God's got more grace than you've got sin. With faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. That's where it's at. Verse 15, he said, This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save who? Who? Sinners. Paul said, of whom I am chief. You know who Jesus came into the world to save? Sinners. God didn't send His Son into this sin-sick world for good folk. You know why? Because there wasn't any. The Bible says, There are none that are righteous. No, not one. There's a lot of self-righteous. But there are none that are right. So if you're a sinner tonight, you're in a good spot. Amen? You can become saved sinner tonight. Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank You for the Word of God. And Lord, I thank You that You came into this world to save sinners like me. Lord, I thank You for July 4, 1982, that You became real in my life. You became someone much more than just the Christ of Christmas. And Easter. And a storybook character that I had heard about. But You became real. You became alive in my heart. Lord Jesus, I thank You for the day You saved me. And I thank You for what You've done in my life since. And I would pray that tonight, Lord, for those who are here tonight, by way of my testimony, that somehow, someway, maybe You could minister through this testimony, life into those who don't know You. I claim Revelation 12, verse 11 right now. That we would overcome Satan here tonight by the blood of the Lamb and by the Word of my testimony. And that we'd love not our lives, even unto death. Thank You, Lord, for Your presence. I pray that You would be glorified, that the church would be edified, and that hell would be terrified in this place tonight. Be with us especially during the invitation time. I pray that You'd bind Satan and every demon of confusion, fear, doubt, pride, drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual immorality, any other thought that would come against the knowledge of God. I pray that You'd bring into captivity every thought and disobedience of Jesus Christ, of every man, woman, boy and girl, in the sound of my voice. Lord, I pray that we would decrease so that You could increase, and we'll give You the glory. Let's all pray to Jesus together tonight. Dear Lord Jesus, please speak to my heart. Tonight, please help me to do what You say. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. I failed one course in school, and it was speech. And I failed it twice. And the reason I failed it wasn't because I couldn't prepare one. I could kind of get by with that pretty good, writing it out and all that, but I couldn't get it. Two years in a row, I failed speech because I was terrified to get up in front of anybody and say, I mean, if it was in a group of more than three people, I mean, you're doing a little kumbaya thing there, and everybody's holding hands, and it's your turn to say your name. Man, I mean, by the time it's my turn to just say my name, I can't say it. And so, to this day, if I stand up in front of a group of people, you better know I'm prayed up because it's against all my nature to speak publicly and everything. But when I got saved, you just can't keep it inside. You see what I'm saying? You just can't. If the God of this universe saved your lost soul and do for you what He done for me, I promise you, you're going to have to tell somebody. I'm not saying God will call you to preach, but I guarantee you, you're going to have to tell somebody. You're going to have to share your testimony. I grew up in Dallas, Texas, kind of on the other side of the tracks there, part of town. I lived in Dallas all my life. We just moved to Louisiana a year ago last month, my wife and my two children and I did. I've lived in Dallas 55 years. I'm 56 years old now. I lived here one year. I've never lived anywhere but Dallas, Texas. I remember coming home as a kid and wondering all the way home if my mother was going to be home when I got home from school. I never knew if she would be or not. My mother was an alcoholic, and she loved whiskey and beer more than she loved me and my daddy. I don't make that statement to put down my mother because I loved my mother. I really did. In fact, when my mother didn't drink, she wasn't the same as she was when she did. You might know somebody like that. I mean, when my mother was sober, she was the most pleasant, sweet woman you would want to be around. I mean, everybody wanted to be around my mama. But when she was drunk, she was drunk on liquor, and as far as I know, she never did do drugs. But when she got drunk, buddy, just watch out because she was going to get very violent. She'd hit you with anything she had in her hands. I remember her going in and taking guns out of the gun cabinet in the middle of the night, drunk, and going to wake my daddy up. My daddy was asleep, trying to get a night's sleep so he could go to work the next morning. American Shooting Medal Company and walked steel all day long and just earned a living for me and my mama. I mean, my mama and him. I was the only child. My mother would wake my daddy up in the middle of the night and hold a 12-gauge shotgun on my daddy and say, Luther Daniels, I'm going to kill you before the sun comes up. Let me tell you something, young people. When they show you the beer commercials on TV, they don't show you the whole story. They don't show you the finished product of the brewer's art. They don't show you the broken homes and the jail cells and the prison yards. They don't show you the divorce courts and the mental institutions. They don't show you the graveyards and the body bags. They don't show you all that. They just show you the pretty boys and the pretty girls. You only go around once and go for the gusto. Well, I've got news for you, young people. It's not the King of Beers that's coming through. It's the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and His name is Jesus. How many of you know who Donnie Gay is, eight-time world champion bull rider? Donnie's a good friend of mine. He was saved at our church six years ago now. The church I was saved at in Dallas, Texas. Donnie travels with me about, oh, I say probably 10 to 20 percent of the time and shares his testimony. Eight-time world champion bull rider. Now, you're eight-time world champion at TiddlyWinks, you're bad. Eight-time world champion riding a bull? You've got to be joking. He's a good friend of mine. He's preached in revivals I've done all over the state of Louisiana and out of state and everything. Well, let me tell you something, young people. Donnie Gay, when he got saved, he was doing a beer commercial for Coors Light Beer. That's paying him $60,000 every time he did a 60-second commercial. Now, $1,000 a second is not bad money. He called Coors Light Beer up after he got saved the next week, and he said, I don't need your beer, and I don't need your money. He said, I'm not going to get up and tell the young people of America it's okay to do something now that I say it's not. You see, that's the kind of heroes I like. Somebody who will stand for something, not fall for anything. He doesn't just talk the talk. He walks the walk. Sold out to Jesus. I just want to tell you, you know, some of you daddies here tonight, you tell your children don't do drugs, and you're sitting home with the number one drug in America cooling your refrigerator. Let me clue you in on what you are, daddy. You're a hypocrite, and I don't care if you like it or not. The number one drug in America is not cocaine. The number one drug in America is Coors Beer, alcohol that is. Just name it. Number one killer among teenagers today in America is alcohol. Alcohol related automobile accidents, number one killer. And the number two killer is related to the number one killer, and that's suicide. Because the majority of the children that commit suicide are drunk on alcohol. You say, well, I'll just take a drink every now and then. I don't see anything wrong with having a beer every once in a while. Brother Jack, don't say you can't drink in the Bible. You just don't know your Bible. Don't say don't do heroin either. And don't say don't take arsenic either. Hey, Knothead, there are some things you