In this sermon, the preacher begins by describing a vision in which the Spirit of God lifts him up and takes him to a group of captive people. He then emphasizes the importance of being a watchman for the house of Israel, warning the wicked of their impending judgment. The preacher shares a personal story of regret, where he failed to share the gospel with someone who later died. He warns the audience that they will one day face Jesus and be held accountable for the blood on their hands if they fail to share the gospel. The sermon concludes with a story of a girl who was not saved, and the preacher's realization that he must prioritize sharing the gospel with others.

Ezekiel, Ezekiel chapter 2. I'm greatly impressed with the truth that's on, well, chapter 3 it is, laid on my heart this morning, more than usual. Everywhere you turn in the Bible you find God is concerned about one thing, that's keeping people out of hell. You find soul winning as much in the Old Testament as in the New, if you look for it. For example, it's in Daniel where the scripture says, these be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, they turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever. It is in Proverbs 11, 30, that the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise. It's in Psalm 51 where David said, Lord, restore to me the joy of thy salvation, then like these transgressors thy way and sinners shall be converted unto thee. It's in Psalm 19, 7, the scripture says, the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. So then, God has in mind soul winning throughout the Old Testament too. Now in Ezekiel chapter 3, beginning with verse 4, and he said unto me, Son of man, go get thee into the house of Israel, speak with my words unto them, for thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech, and of a hard language, but to the house of Israel. Not to many people of a strange speech, and of a hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely I have sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee, but the house of Israel will not hearken to thee, for they will not hearken to me. For all the house of Israel are impotent and hard-hearted. Bold I made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads, as an adamant hearter than flint have I made thy forehead. Fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though there be a rebellious house. I heard also the noise of the wings of the living creatures that touched one another. Now verse 14, so the Spirit lifted me up. Oh, if I miss some time, verse 10, more withstand unto me, son of man, all my words that I speak of these, and receive in thine heart, and hear with thine ears, and go get thee to them of the captivity unto the children of the people, and speak unto them, and tell them, thus saith the Lord God, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. Now verse 14, so the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away, and I went in bitterness, and the best in the heat of my spirit, but the hand of the Lord was strong upon me. Then I came to them of the captive at Tel Aviv, that dwelt by the river of Jebar, and sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days. And it came to pass that at the end of seven days the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, then and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way. The same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked in a turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul. Again when the righteous man doth turn from his righteousness and commit iniquity, and thou layest something before him, he shall die, because thou hast not given him warning. He shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered, but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the righteous man that the righteous sin not, and do not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned, also thou hast to deliver thy soul. The Lord says, Ezekiel, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. They are in captivity because of their sins. I want you to go, will you notice he said, and give my word to them. Not something you've made up, not your own but give my word to them. And he said, you go, all the words that I give you, you'll go to them. He said, then I was caught by the spirit, led by the spirit, and taken over to where they were, by the river Chebar. I sat where they sat. I was astonished certain days. I was in bitterness of soul. Oh, the burden for these poor, wicked, lost people. And he said, don't be afraid, you'll have to be bold if you're going to speak for God, if you're going to be a soul winner among these people, because they're hard-hearted, and that's true today. Then Israel, I said, the wicked, and thou givest him not warning, thou speakest to warn the wicked, for the wicked way is the same as not. The same wicked man shall die in his sins. Everybody that doesn't get warned goes to hell. And then he says, if you warn the wicked, and it turned not, you've delivered your soul. But he said, if you don't warn him, his