In this sermon, the speaker shares a personal story about his son Jimmy. After returning from a missionary tour, Jimmy eagerly accompanies his father on a walk, indicating that something important is on his mind. The speaker then recounts how a woman named Mrs. Corticab organized a generous donation of clothing, beds, and food for a family in need. The speaker emphasizes the importance of being a witness and sharing personal experiences of encountering God's grace and salvation.

I want you to see it. Can I put this down a little? Is that be alright? Thank you. I always ask if it's alright after I've done it. That's why. Now I want you to listen very closely. I am going to read this. And I think it's the responsibility of the congregation to check whether the one who is reading the scripture reads it accurately. Now I have to confess that I am very old fashioned and I only use the authorized version. I don't know why the others aren't authorized but this is called the authorized version. King James. Listen carefully now while I read it. But ye shall receive power. After that the Holy Ghost is come upon you. And you shall be witnesses unto me either in Jerusalem or in Judea or in Samaria or unto the uttermost part of the earth. Satisfied? No. You're not. How strange. That's the way we live it. Why shouldn't we read it the way we live it if we aren't going to live it the way it is to be read? Good question. Deserves an answer. I suppose you could say the King James translators were in error when they put it in the way it is in the text. Not the way I read it. The fact of the matter is they translated it correctly. And as your versions, whatever you have will confirm. Now you listen again. But ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Now when I go to some companies of believers, I have to emphasize the and unto the uttermost part of the earth. But when I'm home with my own alliance family, I have to emphasize in Jerusalem, both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria. We have a great view and vision and burden for the uttermost part of the earth. But perhaps we have myopia when it comes to the Jerusalem and the Judea and the Samaria. But perhaps the problem is we don't know the difference between both and and either or. That might explain it. We just don't know. Now our little son, who is no longer little, still our son. Our son Jimmy, when he was four, met me when I came back to our home then in Chattanooga, Tennessee, after about a five week missionary tour. I was in missionary conferences. And Jimmy glued himself to me like my shadow. He got everywhere I went. I picked up something. He carried it in. He tried to carry it in every place I went. I knew something was up. I didn't know what it was. After we'd gotten all the car emptied and everything put away, and I said, Well, Jim, it's good to see you, son. He looked at me and smiled a cherubic smile and said, Daddy, let's go for a walk. Now what father who's been away from his children for five weeks is going to turn down an offer to go for a walk with a four year old? He'll go for a walk, but he'll be a little suspicious. Because it hasn't happened that way before. So I said, Well, Jim, why don't we walk? Now we'd have gone out the driveway. There was a hill. We could have gone around the hill and come back to the front of the house. Nice walk. Or we could go down the front and go around the hill. Nice walk. Either way. I said, Which way, Jim? And he thought for a minute and he said, Let's go this way, which was down the hill. Now when we got to the bottom of the steps, there were about 18 steps down to the road, a little side hill. I said, Now which way? Right would have been up around and come back to our driveway. And left would have been down about 100 yards to Brainerd Road, going under Missionary Ridge. And Jim thought for a moment and he said, Let's go this way. Well, this way was down toward the stoplight in Brainerd Road. And we got down to the stoplight, down to the corner. Now we either had to go right, which would have been right up into the tunnel, or left down to the shopping center or across the street. I said, Now which way, Jim? He said, Let's cross the street. But you can't go now, Danny. The lights got to be right. He explained to me about how you cross the street with a red light and a green light. So I said, Can we go now? He said, Yeah, we can go now. So we crossed the street. Well, now we could either go to the right, which was to the tunnel, or we could go to the left, which was to the shopping shops. He said, Well, which way, Jim? Let's go this way. And we got half, just half, to get down in front of the drugstore. And he looked up at me with a cherubic smile. And he said, Daddy, can I have an ice cream cone? Oh, boy. I knew I'd been conned by an expert. He wanted to walk, all right. Yeah. He wanted to be with Dad. Sure. All right. Tell me about it. So we got into the drugstore, and it wasn't air-conditioned in those days. The door was open. And those clever proprietors put the Hershey's in little cellophane bags down low so little four-year-olds could get them. And so he came over, and he said, Daddy, can I have this candy, too? Because he knew with that bag of chocolates, he could trade his brother out of his