shouldn't have to. Amen? The Bible does say, flee all appearance of evil. Amen? Good grief. Some people wear me out. Well, I don't say anything wrong with having a beer every once in a while. Get out of work, get me a cold beer. Well, you know what the Bible says? The Bible says the lost man has been blinded by the God of this world. You see, lost people don't see good. Hey, no wonder you don't see anything wrong with it. I didn't see anything wrong with it before I got saved either. Because you know what? I always said I'm not going to be as bad as he is. You know what sin is to most people? What somebody else is doing. And I said until I was 17 years old, I'll guarantee you one thing, I'll never drink no beer, no sir, not me, with a name like Jack Daniels. Everybody in school is laughing. They say, man, what do you mean you don't drink? Your name is a drink. I said, no way. My mama is killing my mama, and eventually did. My mother, she died of cirrhosis of the liver. Her skin was as yellow as any yellow you've ever seen. She drank herself to death. The last thing my mama drank, she was in a halfway house. I didn't find this out until a couple of years ago. It was kept from me. But she had taken a cup and put a napkin over the top of it and poured liquid shoe polish through that cup to drain the wax out of the liquid shoe polish. And she drank the alcohol that was left in that cup, and it killed my mama dead. Let me tell you something, young people. Sin will take you further than you want to go. It'll cost you more than you want to pay. It'll keep you a whole lot longer than you want to stay. Sin thrills, then it kills. It fascinates, then it assassinates. You play with sin, then sin will play with you. You take a drink, then the drink will take you. I've never met anybody that got started on drugs that didn't, first of all, start drinking alcohol. Seventeen years old, my uncle comes up to me one day. He said, Jack David, why don't you have a drink with Uncle Ray? I said, Uncle Ray, you know I don't drink. Now this is my mother's sister's husband. And so he said, yeah, I know why. Your mama's an alcoholic and everything. Your mama just don't know when to stop. He said, I'll teach you how to drink. He had four boys. He taught them how to drink too. But he forgot to tell us an important fact. He forgot to tell us he was going to teach us how to die. See, two of his boys died before they reached the age of 35 years old. One of them drank so much vodka in one night, he binge-drank himself to death, dropped over and out dead of an alcoholic-related heart attack, seizure. He drank so much in one night, just seeing if he could out-drink his buddies. And one of the other four boys died of cirrhosis of the liver before he reached the age of 35. And that uncle that was going to teach me, his nephew, and his four boys how to drink, he dropped over dead in the front yard of his house in Athens, Texas, of an alcohol-related heart attack. He taught us how to drink. And he taught us how to die. You know, many times we'll teach our young people, which we should, you need to watch out who you run with at school and everything. And some of those bad characters at school get you off on the wrong foot. You know what I've seen? I've seen uncles, I've seen aunts, I've seen mamas and daddies get their own children, their own nieces, their own nephews off on the wrong foot, teaching them the wrong way. Sir, you want to go to hell, that's your business, but don't take your babies with you. I said, well, I might drink a little alcohol. I listened to my uncle and started drinking. Might drink a little alcohol, but I guarantee you one thing, I ain't never going to do no drugs. I wasn't ever going to go to the next step. I wasn't going to be as bad as my mother was. I wasn't going to be as bad as this guy was. You can always find somebody worse than you. You usually don't have to look very far. I had a guy come up to me one day. He said, man, you ought to try one of these pills. They're not illegal. That's what hooked me on it. He said, they're not illegal. I said, well, what kind of pill is it? He said, oh, man, it'll make you high. I said, well, what is it? He said, it's a diet pill. Now, I know it's going to be hard for you to imagine, but at that time I was about as big around as this microphone. Son, I'm talking about skinny. I had to jump around in the shower to get wet. That's what I'm talking about. And ugly. Man, and listen, I've got pictures to prove it. You say you're not looking too good now. I understand all that. But when I was in high school, son, my mama tied a bone around my neck to get the dog to play with me. I mean, I had no friends. I mean, I wasn't intelligent enough to hang around with that crowd, you know. I wasn't big enough to hang around with the jocks. But there's one crowd in school that will always accept you. You know who they are? The losers. Son, they ain't got nothing going on anyhow. You know what, young people? God doesn't want you to be a loser. He wants you to be a winner. And He can turn you from a loser to a winner right now, here tonight. You don't have to be a loser. Here's me. All the way through school. All the way through school. Man, I tell you. I said, what do I want a diet pill? I said, do I look? I know what y'all are thinking. You look like you're saying one now. That's a lie out of hell. I'll tell you why you lose the weight. I'm not saying I don't do it like I should. But just push your lard gut away from that table. Hello? Amen? Yeah, do it like that. Hello? Amen on me. I said, what do I need to take a diet pill for? Oh, it'll make you weight. You'll stay up and drink more. Well, that's all I needed. I wasn't drinking near enough, so I took one. Ten o'clock the next morning, my eyes were about as big as saucers. I said, now what do we do, big boy? You're so stinking smart. I ain't slept all night long. He said, well, I got a pill for that too, man. I said, well, what's that? He said, it's a pain pill. I said, well, I'm not hurting. I just want some sleep. He said, well, take it and go to sleep. I said, no, you listen to me. You listen to me real good. There's a place and there's a time for pharmaceutical drugs, prescription drugs, but you can believe me when I tell you, if you're taking them to get high on, then you know the difference. If you're taking them to get high on, you're sinning against a holy God. I started taking pills, but the next step I wasn't going to was those illegal drugs. Now I'm drinking alcohol. I'm taking barbiturates. I'm taking amphetamines, but I wasn't going to do no illegal drugs. Driving down the road one day in North Dallas, an old buddy of mine from Pleasant Grove was in the back seat, and he was smoking something that didn't smell like no Camel I'd ever smelled. And this is in the late 60s, early 70s. When a joint of marijuana to a matchbox could get you 10 years to life in prison in the state of Texas. I'm talking about we had some teeth in our laws in the 60s and 70s. And my old buddy, I said, what are you smoking, Steve? He said, I've got some marijuana back here. I like to turn the car over. I pull off to the side of the road. I told my buddy, you do one of two things. You either get out or you throw that dope out. See, young people, there's a reason they call it dope. It takes a dope to do it. Amen. It sure does. Oh, some of you all will be looking cool when you're drunk. Yeah. Oh, man, it wears me out. You know, I wish they had video cameras back when I was a kid. Somebody taking a picture of me and showing me what I look like, my aching back. So I put my buddy out. You know why I put my buddy out of the car? Because I had my standards. I wasn't going to be as bad as he is. Let me tell you something about standards. If your standards for living are not in agreement with this book, you don't have any standards. You can always find somebody worse than you. You can look to Hollywood. You can look to your neighbor, your mama, your daddy. Friend, I'm going to tell you something. You better look to the Lord for your standards. God's Word right here will tell you what's right. It will tell you what's wrong. It will tell you where you came from. It