blood's on your hands. And he said, the righteous, if you preach to Christian people, and you warn them like God says, and then if a generation of wickedness, if their boys go to the devil, the girls turn out to be heartless, if their families are broken up by divorce, if the curse of God comes on the nation, then you've delivered your soul if you warned them. But if you didn't warn them, another family will be ruined, a plague, an awful curse on a family like that on the Kennedy family I mentioned, and other ruin will come, and you'll be to blame. You'll have blood on your hands. Then Dr. Parker, a preacher, is going to have to answer to God for the people around him. Now, I want you to consider several things that stand out in this, this Old Testament teaching about a prophet of God. First of all, he said, Ezekiel, I'm not sending you to far-off people, to people of hard language and strange speech. I'm sending you to your own people Israel. Now, that reminds me, that's the way God does it all the time. You remember in the Great Commission, it's given in Luke 24, and verse 47, and following that, Repentance and remission of sins should be preached in this day among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You begin at Jerusalem. He said it's the same way in Acts 1, 8, but you shall receive power when the Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, that's first, and in all Judea, that's next, and then in all Samaria and the outermost parts of the earth. God's plan is begin where you are. Why were they to begin in Jerusalem? Because they were in Jerusalem. Now, you, if I'm a heretic, all right, make the most of it. There's a broad, widespread idea that your first obligation is to perform missions. That simply is not true. Oh, there's a widespread doctrine that if you want God to bless your church, you must give your money to foreign missions. Don't misunderstand me. The best soul-winning churches do support foreign missions in nearly all ways. They're usually the best givers to foreign missions. But God's first responsibility on you, the folks at home, the first one. I knew a church. I knew it well. I attended long. They have supported 40 missionaries on the field. They only had four professions of faith in a year's time at home, and those little children went and won in the homes. Now, that church didn't please God, and the young people went to the devil, and the kind of missionaries they supported didn't win souls in the foreign field either. No, your first duty is not somebody in a strange speech and fall language. Your first duty is to the folks at home. You remember the case of the Gadarene demoniac? I was over there in the Little Sea of Galilee, and it's only 15 miles wide, and going two weeks from yesterday, I'll leave again for a tour of Bible land. And there, it's only seven or eight miles across, and over yonder, and on the south side, where there's some steep hills, the Lord went over there, and the country of the Gadarenes, there was a devil-possessed man. And he said, What's your name? He said, My name is Legion. I've got a whole army of devils in me. Well, and he went around naked, and he cut himself with stones, and he slept in the tombs where they buried, the caves where they buried the dead bodies. And this poor demon-possessed and harassed man cried and ran about, and they tried to chain him, and he broke the chains with the supernatural devil's power. And Jesus said, Come on, old man. And the devil said, Oh, well, can we go on these hogs here? They'll herd of 2,000 hogs. And Jesus said, Yes, these Jews have no business making money out of the hogs if they're not supposed to eat pork in the house. So he said, Go ahead. So the demons, they went in this great 2,000 hogs, and they all ran down a steep place into the sea and committed hogicide, as was done to them. And so here the people come out of town, and they said, Here, Jesus, you leave our country. Now look here. Here's 4,000 Smithfield hams and all this black hog bacon that's gone. Now you just leave our country. You've caused us trouble. But here's this poor demon-possessed man. He's got his clothes on. People get right with God, put their clothes on. You listen to me. And up in heaven, they don't smirk and smile about that. Ludeness is dirty and wicked, and it's a sorry kind of testimony to anybody who claims to be a Christian. So he put his clothes on, and he's sitting clothed and in his right mind at the feet of Jesus. Ah, the trouble, the harassment of demons is gone. That's what God can do. Thank God I've seen it. I remember a man who tried to commit suicide in Dallas, and he turned on the gas in a little cheap hotel room. His wife had quit him, and this doctor had just told him, Now he's got an incurable disease, and now he's lost his job, and it's depression times. He went up there and got a dollar for a room and turned on the gas. But a chambermaid smelled the gas, and when it passed, he opened the door and opened the window, turned out the gas, called the ambulance, rushed him to the Methodist hospital. And when he got out that