birthright. His older brother. Well, I'd ordered the ice cream cone, told her to put it in deep, because he was a roller. He flipped this, and, Hank, screw it down. Get it in. And by this time, I had taken the candy from him, and I had the ice cream in my hand. And I'm holding it out, and I said, Jimmy, you can have either the ice cream or the candy. And my little four-year-old looked at that ice cream. Boy, he wanted that. I don't know how many days he'd been planning on that walk. But that candy, he knew what he could get from his brother with that. So he looked at the ice cream, and he looked at the candy. Either or. Either or. Just then, a drop of melted ice cream hit the back of my hand. When you're licked, you better do it with good grace, huh, when you've been conned that far. And so I smiled, a parental smile. It wasn't really all that sincere. And I said, Jimmy, just this once, you can have both. His face lighted up like the sun in the morning. His little hands reached out. In one hand he took that coveted chocolate, and in the other he started to work on that ice cream cone. Because he knew the difference between either or and both and. How strange it is the church has never learned it. Four-year-old child knows. But the church seems to have had trouble learning it. Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both. Oh, of course, we tend to forget that he said, you shall receive power. After that, the Holy Ghost has come upon you. Now, when the King James translators were translating that verse, in Luke that tells us about the woman who had the issue of blood, who said, if I can touch the hem of his garment, I'll be healed. And you recall what happened, don't you? She went down the path and she waited there. And when he came by, the hem of his garment just went right through her finger, first finger and thumb. And that's all she needed. And the Lord Jesus stopped and he said, somebody touched me. And I can hear the disciples say, what do you mean, Lord? Look at all these hands out here, trying to shake your hand, trying to pat you, trying to touch you. Sure, they touch you. And I can hear the Lord say, it's not recorded. Those people were jostling me. Someone touched me in faith. For I perceive that the King James translators had a problem with that. And you know what they said? I perceive that virtue went out of me. Well, he has virtue, but us, it's a little different. Here in Acts 1.8, he said, ye shall receive power. But did you know that the word virtue is identically the same word as power? So what the Lord Jesus said was this. That after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. You are going to receive what went out of me to heal the woman. You're going to receive power. Sustained. Mind. And Paul writing to the church in Ephesus said that you might know what is the exceeding greatness of his power. To us were to believe according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ. But he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies. Far above all principality and power and might and dominion in every name that is named. That's the power that we receive now. And the light of that, in the light of that fullness of Christ himself. In the believer, living his life through the believer. Now the Lord Jesus can say, ye shall be witnesses unto me. Both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Because it's not to be accomplished by our warmed over enthusiasm and our natural ability and talent and training. But it's to be done by him living his life through us. That's the message this society has had. Christ liveth in me, Christ liveth in me. Oh, what a salvation this. Christ liveth in me. And though he said, you'll receive power. After that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. And you'll be witnesses unto me. Many years ago, when I was pastor in New York City, the Gospel Tabernacle Church. There broke out in our country something called the Charismatic Movement. And some of my friends came to me and said, what do you think of that? Are you going to be any part of that? Well, I said, I'm watching very carefully. My understanding of the Scripture is that after that the Holy Ghost comes upon people. They are witnesses. And I want to see whether that's taking place. In all the years I was in New York and the years since, I've had no active part in that movement in any way. Because I failed to find that it had that one hallmark of scriptural reality. Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and Judea. I found people many times were very eager to play parlor games with the supernatural. And not nearly so eager to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. And so I waited. Because that to my mind is the hallmark of genuineness. You say you know the Lord. Then I want to know your witness for the Lord. And He wants to know it. But of course there's another problem. That problem is this. What do we mean by witness? What do we mean by witness? Somewhere in the past, someone. I don't know who it is. I wish I could find him. He's long gone. He's been straightened out by this time I'm sure. But somewhere along the line, someone confused witnessing with soul winning. Now witness is a very clear word right here. But do you know where you