will tell you where you're going. It will tell you how to live on the way. Amen. I didn't know all that. Oh, when I was 12 years old, I walked down the aisle of a Baptist church and got dunked in the water. And if you had asked me until I was 35 years old if I was a Christian, I said, yeah, I'm a Baptist. I was a Baptist a long time before I was a born-again child of God. Same thing could be said for a Pentecostal, a Methodist, a seemingly God, non-denominational. I don't care what you are. Son, I'm going to tell you something. You're not born again. You ain't nothing. You're just ignorant. And you need to be saved. Amen. That's what Paul said. Amen. It's ignorance. I'm telling you. I'm telling you. It's absolute ignorance without Jesus. That's just what it is. So I was so proud of myself. Yeah, I got my standards. I ain't going to do no illegal drugs. Well, young people, guess what? I kept on hanging around old Steve. That old boy had marijuana. Guess what? It wasn't too much. I'm smoking the same dope he is. So young people, you show me who you run with. I'll show you who you either like or are going to become like. You run with skunks, you're going to smell like a skunk. You need to run with dream makers, not dream breakers. People that build you up, not put you down. People, when you're around them, you feel closer to God than like you've been living with the devil. Hello? Amen? Well, I know what some of you all are sitting out there thinking. Oh, Brother Jack, no wonder you got saved. I never. Oh, I have them come up to me all the time after I share my testimony. Well, Brother Jack, you know, I drank my share of that beer in my life, but I ain't never done them drugs. And then on closer examination, you find out they ain't never been saved either. They're drunk, but they ain't been saved. Well, congratulations, you get to go to hell sober. Hello? Amen? Sober people die and go to hell. Saved people die and go to heaven. I don't even drink. Well, listen to me, friend. God will save you anywhere. If the devil would just as soon send you to hell from a church pew as he had a bar stool. It don't make any difference to him. Good old boys die and go to hell. Saved old boys die and go to heaven. Well, I'm a good old boy. I try to treat everybody right and everything. I don't try to hurt nobody. I believe in God. So does the devil. He believes in God. Amen? He believes in God more than some Baptists do. At least they tremble. Every demon in hell believes in God. James 2, 19 says, and tremble. You got to know Jesus. I told you I was saved up until I was 35 years old. Started shooting heroin, second all, Demerol, two and all. Anything you put in a needle, I put in my arm. We'd check into motel rooms on Friday night. We'd shoot up drugs Friday night, Saturday, Saturday night, Sunday, Sunday night and Monday. And I'd try to go back to work on Tuesday. Cutting hair as a barber, as a drunk. I invented the shag. And listen, I had a good clientele of cutting hair. Back during that time, I cut all the Dallas Cowboys' hair. Tom Landry, Roger Staubach, Matt Dickens, Danny Reeves, Leroy Jordan, all of that era. All of it. Don Meredith, good customer of mine. Mickey Mantle. I knew Mickey Mantle as good as I know Brad here. I knew Mickey Mantle. I mean, Mickey Mantle and I had lunch together all the time. He had an office in the building. And I cut his hair all the time. Mickey Mantle played golf with Mickey Mantle and everything. Great Mickey Mantle. I had a great business. I was a drug addict and an alcoholic the whole time. You see, I was what they called a functioning drug addict. A functioning alcoholic. Let me tell you something. A drug addict is still a drug addict. An alcoholic is still an alcoholic. Really, he's a drunk. He's a loser. There he is. Right there. But God wants him to be a winner. Amen. And everybody looking at my life said, Man, you've got this great business, got a great, you know, the who's who barber shop in Dallas, Texas to go to to get your hair cut. And you know what? I just was living a lie. It was a lie. Making good money. Making real good money. Making better money than any other barber in Dallas, Texas. But you know what? It wouldn't satisfy. It would not satisfy. I woke up in a motel room in Dallas one night. And we'd been shooting up drugs all weekend long. And the bed beside me, when I woke up, there was a bunch of people in that room all passed out. And when I woke up, I turned around and looked at this bed. The bed beside me was on fire. Lord Jesus is my witness. My hand on the book. Exactly why I'm telling you this. And I won't tell you a whole lot of my life tonight for sake of a lot of reasons. Number one, it ain't any of your business. Amen. And number two, I don't want to glorify sin. And number three, we ain't got time. But, you know, in order to be able to tell you what the Lord did for me, I've got to tell you where he brought me from. But anyway, this bed beside me was on fire. And there was a guy that was in it, and he was on fire. And what had happened, we'd been cooking heroin on this candle, and the candle wax had run down the side of the nightstand and down the side of the bed and caught that bed on fire. And when I looked at that bed, God is my witness, I could not tell if that guy was really on fire or if I was hallucinating. So I just pushed him off the bed, put the fire out. By the grace of God, he lived. And nobody got burned up. But you know what happened just about two years later? You would think that old boy learned a lesson. You would think I learned a lesson. You'd think a guy that grew up in a home with a violent alcoholic mother would learn a lesson and never go and do the same thing. But unfortunately, demographics tell us it don't work that way. Them acorns don't fall far from the tree. As goes Mama and Daddy, usually goes those children. That same guy who got burned up, got beat to death with a baseball bat in Corsa County, Texas in a truck stop by a Jamaican drug gang over a bad drug deal. Sin thrills, then it kills, it fascinates, it assassinates. You play, you pay. There's no winning the sin game, young people. You play with sin, then sin will play with you. So I married a girl that I had something in common with by that time or during that time, early 70s, mid-70s. She was an alcoholic and drug addict too. She come home one day, she said, let's rob a bank. I said, let's do what? She worked for a microfilm company. They were starting to put these security cameras in banks all across America. Then the place and the company that really was on the ground floor of that was based in Dallas, Texas. She worked as a secretary in that office. She said, yeah, they're putting these security cameras in all these banks across America. She said, it's not going to be long, you're not going to be able to rob a bank. Little did she know, a criminal can always find a way to get around the law. I said, you lost your mind. She was already shoplifting by this time to help pay for her drug habit and part of mine. Even though I was making a lot of money, it wasn't enough because it never is enough. It just saps you and drains you. Let me tell you something, young people. In John 10, Jesus said that the devil has come to steal, to kill, and to destroy your life. But Jesus said in that same verse, I have come that you might have life, son, and have it not just a little bit, but more abundantly. She made this comment. She said, we'll get all the money we'll ever need to buy all the cocaine and heroin they ever wanted. To her and I, the ultimate success story would be to have all the cocaine and have all the heroin you'll ever want so you could do eight balls whenever you wanted to do them. That's a mixture of cocaine and heroin. When she said get all the drugs we'll ever need, I said, all right, let's do it. I had a shotgun, a double barrel shotgun. I started off about this long. She had a .38 pistol. We pulled up in front of the Ferris State Bank in south of Dallas. And all the way there, I remember thinking to myself, what if somebody kills me? Because I've never pulled a gun on anybody. Now, all the way through, I thought, what if somebody kills me or I kill somebody? And just