night, she went to see how he was. And she said he told her all of his burdens, and life wasn't fit to live. And she told him how she'd fallen into sin and lost her virginity and her virtue and her self-respect. And they said, We need somebody to pray for us. And they went down to Catholic Priest's Rectory on 8th and Marseilles Street, and it's 11 o'clock at night. And he said, They said, Father, will you pray for us? And he said, I'm about to mass at 6 o'clock in the morning. I have no time to muck with you, and I think you're drunk anyhow. Get away from my door. And so they left. And she said, Well, my mother goes to church, and she thinks her preacher's the best preacher in Dallas. Let's go see Brother Rice. And he said, No, I can't take this being driven away from the door. I don't like that. I don't think I can. She said, If I call ahead of time, if he says come, will you come? He said, Yes. So they called, and Mrs. Rice answered the phone. I heard her talking. She said, Well, well, I'm sorry. Well, Brother Rice is sick in bed with the flu. I'm sorry. I know he'd be glad to see others. I said, Wait a minute, Mother, what is it? She said, Somebody wanted to come see you, and I told them you're sick in bed. I said, Tell them to come on, to come back to the bedroom. And so they came. And past 11 o'clock at night, this poor man that had, life wasn't fit to live, his wife's gone, his health is broken, and there's no job, and in despair came face to face and tried to kill himself. And here's this poor, sorry, a fallen woman. And they came, and I had them told me this story. And I had them kneel down to the bed, and I put my hands on their heads and prayed. And God, in loving mercy, fixed it. And the Catholic man saved first. And then after a little while, the woman finally decided God would fix even a wicked woman like her. And as they sat up there, and the man sat there, and he said, Say, Isn't this strange? I said, What's strange? He said, You know, I didn't know how I could face another day. I was just tormented. And he said, That's all gone. I said, I'm, everything's bright and happy, and I don't have any fears and troubles. He said, This is peace. Isn't that strange? I said, No, that isn't strange. I've seen that happen to 10,000 people. That's what Jesus does. Here's the man now, the devil's cast out, and so on his right mind, and they said, Hey, Jesus, you get out of here. We don't care about this part of you. And the man said, Jesus, you let me go with you. You see, they don't care. I want to go with you, Jesus. No, Jesus said, No, you go back home and tell your own folks what great things the Lord has done for you, and has had compassion on you. And he went back and told it to everybody in this city what wonderful things God had told him. Now, that's what God wants you to do. You better begin with the folks at your house, the folks that live where you live, and no speech and hard language, but your own crowd. That's it. Let's make this personal. How many have a brother or a sister unsaved? Let's see your hand. Hold your hand up high just a minute. Yeah, a good many. How many have a father or a mother unsaved? Some will. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You've got somebody to work on. You better not be thinking about foreign missions or anything else until you get the one main thing done. Wait. How many have some in-laws, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, father-in-law, mother-in-law, unsaved? Let's see, unsaved in-laws, have you? Oh, so many have. Yes, sir. Wait a minute. How many know somebody you were in school with them, or you worked with where they work, or they live next door, or they're good friends? Somebody you know well and see often, and they're unsaved. Let's see your hand. Am I like that? Yeah. Well, let me tell you, this New Testament Christianity begins first in Jerusalem. You're Jerusalem. You're Jerusalem. That's where you are, and that's what you'd better do. So, Ezekiel, I'm not sending you to a far-off country and people of a hard language and a strange speech that you can't understand. I'm sending you to your own people. That's the way the Lord does it all the time. Now, you listen to me. Uh, you understand, I'm for giving out tax. I'm not for giving out tax as an excuse for not winning sold personally. I am for foreign missions. I am not for foreign missions as an excuse for not doing the one main thing, the folks next door. Now, God, the light that doesn't shine bright at home won't shine very far anywhere, and you'd better get that settled. Now, some people have an idea. Think an ocean voyage will make you a wonderful salt winner over in Africa. No, it won't. If you don't win colored people in this country, you won't win them in Africa. No. If you don't win your own folks, you won't win anybody else much. You know, one of the tragic things, and I think it's one of the best evidences, is that God doesn't call women to be preachers and leaders and so on. I've seen all over America women preachers that had unsaved husbands and godless children going to the devil. Now, God