have to go to find out the word soul winning? You got to go back to the Proverbs. And there you find that Solomon is saying, He that winneth souls is wise. Well, that's a Dale Carnegie concept that the writer of the Proverbs is giving. If you're going to get people to work with you and cooperate with you and help you, you got to be smart. You got to have wisdom. And it has nothing to do with the new birth. It isn't in the context of being brought out of death into life. But somehow or other we got that. And I remember in Bible school I was given a course on soul winning personal work. And the net effect of that was how to become a good salesman, how to sell Jesus to unwilling customers. Boy, that scared the liver out of me. You know why? Because I was successful at it. That's why. I could take a handful of nickels on Saturday and get as many converts as I had nickels. But they amounted just about the same amount to. That's about all they were. They'd done nothing but try to. I was with Ken Frazier at the great Carnegie Hall Missionary Conference of North Side Alliance there in Pittsburgh. I was staying in the hotel where they put me. And there was a group of businessmen, Christian businessmen, that came into town. I was the last one off the elevator. And I don't know why the elevator operator turned to me, but she said, Boy, am I glad to get rid of them. And I said, They're the so-and-so. And she described the organization that was there. She looked at me and said, You know, I've been saved three times today. And what do you mean? She said, These guys go away from home. I suppose they're afraid to talk to anybody in their own hometown. But when they get to Pittsburgh, they think that the waitresses in the restaurant and the elevators of the operator are fair game. At first I told them to mind their own business, and they got mad and told the manager I was rude. And the manager came to me and said, I know how you feel. The thing to do is just say yes, yes, yes, yes. And it won't take them very long, because then they'll leave you alone. So she said, I've been yes, yes, yes, yes three times today. Why? What's the matter with these people? Well, I muttered a little something and walked on. She didn't need much from me. She just needed something to leave her alone for a little while. But you see, they were, quote, soulers. They were trying to make sales. And Christ didn't say that. He said, Ye shall be witnesses unto me. Do you know the difference? A witness is a person who tells what he has seen and what he has heard and what he's experienced. And if it's anything more than that, it's hearsay and it's inadmissible in any court of law and anybody you're talking to. You can't be a witness unless you heard it, unless you saw it, unless you experienced it. Have you heard God in His holiness thunder the soul, that sinner that shall surely die? Have you seen yourself as that sinner under the sentence of death? I asked a company of people, about a hundred, How many of you are saved? Every hand went up. And I said, How many of you have ever been lost? And four hands went up. And I said, What an astonishing thing. He came to seek and to save that which is lost. Four of you admit to being lost, and all of you claim to be saved. How did it happen? Tell me about it. He only saves lost people. Have you ever seen yourself as lost? Have you ever stood with the public and down before the gate of the temple, crying out, God be merciful to me, a sinner? Have you ever been convicted of your sin? Have you? Well, you've got something to witness to then. You saw the holiness of God, and you saw the sinfulness of your own heart. Have you ever seen God in love sending His Son, and His Son in love reaching out to you to die your death, to satisfy the law on your behalf, to vindicate the holiness of God, and make it possible for God to be just, and the justifier of him that would believe in Jesus. Have you ever seen Christ dying for you? If you've seen that, then you've got something you can witness to. You saw it. Did you ever come in brokenness and in repentance, throwing down the arms of your warfare, suing for peace? God be merciful to me, a sinner. Receive Christ as your Lord and Savior, trusting His finished work in your behalf. Have you had the witness of God's Spirit to your heart, whereby you cry, Abba, Father? If so, you've got something to witness to. You can tell what you've seen, and what you've heard, and what you've experienced, and that's not hard. You know why it's not hard? Because you are the world's greatest expert on you. Nobody in the world can contradict what you saw, and you heard, and you experienced. You're the world's greatest expert. You were there. You saw it. Like that blind man. They came to him and said, denounce him, renounce him, all this about him. He said, I don't know what you fellas are talking about. I know one thing. I was blind, and now I see. Now that's witness. That's witness. That's what a witness is to do. He's to tell what he's seen, and what he's heard, and what he's experienced. And they probably won't like it anymore now than they did with Stephen. Stephen was a witness, you remember? There on the Sadducees, gathered around Stephen, and Stephen says, I see Jesus standing on the right hand of