hold up, over money. I'm thinking this all the way to that bank that day. We lived in north Dallas. It was north Dallas then. It's downtown Dallas now. We was driving all the way south of Dallas to Ferris State, Texas. And I'm thinking, what if I kill somebody? What if somebody kills me? Now, all the way through grade school and junior high, first part of junior high, I'd been whipped by everybody in school. Man, anybody could whip me. I was so skinny, I'd fight you. But when I would swing, son, and I landed, it didn't get nothing done. I mean, it didn't have no sting to it. So I knew how to take a whipping. I'd been whipped all through school. But by the time I got into junior and sophomore, basically about a sophomore in high school, I started putting on a little weight, and my daddy started teaching me about fighting. My daddy was a Golden Glove champion in the state of Texas one year, and he knew how to fight. He didn't like to fight, but he could fight. In fact, my mama loved to watch my daddy fight. My mama loved to get my daddy out on a Friday or Saturday night and get drunk and get my daddy drunk. And then she'd go off, and it'd be in a nightclub. She'd go off to the side of the nightclub and start flirting with some man, knowing my daddy would have to come over and get involved in it and get my daddy jealous. So she could get my daddy in a fight because she loved to see my daddy get in a fight. Because my daddy, you get in a fight with my daddy, my daddy's going to clean your clock. I'm going to tell you, when I was a kid and I said my daddy would whip your daddy, I meant it. But my daddy's going to whip your daddy. And so my daddy taught me about fighting a little bit, and I got big enough. And so I've been whipped a lot more times than I've done any whipping, but by the time I was in high school and right out of high school, I learned enough about it and put on at least enough weight where you whip me, I whip you. It really didn't make any difference to me. And if I'm whipping you, if I can get you down, I'm going to be talking trash the whole time, and I'm going to be taking out frustrations of all those years I've been whipped. So to get a whipping wasn't a thing to me, but to pull a gun on somebody or have somebody kill me, this is a whole other level we're going to. And I remember thinking on the way to that bank, I thought, I really, before God, it bothered me more to think about killing somebody than getting killed because I thought to myself, if I die, what's the big deal? I had given up on life. Young people, don't you ever give up on life. Sir, ma'am, don't you ever. I said, don't you ever give up on life because life is good. Life is Jesus. Jesus said in John 14, verse 6, He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He is life. That's second and third banner right over there. He doesn't just give life, He is life. You don't have life until you've got Jesus. I don't care how much money you've got, how intelligent you are, how much dope you've got, how popular you are at school, you don't have life until you've got Jesus. We got to that bank, got out of the car. Linda got on her side, I got on my side. We started to walk up in front of the bank. All I can tell you this day, brother, is God and good judgment got all over me. I turned around and went back to the car. I told Linda, I said, get back in the car, it's gone too far. I took her home, and I left my wife. Two months later, I got a phone call from a girl that she knew. She said, have you heard about Linda? I said, no, what? She said, she's dead. I said, my wife's dead? When she told me that, I thought, the first thought in my mind was that she got killed trying to rob someplace or hold something up or something. Young people, my wife did what young people all over America are doing. She gave up on life. She took that .38 pistol and put it in her mouth and ended her life. And for ten years after that, I tried to stop doing drugs. I tried everything there was and couldn't stop. I live with that guilt of her killing herself on my back. It still bothers me today. It still bothers me today. But you know what? She made a decision she made herself. I'm going to tell you, I take it very seriously when somebody starts talking about suicide today, brother. Some people don't take it serious. Some people mess with people when they're talking about that stuff. Listen to me. I take it dead serious. I take it dead serious. There's people out there hurting. There's people out there heart hurting, crying out for God, crying out for something. They don't know it's God many times, but that's what they need. I had a friend that killed me during this period of time come to me. A friend, a guy I knew, a guy I used to see at the Western place I used to dance at, Cowboys. I live to do two things at this time in my life, to drink and to dance. I live to dance. In fact, if you tell me you've got to choose between the two, dancing and drinking, I'd choose dancing. I can't do many good things. I couldn't do many things in my life very well, but I could scoot, boot. I mean, I love to dance. I live to dance. I taught dancing the Dallas series that they had on for years, J.R. Ewing, all that stuff. I taught all of them people how to dance. I taught dancing on the side, then on the side. I live to dance. Well, this guy come to this club, and he said, you ought to come over. He didn't drink. He'd always drink a 7-Up, and he liked to dance too. I mean, listen, I'd get off work at 5, 6 o'clock in the afternoon, and I'd go straight to Cowboys and drink and dance until 2 o'clock in the morning, every night. This is every night. And this guy, he's drinking 7-Ups, but he seemed like a good old boy and everything. He said, you ought to come over to the house tomorrow night. He said, we're going to take a drugless trip. We get high without drugs. I said, really? He said, yeah. I said, how in the world do you do that? He said, well, come on over. He said, he don't drink nothing. And to me, man, you're a hero if you're sober. At that time, I thought, because I thought my whole problem was I did drugs. I thought my whole problem was I was a drunk. Man, that wasn't my problem. My problem was I didn't know Jesus. You get saved, you get sober. Oh, son, I tried A, A, N, A, and the D, A. I tried the 12-step, the 2-step. I tried every step there was. Son, I found out that one-step, Jesus, get the job done. You hear what I'm telling you? Yes, sir. Yeah. I go over to his house the next night. I walk in, weirdest deal I've ever seen. Man, they had beads hanging up. Now, this is early 70s. Beads hanging up everything. Incense burning, weird music. And everybody's sitting around the floor. Oh. Oh. Man, y'all high on something. All right, I want some of that. Oh, no, we're into the New Age movement. Civil Mind Control, Transcendental Meditation, Hatha Yoga, Tarot Cards, Channeling, Horoscopes, Ouija Boards. I said, what in the world is all that? I was just an old redneck. I didn't know nothing about all that. I said, we're worshiping God. I said, you are? Now, you watch this, brother. I grew up in the buckle of the Bible Belt, and it had to take a cult to come to me and tell me, we'll show you how to worship God. You know what cults are? Cults are the church's unpaid bills. Cult. I said, you are? I said, I'd be interested in that, because I knew I needed God. Ray Charles, see that? I knew I needed God. Amen? I needed God. I knew that. But I didn't know how to find Him. Oh, I'd been dunked in the water, but I could tell you, I could tell you that wasn't finding God. You won't find God down in that water. He ain't down there. Amen? I'll tell you where you will find Him. You'll find Him at the foot of that cross, though. So I listened to Him. And I got involved in the New Age Movement. I was an alumni of Silver Mine Control. Dr. Hank Van Ginkle teaching it. He studied under Jose Silva. And they teach you how to count down into your mental laboratory, call upon your spiritual guides, all this stuff straight out of the pit of hell. Young people, let me tell you something. Jesus is not a good way to heaven. He's not even the best way. He is the only way. If you try to come to