don't, a good woman said to R.A. Torrey one time, oh, she said, Dr. Torrey, I'm called to preach. I'm going to be an evangelist. You were called to preach? Yes. He said, well, I said, he said, aren't you? Oh, yes. She said, I've got a husband, eight children. Well, fine, Dr. Torrey, since you're got your congregation, go home and start. Listen now, God's plan is you better win the folks next to you. So here it is with this man here, and you must go. Joshua said, it's for me and my house we'll serve the Lord. God said, Abraham, I know him. He'll command his sons after me. That's where you start with your own. You see that? You remember to the jailer, Paul and Silas said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and the same thing for your family. And the next four verses, every four verses, said, preach the gospel to him and all that is in the house, and believe in God with all his house, and baptize straightway, he and all his. That's the Bible plan. Rejoice, believing in God with all his house. That's the Bible plan. You get your own saved. I have little confidence in the kind of Christianity that don't work at your house, and don't work with the people you know next door, and the people in school with you. You better get that down settled. You talk about revival. I'll tell you when you'll have a wonderful revival. When this crowd right here, you just set out to get your own folks saved. There's some of you that ought never to eat another meal till you go to that dad or mother or that brother or sister, or till you call them long distance and cry and pray and beg them to be saved, or tell them I've got to come home and get it. If you don't get that crowd saved, you're no good to anybody else much. You're a watchman of the house of Israel, your house of Israel, your own little crowd, your Jerusalem, that's right. Some people, they use a term that's quoted three times in the book of Romans, to the Jew first. So they said, and I saw an ad the other day by my good friend, I'm on the board of Brother Gartenhouse and Jewish Missions, and I'm for Jewish Missions just like I'm for winning Gentiles and Jews and high school youngsters and children and drunkards and harlots and Catholics and Jehovah's Witnesses and so on, the whole business, not an exclusive group. But an ad the other day said, God's command to the Jew first. No, it isn't. God's statement to the Jew first. God stating that chronologically, that's the way it came. It's not a command you ought to put the Jew first. You ought to put Gentiles first if you're a Gentile. You ought to put the folks in Winston-Salem first if you live in Winston-Salem. If I live in Murfreesboro, I ought to put Murfreesboro first. That's God's plan. And Brother Parker, if you don't win, if you can't win Penny and if you can't win John, you're a born girl, then brother, you're in hard business running out here as the baddest of the toll over the country. God's plan is you win your own. That's where you better start. Also, as he said, go to your own. And let's see then, note the spiritual conditions for real soul winning work here. He said, I ate that book he gave me, and in bitterness of soul, he said, I went. And I sat where they sat for seven days, and I was astonished with it. You know, if you don't enter into the burden and the sorrows and the tragedy and the emptiness and frustration and temptation, if you don't enter into all the sad state of the poor fallen lost sinners, you can't be much good. I don't know if people cry to win souls. Can't they talk to win souls? Okay, go out and hang a safe and don't even shake hands. Don't find a man's name. Don't learn what is married. Don't care. I don't care what about his children. You don't give a who. Well, you can't win it about that way. You know, the heat that goes forth and weakness. Did you know love has a wonderful thing? Nobody gets enough love. Nobody gets enough of that. You know that? I suppose you just, you listen to my broadcast. You say, brother, your girls sure do sing sweet. You come around and see if I spit on you. That don't sound bad at all to me. You know that? Nobody gets enough love and appreciation. And you can go, you can go to the most, to the most ardent Orthodox Jew or to the most devoted Catholic and you can go to the craziest Jehovah Witness. But let me tell you, if you get right down where you love him and his family and you want him to be blessed and you care about his burdens, nobody gets enough of that. Ah, there's an old saying I used to teach my little girls. Hearts like doors open these to their, their little keys and don't forget the two of these are thank you, sir, and if you please. Well, that's another way of saying that hearts open up when you really care and there's compassion and burden and, and a sweet sympathy. You know, oh, we do need that. We do need that. Ah, Dr. Jack Hiles tells about a little girl who told him, she was a little girl, came in long dresses, hand-me-down dresses and, and tennis shoes and, and, and son of school and sometimes dirty face and her mother's a harlot and works at a bar