God any other way than Jesus, you're coming the wrong way. Let me tell you something. There's more than one spirit out there. Hello, the Bible says, test the spirits whether they're of God. There's some cults out there. There's some people even in the church that will teach you wrong doctrine. Jesus said in the last days that if it's possible, they'll deceive the very elect. Even in the church. Deceptive. Miracle mongers. In the last days. I'm praying about preaching Wednesday night on the last days. Study on the last days, on the second coming of Jesus Christ. And I'll show you from the Word of God ways that you can see things going on right now in our world that point to the fact that Jesus' imminent return is just at hand. The fool not to be able to see it. I told Brother Ken, you've got to be a vegetarian. I said, why do we have to be a vegetarian? Well, because they believe in reincarnation. You don't eat that cow, that ought to be somebody's grandma or something. You don't want to eat that cow there now. That ought to come back as a sheep or a calf or a cow or something or other. Man, it's amazing the lies people will believe and reject the truth of the living Word. Oh, I thought I was doing God a favor by getting healthy. I'm all for getting healthy. But honey, let me tell you something. You can run 19 miles a day. You can lose all your weight. And you guess what's going to happen one day? You're still going to die. Amen? Now I'm telling you, I am for getting healthy. Romans 12, verse 1 says, Present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable in God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove that it was that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Well, I'll guarantee you one thing. You ain't gaining no points with God by getting healthy. You're doing it for yourself. But all these new age deals, ooh, get your yoga going, man, getting all these 19 positions and twists and turning and all this mess. I can tell you, listen to me, I'll just cut to the chase here. I got involved in the new age movement, brother, to worship God, and never in my entire life, I'm 56 years old, never was closer to Satan. I've seen things done in the name of worshiping God that was nothing more than 100% satanic. Because it was the new age movement. Cults. Boy, they're out there. I mean, they're out there. Ma'am, you get up and read your little horoscope in the morning. See what's going to happen in your day. See if you can understand what's going to happen tomorrow. Son, I can't even explain to you what happened yesterday. Lots of time. Much less what's going to happen tomorrow. Hey, man, get your palm read. Hello. Get your chart worked. Horoscope chart. You're dancing with the devil, honey. You play with fire, and you're going to get burned. I don't know who I'm talking to here tonight. You want to hear more about the new age deal that I was involved in? Get the tape on my testimony back there, because there was a witch that got saved the night I did my testimony. I knew she was going to be there. It was a big service. We had 60-something people that got saved. A bunch of them was involved in the new age movement, and I shared about it on the tape. But anyway, I got away from that, went back to the drugs. Now I'm facing 20 years in a federal prison as a drug addict and an alcoholic. Man, my life is a mess. I had so many DWIs that they'd taken my driver's license away, couldn't drive for four years. So you don't drive, you don't need a car. So I sold my car, my truck, buy more dope. Made sense to me. And so my buddy, he's trying to talk me into going to church this whole time. He said, why don't you come go with me to church? I said, Jerry, no, I don't want to go to church. I'd heard some of them sissy preachers. I don't like sissy preachers. And I thought only people that are Christians are women, children, old folks, and wimps. But you ain't going to be a real man if you're a Christian, Brother Jack. That's what I thought. Come to find out you're not a real man until you are. See, sir, here's the way it works. You can be born a male, but you've got to be born again to be a man of God. Hear what I tell you? You've got to be born again to be a man of God. See, sir, when you're born the first time, you have no choice about how you're born. You have no choice about it. When you're born the second time, you're the only one that's got a choice about it. There ain't going to be nobody up in heaven that doesn't want to be there. You ain't going to say, well, I didn't want to come up here no how. My old buddy and I kept praying for him, I'm up here. No, son, you're going to have to want to be a man of God. You're going to have to want to be a woman of God. You're going to have to want Jesus as your Savior and your Lord and your Master. You're going to have to want it. You're going to have to want it. So I had a built-in excuse. I told him, I said, Jerry, I don't have a car. He said, I'll come get you. He said, I'll come get you on Saturday night. Now, he knows he better get me on Saturday night. He'll get me on Sunday morning. It's too late. I'm still drunk from the night before. He said, I'll come get you. And he's trying to remove all excuses. Amen. I just want to tell you here tonight, if you've got a friend that brought you to church here tonight, and you do get enough sense that you'd get saved, I'll tell you what you need to do. Before this service is over, you need to run back there and hug their neck. You need to thank God you've got a friend that brought you to church here tonight. You need to thank God you've got a friend that loves you enough to care about your soul and don't want you to see you go to hell. You ought to thank God that somebody cared enough about you to get you under the preaching of the Word of God so you wouldn't have to spend the rest of your life miserable without any meaning and purpose that you could trust Christ. Get your home straightened out, man. Get your life straightened out. I mean, give you meaning and purpose. Give you joy and speak with them full of glory. You ought to hug their neck before they leave. My old buddy said, I'll come get you on Saturday night. I said, well, no. And listen, he lives on the other side of Dallas, 30 miles across Dallas. Now, listen to me. 30 miles across Dallas is different than 30 miles out here. And I thought to myself, my buddy going to come get me across Dallas? I said, he really cares. I said, well, he said, I'll tell you what. I'll get Pat to fix some chicken fried steaks, some four-to-weight gravy, cat head biscuits, turnip greens, and black-eyed peas on Saturday night. Ooh, sounds good to me. I like to eat. Still do. And he said, I said, well, boy, Pat could cook, and I knew it. And so I said, no, I don't think so, Jerry. He said, I'll tell you what. He said, after we get through eating, we'll go out to stock car races at Crandall, at Thunderbird. Now, he knew I liked them stock car races. Man, I loved watching cars go round and round, them dirt tracks. I loved it. Loved it. Today, I love it. Love it. Eat it up. I thought when he got saying, now, listen, this my old buddy, he'd gone off to Vietnam. When he went to Nam, son, he'd fight a circle saw. Yeah, I mean, he was a bad dude. I mean, we'd fight each other. We'd fight other people. We went to separate schools, and our schools were total rivals. He went to W.W. Samuels. I went to Bryan Adams, and Bryan Adams hated Samuels, and Samuels hated Bryan Adams, and probably the only two people in both those schools who were friends of each other was me and Jerry. I went to Bryan Adams. He went to Samuels. We were best buds. Nobody understood it. Man, we hate Samuels. All my friends over at Bryan Adams said, I don't care. Jerry's my buddy. He went off to Vietnam. Boy, he was a drug addict and alcoholic before he went off to Vietnam. Treated his wife like trash and everything. When he came back, he didn't come back bitter. He came back better. Now, I just thought he got in church. And I was glad for him because his life was straightened out. See, some of y'all think when you see your friends get all straightened out and get in church, you think they just got in