and her father's gone and, and so on. And she said, came one day and said, Dr. Hiles, I'm going away and you're my best friend. He said, I'm sorry. And she said, he said, well, she said, Dr., Mr. Hiles, he said, Mr. Brother Hiles, she called him, said, I'm, I'm not going to be here anymore. I'm moving away. Well, he said, I told you, I'm sorry. I'm going to miss you. And finally she said, well, ain't you going to cry? And then he said, yes, I'm going to cry. And he did cry. Now, don't you think you better get into this business of feeling like lost people feel and seeing their poor lost country. I find a lot of lost people, they despise, a lot of Christian people, they despise lost people. We're driving past in Dallas, Texas, driving by a great, uh, the baseball, uh, uh, stadium there and someone said, yeah, they had a crazy advance to come out to a baseball game and I can't come, come hear me preach. Well, I said, if you had as much done as they got, you might get somebody here to hear you preach. But I do not, why should I despise the fellow that wants a little amusement? I don't go to baseball games much. I don't see anything special wrong about it, but that's not the point. Oh, the restless like sheep, having no shepherd. No wonder Jesus looked on them and they were the multitude. He was moved to compassion. I hear that with bitterness of soul. Ezekiel sits where they sit and is astonished with them before he has a message. I'll tell you, we sure need somebody to get learned to weep. We need somebody who there's too much seed sown and never does rain on it. It doesn't sprout. There's too much gospel work done and we can turn from this wicked way and live and you seek not to warn him, he'll die in his sins. You mean everyone that isn't warned will die in his sins? That's right. That's right. That's right. You listen to this. God has no way of saving sinners except through Christians. Hear me now. God never saves a single lost person in the world who doesn't hear the gospel some way from somebody. Don't you remember in Romans chapter 10, the scripture said, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's fine. But the next verse 14, 10, 14 says, How shall I call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall I believe on him? Without a proclaimer, not mean formal pulpit preaching, but without somebody to herald it and tell it. How can I call on anybody I haven't believed in? If they don't know there's a Savior who died for sinners, and now they're going to believe on him till they never hear about him. And now they're going to hear about it unless somebody tells it. That's it. If you don't tell people how to be saved, then they're going to hell. Somebody, you know, in Luke 11, Jesus talks about praying for bread for sinners. He said, A friend of mine this year has come to me. I don't know if it was said before him. A friend has come to me. There's somebody you can win. That's very likely. As far as we humanly know, nobody else can. And as far as we can humanly judge, if you don't win him, he's going to hell. A friend of mine has come to me. See that? A certain amount of major watchmen, if a watchman don't holler, if a watchman doesn't warn, you've got blood in your hands because there's no other way for them to hear it. No other way. You remember the case of Cornelius? He was a devout man. He was not a Christian, but he wanted to be. He was what we call a God-fearing man. He prayed every day. He fasted and prayed. He gave alms. He did all he knew. And an angel of God came down and said, Oh, fellow, I said, You want to be saved, don't you? Oh, yes, I sure do. Well, he said, I can't tell you. You've got to get some of them saved, haven't you? I can't tell you, but the Lord told me I could tell you where to find somebody. You send over to Joppa, to the house of Simon the Tanner, and there you can, he'll tell you whereby you and all your house can be saved. So Peter came back and told him how to be saved. It's an interesting thing that he let the cat out of the bag. Peter started to make a long sermon. He said, Good night, these old heathen. I've got preaching up to Jews, but a Gentile never heard. He told him how to be saved in the first of the message, and that broke up the meeting. That's just all his way across. God couldn't save Cornelius without Peter. God couldn't save that household unless somebody told Him. An angel wouldn't do. God had to send somebody. Here's the case of that Ethiopian eunuch. He's going down from Jerusalem to Gaza. He's got the Bible, and he read the Bible, and the Lord said, Philip, you go down there. He said, go ahead now, and Philip ran. I sure like propeller run when God says go. I think God does too. God let a lot more people wear the soldiers. You ran instead of fighting back and arguing with God, and so he ran drawing near. And so he said, he heard a fellow reading. He led like a lamb to the slaughter, and so on. And he said, you understand what you're reading? And the man said, sadly, he's a government official. He's treasurer of the nation down in Ethiopia. But he said, how can I unless some man should guide me? How can a lost man understand even the Bible unless somebody tells him? You see? That's God's plan. Now, if you don't win with somebody, God has no other way to do it except somebody tell him, and people go into hell. Now, here's another word. And so the Lord says, you've got blood on your hands. Yes, you can. You deliver your soul. But if you don't speak to one of them, you've got blood on your hands. What do you mean, blood on your hands? That means that there's coming a judgment seat of Christ, and you're going to give an account for that. You know that? Oh, he said, my sins are the blood. They're under the blood, but we must still all stand before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the things done in the body, whether they be good or bad. And Paul says, non-judgmental, law-centered, the judgment of Christians, knowing the care of the Lord, we persuade men, Paul said. Our judgment seat, blood on your hands. Did you read back down a few months ago in Harlem, New York, about a girl, Kitty Genoese, and she stood out on the sidewalk, and a fella came along, and she'd been dating. And I ran and called it to a drill and a knife and stabbed it. And it stabbed her two, three times, and she cried and screamed, and she went away, and he, she fell down there. He went away, and after a little later, came back and finished the job. And forty-eight people, I believe it was, that looked out the windows, or were nearby and saw it, and heard her, and didn't call the police, and didn't interfere, and let her go on kill that man. It wasn't their business, was it? Just like it's not your business, but it's your neighbor's going to hell, is it? Yeah, that's just like King, wasn't it, when he killed Abel, said, am I my brother's keeper? So you bloody murderer too. Yeah, yeah. Don't you think everybody that didn't interfere, and didn't call the police, and didn't want to be involved, and all that, they were guilty of the blood of that girl, got stabbed? Don't you think so? Yeah, just like you are guilty about people around you dying, go to hell. Ah, yes, and blood on your hands, blood on your hands. And I remember, and I remember in, I was in a meeting in Rosewood, Oklahoma, big tent meeting, but a blessed meeting, had a lot of people saved. We had four hundred professionals of faith in three weeks and three days. One night, among the crowd came by, and here I had all great crowd of converts, and people came to shake their hands, and I was watching, seeing if anybody could help, and there came a long girl, and cried her through there, and didn't speak good, and she sat down, and I said, she came to me, and I said, are you saved? She said, no, I'm not saved, but she said, I want to talk about my mother. I said, well, wait a minute, what about you? No, she said, my mother, my mother's sick, the doctor said she won't live long, and she's wanting to get saved, and she doesn't know how. Will you come to see my mother? Yes, I said, I'll come, where do you live? She said, out this, um, out the highway west, they said the first white house on the left, the other side of the Danish schoolhouse, in the strange, I remember the very terms, and I said, yes, I'll go, but the next day, they had a bachelor's association meeting, and I was invited to speak, and I had to speak in the revival campaign, and went to the association, and one, two boys up there, I was busy, busy, didn't get there. Next morning, I came, and I had the service, and in the morning service, under the tent, man came, called out the pastor, after service was over, he said to me, he said, you know what that man wanted? No, he wanted to make arrangements for the funeral of the woman we didn't get to see. She was wanting to be saved, and begging somebody to tell her, and sent her lost daughter to ask somebody to tell her, and I didn't go. Oh, I know I was busy, but I shouldn't have been. In Dallas, Texas, I pre-won in 1932, and had daily radio broadcast, and started a big open-air revival campaign. Out of that revival campaign, grew what's now the Galilean Baptist Church, and grew to 1,700 members, and thousands were saved, but in the midst of that campaign, I helped build benches, and helped give out circulars, and preached daily on the radio, and I led the singing, and did the preaching, and worked day and night, and I got a letter from a man, a card, just a card, a government postcard from a man. He said, dear Brother Rice, I hear you every day on the radio. He said, I can understand your kind of preaching. He said, Brother Rice, I'm 80 years old. He said, I have a cancer. A doctor says I won't live very long. He said, you come and pray for me so I get ready to die. I'm not ready to die. I put that card up on the desk, and I said, I'm going tomorrow to see that fellow, but I was busy, busy, busy, and I didn't get to it. And another day, and another day, and another day, and that card sat there and accused me, and one day I called in a preacher boy, and I said, here, Neil, you take this address. Here's Carpenter. You go downtown Dallas, and change the South