church. Woo, son! They got more than just in church, amen? They got in Christ. And so I said, and I didn't know Christians had fun. I just want to know how they party. And I said, you mean y'all still go to stock car races? Yeah, we go to stock car races. Some of you old redneck old boys, well, I don't want to give up all my fun. Hey, Bubba, we hunting fish too. Amen? We have fun. Amen? How many of us, about 30 or 40 of us in our group, that was 200 men went to Angola prison. Amen? This last weekend. About 40 of them that I know personally not having this bunch of nuts over here. Man, we had a ball in prison. Go figure. How do you figure it, Brother Jack? You just had to be there, amen? Just Jesus, amen? Jesus said, I was in prison in you. You know what we did for three days? We just visited Jesus. Go figure. Amen? Hey, some of you say, I just don't figure out Christian life. Join the club. I'll guarantee you one thing. You come to Jesus, you'll start figuring out some things you didn't know. Yeah. Amen? Woo, son. I said, no, Jerry. I had a hard head. I'll tell you what. He said, we'll go to stock car races on Saturday night. On Sunday morning, I'll get up and get some of them yard eggs out in the back yard there and get some more. Pat, fix more of that 40-weight gravy, some more candied biscuits, and I'll fix some deer sausage. So when he said deer sausage, I said, come get me. I can sit through an hour of anything. Bring the sissy on. I wouldn't care. He come and got me on Saturday night. We sit down and have dinner. Boy, I just started to dig in. Jerry said, let's pray. I said, oh, okay. So I put my tools down. We all grabbed hands there. Now, here's my notion. I never will forget this as long as I live. Here's my big old buddy. Got hands like this puppet that used to wear you out. You just look at him cross-eyed, and you're history. He got that big old hand. He got one of them holding his little girl Deanna. She was about that tall then. Married her to her husband here just a couple of years ago. He had Jerry Virgil with this hand. Married him to his wife just a year after that. I did. And he got a hold of Jerry Virgil with one hand and Deanna with the other. And them same lips that used to curse God was now thanking God and blessing God for the food that was sitting on that table. I was 35 years old, and I could never remember seeing any man pray over a plate of food. Running the crowds I'd run in, you wouldn't. Never saw my daddy do it. Never heard my mama do it. Never saw anybody in my family ever pray over a plate of food. Never in my entire life. Not a grandma, not a grandpa, nobody. My buddy. See, I saw the Gospel before I ever heard it. And I thought to myself as my old buddy was praying, this boy's got something more in church. Yeah, I thought, God, if you do in me what you've done in Jerry, that'd be something. We had dinner and went to the stock car races. Man, they started racing everybody in the stands was drunk but us. The guy beside me had a cooler beer. Jerry, man, I had my eyeball on that cooler. Jerry was sitting right over here right next to me. He said, you get one of them beers, I'll knock you out. I said, I ain't going to get one. I sure wanted one, but I didn't get one. I didn't drink one all night. And by the end of the races, that was an eye-opener to me because I was the only one in the stands that wasn't drunk. Jerry and Pat and I weren't kids. I mean, everybody was drunk. And I told Jerry, I said, I'm ready to get out of here. There's a bunch of nuts around here. He said, oh, really? Is that right? I said, yeah. Man, look at this bunch of nuts screaming and hollering, acting like a bunch of idiots. He said, you ought to see you. I said, well, I'm not as bad as they are. He said, you're right. You're about ten times worse. I thought to myself, I bet he's right. So we went home. Got up the next morning, had breakfast, went off to church. This was the last Sunday of June, 1982. I said, all right, bring the sissy on. We're sitting over in this park. I was cocked and ready to go. I thought he was going to start at 11 o'clock sharp and end at 12 o'clock dull. You know, I'd been in a couple of them services. A little psalmaniac sermon, you know, tickling your ears, telling you what you want to hear. I had heard a couple of them. Well, this preacher wasn't like that. So when he come out there, he was a sergeant of the Marine Corps in Vietnam. He was wounded twice at Khe Sanh during the Tet Offensive. A 135 millimeter rocket come over in the bunker that he was in, killed the other two Marines with him. Blew his hip up. And he trusted Christ as his Savior being air flighted back to a mass unit. He had a chaplain that died two weeks before he got saved. Before he got wounded. And that chaplain had on the front of his helmet, some men plan to believe in the 11th hour and die at 1030. He said all the way to that mass unit. He was thinking to himself, some men plan to believe in the 11th hour and die at 1030. He said, some men plan to believe in the 11th hour and die at 1030. He said, if I die on the way to that mass unit, he said, I'll die and go to hell. On that helicopter, he prayed to receive Christ as his Savior. And before he left Khe Sanh, Vietnam, he won over 100 Marines to Jesus. And buddy, he come out there. He had shoulders about like that and a waist like that. He held the weight lifting champion of the University of California for years. Bench pressing. He bench pressed over 500 pounds. So I'm talking about a man. Still a man. He's two years younger than I am. At that time, he had shoulders about like that and a waist about like that. Now he's got shoulders like that and a waist like that. I've got a dose of it myself. We've got that Chester-George disease. Our chest doesn't lop down over our jaws, you know what I'm saying? But anyway, he got up, and buddy, let me tell you, he began to shuck the cotton-picking corn. Woo! He said, hell's hot, heaven's sweet, sin's black, and Jesus says, and mister, you need it real bad. Son, he preached everything I'd ever done in my life. And then how did God want me to come down there and shake his old nasty hand? Son, all I want to do is go down there and whoop him. I would have if I thought I could have. I got up and stomped out of the church. My buddy come after me. When I got up out of that pew, I was sitting over there. This is one thing I love about revivals. Because in church, everybody's got their spot. You give it a high attendance night like tonight, everybody loses their spot. I love to see some of these old gals. She got my spot. Give them something to get right about. Well, Jerry and Pat was in their spot. When I got up out of that pew, stepped out in the aisle, the Spirit of God was saying, go this way. Buddy, my flesh went that way, and I was out the door. Jerry come out there. He said, you all right? I said, no, I ain't all right. I'm not a little bit all right. I think you know why. He said, what do you mean? I said, you've been down there talking to that preacher about me, haven't you? The Lord is my witness. He said, no, man, he laughed like you did. He said, I ain't talked to him about nothing. I said, Jerry, how did he know he'd get up there and preach on what he preached on this morning? I said, that man told my last story this morning. You telling me you ain't told him nothing? Not a thing. And then he said something that I didn't understand, but I believed it. I understand it now. He said, I guess God told him what to say. I said, just take me home. Man, listen to me. I was the most miserable dude you'd ever seen in your life that week. Now I knew if I died, I'd gone straight to hell. I didn't know that before. And I'm scared to death, because I'm replaying all the times I almost died, all the times I almost got killed, all the times I could have at least had a knife pulled on me, would have changed what was changed, shot at, not hit, but could have got killed so many times, car wrecks, my Lord Jesus, and now I know I'm lost. And I'd walked out of the church and left the man standing there that could have told me I'm 30 miles away. Left him standing there that could have told me how to be saved. But listen to me. I drink a beer, but I take one out of the refrigerator. I drink about that much out of it. This is all week long going on now. And I'd put it back in the refrigerator, scared to death, scared to death. I thought God was going to strike lightning right through the roof of that apartment I lived in. I'd fire up a joint and smoke that much off of it. Son, you don't know paranoia. I loaded every gun I had, and I had a bunch of them. I put them by the door. I don't know who I thought was going to shoot. You can't shoot God. Listen, listen, listen. Jerry Porch wasn't my problem. That preacher wasn't my problem. My problem was I didn't know Jesus. Running from the very God that loved me, wanted to save me, wanted to change me. By Wednesday, I already had my mind made up. If Jerry don't call me, I'm calling him. This won't get it. This will not cut the mustard. I'm going to call Jerry. Now listen, this boy had been calling me for three months, brother. Every Friday or Saturday night. It worked. He called me. You want to go to church? No. You want to go to church? No. You want to go to church? No. No. No. No. No. Finally. Yeah. He's working it, son. And you know what? There's some people, I'm sure, that first Sunday that I walked out of that church, thought to themselves, that's a shame. That old boy sure needs Jesus. There he is. But my buddy didn't give up. He called me on Friday. He said, would you like? I said, I sure would. He said, what's wrong? I didn't even let him finish. I knew who it was. I knew why he called. He said, what's wrong? I said, nothing. You called about going to church, didn't you? He did. He did every week. Why was this meeting different? What do you always call about? He said, yeah, that's what I call about. I said, well, come get me. We don't have to have no chicken fried steak, no Fort Worth gravy, no cat head biscuits. Just get me to the church on time. Amen? Listen, I already had my mind made up by Wednesday. I'm going to church next Sunday. And when that preacher gives that invitation, I'm going to be the first one down that aisle. And this time, he ain't going to just dump me in the water. He ain't going to just get me to fill out a little card. I'm going to talk to him, and I'm going to talk to him about how I can really know God. All right. I'll come get you. He told me later, when he hung up the phone that night, he turned around to Pat, his wife, and said, God's got him. Whoa, son. Yeah. God had that step over toehold on me, son. I mean, I was, I was, stick a fork in me, I was done. Amen? It's just a matter of getting saved. He come got me on Friday night, or Saturday night. We went, did the dinner, the races, the whole nine yards, come went to church that Sunday morning. That Sunday fell on July 4th, 1982. A Marine preaching on July 4th? What do you think he preaches on? Son, there was an American flag on every square inch of every wall in that church. They had a color guard come down the front. Man, listen, I served six years in the military. I wasn't a good soldier, but I was a soldier, and I do love America, and I believe if you don't love it, you can leave it, and I'll help you to the border tonight. Amen? Amen. I didn't just start being patriotic on September 11th, and son, by the time he got through the music service, I'm ready to re-up. You know? And so he gets up and he preaches on America. He could have preached on peanut butter, son. I heard the morning of the week before, and I live enough to. He got up and preached on America. And the main point he preached on, he said, What America needs is men of God. Men of God. What America needs is men of God. Because he was a man, and he had the authority to preach it. And every point he'd make, brother, is like driving a nail right through my heart, right into the back of that pew. And I thought, brother, I'm anything but a man of God. I was a male, but I wasn't a man of God. My life was, I was a wimp. That's what I was, a spiritual wimp. He gave that invitation. And all I can tell you this day is, when I come down the aisle, I stood right in front of that preacher. He said, What did you come for? He said, Are you a Christian? It's odd that he would ask that question. He never asked that question. But he could see God was working all over me. He knew I was going to be honest. You know what I did that morning, July 4th, 1982? First of all, I got honest with God. Second of all, I got honest with myself. And third, I got honest with that preacher. I looked at him, and I said, No, sir, I'm not. Because you couldn't live the way I've been living and call yourself a Christian. I said, But I would like to be. If you'll show me. He said, I can do it. He said, Just kneel down right here. Brother, I'm going to tell you something. He took the Bible and explained to me just about that long how to be saved. Now, when I knelt down, I was a drug addict, an alcoholic, a punk, a thug, a loser. But when I stood up, I was a child of the King. And since that day, since that day, nobody's ever had to invite me to come to church. Nobody. Nobody. So I'll do the inviting. Thank you very much. Tonight, if you don't know Jesus, you can know Him right here. You don't have to know a lot about the Bible. First time I heard John 3.16 was about two weeks after I got saved. Thirty-five years old, grew up in the buckle of the Bible Belt, Dallas, Texas. Never in my life heard John 3.16. I'd seen it at football games, the JN 3.16, and I knew it was some kind of Bible verse. But I saw the JN, what does JN mean? And then I figured out it was John, but I never even took the time to look it up in the Bible. Never. Never read two verses out of the Bible. Thirty-five years old. I'm going to tell you something, church. We get to thinking everybody knows about it, and they don't. All you need to know is you're a sinner, and Jesus is a Savior, and that little old Duncan in the water you got when you was a kid that didn't change your life, that little church membership card you got that didn't change your life, you can't help enough old ladies across the street, you can't do enough good deeds, that something is missing in your life. I've got news for you. It's not something, it's someone, and His name is Jesus. And all you've got to do, that's right, amen, all you have to do is pray and mean business with God, and God will do business with those who mean business. It's been 21 years. All my old buddies tell me, ah, you'll be back. Well, it's been 21 years. They're still waiting. They're still waiting. They gave up. God radically changed my life, gave me a wonderful precious wife, two precious children. God gave us that bus out there that we travel in around the country. God's done so many things for us. Listen to me. God wants to do some mighty powerful things in your life here tonight. But it all starts with a relationship with Jesus. It all starts with a relationship with Jesus. If you don't know for sure, if you were to die tonight, that you'd go to heaven, let me tell you something, eternity is too long to be wrong. Eternity is entirely too long to be wrong. I think I'd go to heaven. That ain't good enough. That ain't good enough. You need to get it settled tonight, ma'am. You need to get it settled tonight, sir. Let's pray. With heads bowed and eyes closed, Heavenly Father, right now in Jesus' name, Lord, I pray for men and women, boys and girls all over this auditorium who do not know Jesus in a personal way. Lord, I pray that You would bring them to Calvary tonight. Bring them to that place of repentance. Bring them to the old rugged cross. If they could find forgiveness of sin, if they could find meaning and purpose in life, if they could find peace in their soul, if they could find joy unspeakable and full of glory, if they could find victory in Jesus, Lord, at the foot of the old rugged cross. Lord, many of the people here tonight, they've tried to find it in their money. They've tried to find it in their good works. They've tried to find it in the baptistry, in the church pew that they've sat in for years, and yet there's something in there that's missing. And Father, they realize tonight it's not something, it's someone. It's a personal relationship with a living God