Dallas car, and get off a certain street, and go down here. You see this man, knock on that door, and you see that man, make sure he's ready to die before you leave, and come back and report. All right, Brother Rice. And so he went downtown, changed cars, South Dallas street car, changed cars, went down, knocked on the door, knocked, knocked. Nobody answered. Knocked, and knocked. Went out the side door, and knocked. Nobody answered. Later next door, raised the window, said, any words you want to give him? He said, no, no, no word to give him. Thank you. He came home, said, Brother Rice, we're too late. Man died yesterday. Now, I was doing all I could to win souls. I, Jesus brings it up and says, why didn't you go? What am I going to say? I wish now I hadn't, I wish I'd lost my night's sleep over it. I wish now I just missed two, three meals. I wish now I'd done anything necessary. See, blood on your hands. Now, you listen to me. You say, oh, I'm glad to see Jesus. Now, some of you are going to be scared to death. Some of you are going to look into those eyes and find them stern and sad. Paul said, that's why I work so hard, so I'm going to be acceptable to him. So the laborer said, so the weather present ramps up, we may be. Well, Paul, I should say, oh yes, yes, I know, but I've got so much to do. I know the terror of the Lord. We've got to meet that judgment. You've got to meet that judgment. You have. You know that? Blood on your hands. And about Christians, Dr. Bart, you well said last night, and I'm glad you stressed that too, that sometimes Christians, they aren't good. And that's the far word. I knew four men in Dallas. I know a good many people that God killed because they got into sin and worldliness and lost out. And you've got blood on your hands about them. They won't go to hell but to death and the breakup of a home and ruin of many a life. If a preacher doesn't warn against sin, you've got blood on your hands if you don't. Well, some of us, everything a preacher ought to have policy message. You don't find that kind of talk in the Bible. The Bible says God is love and says our gods are consuming fire. Better preach both of it. Bible preaches heaven but also preaches hell. You better put both in there. You know that? Bible says believe but also says repent. You better put that in there and repentance first. More law than there's grace in the Bible. Better have both of them. Blood on your hands. You that have love to share, I must let you go. I wonder how many here, don't you feel accountable for a brother or sister that's lost? Don't you feel accountable for your own mother and dad that are lost? Down at Lake Louise, I mean down at Bill Rice Ranch, I preached on soul wing. Dr. Hiles did. My good friend Bud Lyles got a burden on his heart, his own mother. As far as he knows, his father died unsaved and his mother was unsaved. And so he got vacation, got in his car and drove up to Binghamton, New York. And he greeted his mother and he said, now mother, you come in here in this room with me. And she did. And he said, now mother, listen, now you sit here this time, I'm going to have to know because you're getting old. And so she didn't know it, but he knew she had a cancer then. And he took the Bible and went into it step by step. And his mother said, yes, and she did. In six months she was gone. You better do something about it. You're going to have blood on your hands and answer to God and it'll be an angry God. God gets angry with his children. He chastens every son he receives. You're going to answer for your loved ones. You know that? Let's bow our heads please for a moment. How many said, I have somebody I ought to win. Oh, at least I ought to warn them and get the blood off my hands. At least I ought to weep over them and sit where they sit and have bitterness of soul and sit astonished over it. And I ought to do all I can do to get some particular person saved. You got somebody you know God's put in your heart. If it's not on your heart, it's not God's fault, it's your fault. How many said somebody like that, I ought to win. Let's see your hand. You're thinking of them now? Are you? Yes, yes, thank you. All right, hands down. Now wait. How many say, well, God help me, I'll do something about it today. Or I'll do something about it, we'll say this week. God give me grace, I will. I'll take that responsibility. I beg God to help me and I'll try to find what to do. How many said, God help me, I will. Let's see your hand. This week. Will you do that? Yes, God give us grace. Thank you, Lord. Make us soul winners, we pray. Bless the conference, bless Dr. Parker now in this next service. And bless these students and the teachers and their classes. Oh, let a holy hush and a holy awe of God rest upon all these buildings and people. And oh God, surely you ought to start a fire in somebody's heart that'll never go out of passion for souls. Make it so. Lord, will you let me hear in the next few days about many people saved through the work of thus, who here today and who set out to do what we ought to do. In Jesus name. Amen.