that wants to radically change their life, to deliver them from that pornography, the drugs, the alcohol, sexual immorality, whatever it is. God, You're here tonight, and I would pray in Jesus' name that, Lord, that You would do business with those who mean business. Thank You, Holy Spirit of God, please do that which only You can do. Bring conviction in the hearts and lives of men and women, boys and girls, all over this auditorium, and bring them to Calvary tonight. With heads bowed and eyes closed, heads bowed and eyes closed, our piano's going to begin to play just as I am, very softly. You're here tonight. You say, Brother Jack, I don't know if I was to die tonight if I'd go to heaven or not. You might be sitting here thinking the same thing I thought. When I got saved, you can't live the way you've been living, and call yourself a Christian. Jesus said, You will know them by their fruits. You will know them by their fruits. With heads bowed and eyes closed. You're here tonight, and you'd like to invite Jesus to come into your heart, to be your Lord and your Savior. People are already coming. If you'd like to invite Him to come in, you just pray this prayer to Jesus. With heads bowed and eyes closed, heads bowed and eyes closed. I'm ready to settle it, Brother Jack. I'm ready to give it all to Jesus. You just pray this prayer to Jesus right now. You're not praying to me or for me. You just pray to Jesus and for Jesus. Pray this prayer after me. Pray it quietly. Dear Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. And without You, I'm lost and on my way to hell. But right now, Lord Jesus, I ask You to forgive me of all of my sins. I'm sorry, Lord. I pray that You'd come into my heart. Be my Lord, my Savior, and my Master. I believe that You died for me on an old rugged cross. Now help me to live for You the rest of my life through the power of Your Holy Spirit. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for saving my lost soul in Jesus' name. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed. Heads are bowed and eyes are closed. You're here tonight. Say, Brother Jack, I just prayed that prayer. And I meant it. I got it settled. Some of you say, I didn't know where I'd go before I walked in this room tonight. But I got it settled tonight. God bless you. God bless you, ma'am. God bless you, sir. God bless you, young man. Young people, God bless you. Oh, I wish I would have gotten saved when I was some of you young people's age. Oh, I wouldn't have had to go through all the hell that I went through. With heads bowed and eyes closed, you're here tonight. Say, Brother Jack, I just prayed that prayer and I really meant it. If you did, right now, with heads bowed and eyes closed, if you invited Christ to come into your heart tonight, would you raise up your hand real high? All over this auditorium, just raise it up real high. Raise it up real high. Anybody else? God bless you. God bless you. God bless you, young man. God bless you. God bless you. Come on down, young man. Ma'am, God bless you. God bless you. Amen. God bless you. God bless you, young man. Anybody else? Anybody else? What a Savior! Keep your hand up. If you raise it up again, keep it up real high, real high, real high. See how high you can raise it. Don't be ashamed of Jesus. Don't be ashamed of Jesus. You can lift up your hand. I just want to see your hand so I can rejoice with you. Keep it up real high. Anybody else, raise up your hand. Raise it up real high. If you've got your hand up, I want you to stand up. If you've got your hand up, I want you to stand up. Just follow your hand right on up. Just stand up. Stand up. You don't make a stand for something, you'll fall for anything. And it's not standing for something, it's standing for someone, and his name is Jesus. Anybody else will stand with ease and say, count me in, preacher. I just give it all to Jesus tonight. Anybody else? Got enough courage, got enough guts to make a stand for Jesus? Anybody else, just stand up. Anybody else? Don't stand up before you cause your friend did. Young people, it's between you and God. God does business with those who mean business. I want everyone who's standing to make your way down here. I want to have a word of prayer with you right down here. Everyone standing, God bless you as you come. God bless you as you come. God bless you, young people. Amen. God bless you as you come. Amen. Amen. Now let's all stand. Brother's going to lead us in a verse. He leads us in a verse. God bless you as you come. Y'all come on in right here. God bless you. Y'all come on in right here. Amen. We're going to need some more counselors right out here, alright? Amen. God bless you as you come. Anybody else want to be saved? You come on right now. Our piano's going to continue to play. I want you to look right up here at me just for a second. Let's shut that door over there when y'all get a chance. Thank you, brothers. Amen. Listen, I want you to do something for me. I want you to turn to the person next to you and ask them this question. Turn to your wife, your husband, a friend, stranger. Turn to two or three people. Ask them this question. Ask them, do you know for sure you're going to go to heaven when you die? I had a lady tell me the other night, recently. She said, Brother Jack, I've been married to my husband 40 years. She said, I never ask him that question. She said, I ask him everything else. But I never ask him. She said, tonight, I ask him that. And he looked at her, knowing he couldn't lie. She knew his life. And he got saved. Ask your children, parents. Ask your parents, children. I was in Fort Jessup, Louisiana, recently, preaching a revival. Actually, just a two-service, one-day thing there. I had preached a revival there before on Sunday morning. I had everybody do that. A bunch of people got saved that afternoon, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. This big old state trooper comes to the bus, knocking on the door. He had on a bulletproof vest, his uniform, his squad car sitting right out there. Tears running down his face. He said, Brother Jack, this morning, when you had everybody ask their family members if they were saved, this boy was about 6'6", this state trooper. He said, my little 5-year-old boy had a hold of my little finger. And that trooper's little finger is this long. He said, my little boy grabbed a hold of my little finger. And he pulled on my little finger and looked up at me and said, Daddy, are you going to Heaven with me when you die? He said, you know what I did, Brother Jack? I looked my son right in the eye and lied like a snake. I told my boy what he wanted to hear. He said, I told my boy, yes, son. He said, I'm no more saved than nothing. He said, today I want to give my life to Jesus right now. Ask somebody. Ask several somebodies. Ask them right now. Where are you going when you die? You going to Heaven with me? Ask them. You going to Heaven with me, Brother? You know it? No doubt about it? What about you, honey? No doubt in your mind about it? Bone saved, washed in the blood? Amen. Amen. Ain't it good to know? Amen. Ask them. Ask everybody. Don't take... Listen, if Billy Graham was here tonight, I'd ask Billy Graham. Hear me? I've led two pastors to the Lord. Jesus said in Matthew 7, there's a lot of preachers going to Hell. Many, He said. Now look right up here. Has somebody kind of got their jaw all out of joint when you ask them? That's a red flag. If you want to get a grin on my face, ask me where I'm going when I die. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I've been saved 21 years. I never get tired of telling them. If they said, I think so, I hope so, I don't know, you turn back around to them and you tell them, that old dog won't hunt. Honey, that ain't good enough. You tell them eternity is entirely too long to be wrong. Amen? Tell them I'll walk down that aisle with you. And you come on the very first verse. Let's sing another verse. Right now, on the very first verse, you come on. Just like you are, once and all, just come to Jesus. Come on. Right now, come to Jesus. Right now. Who is it? God bless you. You come right now. Come on. Hurry up. Who's in back in the back?