the throne of God. And Sadducees said, kill him, because they didn't believe in the resurrection. They didn't believe there was a resurrection. They couldn't leave in Jerusalem, in Judea, a person who had seen Christ alive from the dead, on the right hand of God, because that proved he was God. That proved what they had was heresy. So they said, kill him, even though it was illegal, contrary to the laws of Rome. But Stephen was a witness, and the word witness became associated with the word martyros. That's the meaning it got. Somebody who tells what he's seen, even if he dies for having told it. That's a witness. That's what he said, you'll be his witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem. Now how can this be? How is this ever going to be accomplished? I guess the best thing for you to do in order to get satisfied on that point, I hope you're unsatisfied now, is to go over to Romans chapter 4. How in the world can we ever be witnesses both in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, the outermost part of the earth? Why would Christ have said it that particular time? Well, do you remember the promise that was made to Abraham when God spoke to him there in Ur of the Chaldees? Have you ever thought much about Abraham? Here is a fellow out in the field tending his flocks and his herbs, and some God who comes along and says he's the one who made the world, and they don't even know about it in Chaldea. And this God talks to him, and he says, if you will get up and leave your family, your kindred, all your relatives, and go with me, I'll take you to a land that you've heard about but never seen, and I'll make of you a great nation. He's 75 years old when that happens. And can you imagine what happens when he goes in and he says, Sarah, today out in the field, I heard a voice. Well, I told you not to eat cheesecake before you go to sleep. Every time you do, you hear voices. No, that's not it. I heard a voice. Who was it that talked to you? Well, it was God. God? What God? We've got lots of Gods. No, it's the God who made Heaven and Earth. He tells me about it. Well, he said that I am to leave Ur of the Chaldees. You're going to leave? Why, Mr. Abram, you're the big, big wheel in this little place. You're going to leave? Your future's bright. You're rich. We've got everything. Why leave? Well, this God told me, oh, this God again. He told me, well, will you take our family? No. Well, we're certainly going to take my father. Well, finally, finally, you know, when Sarah was courted by Abram, everybody thought that she had the catch of the year. But now, you ought to hear what the women say. Well, Abram, we've always known there was a fanatical bone in Abram's body. He's this thing, a hero and a god out there that tells you to go someplace. There are already people living in that land. He's 75 and you're 65 and you've never had a child. Well, nonsense. But they went. They spent six years up there until her father died. They couldn't go on until the old man was dead. That's what a lot of us do. We don't get very far until that happens. And then he got over there and he looked at the people that occupied the land. He said, boy, you better say something to me again because this is getting kind of dim. And God came down and He said, look, you kill an animal and you lay half of it on one side and half on the other and I'll come down and I'll walk through that animal and that animal will be consumed and I will ratify the promise I've made to you that in thee and in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed. And at midnight a deep sleep comes upon Abram and God walks through the slain beast and swore by Himself because He could swear by no higher that in Abraham and in Abraham's seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed. And then in due course God, twenty-five years after Abraham heard Him, twenty-five years of waiting on the Lord, only case it was any longer of waiting for a promise was David who was anointed to be king in the place of Saul thirty-eight years before he became king. Now listen, when you read that verse it says, they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, bound up with King Wings' Eagle, run and not be weary, walk and not faint. I'll tell you the hard part. It's waiting on the Lord till His time comes. We usually have to take things in our own hands. We can't wait for God. Abram waited. Oh, he didn't wait. Now he got into trouble. There's Ishmael. And do you know who it was that took Jacob's son and bought him from his brothers? It was the Ishmaelites. One of the Ishmael's boys was Midianite. It was the Midianites that bought Joseph. So Abraham had some problems. But finally, Isaac is born. And then after a little while it becomes clear that Abraham is trusting in the promise and he's not trusting in God. And so God says, Abraham, take Isaac and slay him. By this time, Abraham knew the voice of God. He said, alright Lord, but let me go the way I want to go. Now you see, Abraham could have gotten up about 5 in the morning, gone from where they were camped up to where he was to sacrifice Isaac and gotten back for a late supper that night. He could have. That's how close he was. But you know what he did? He went one day east and one day south and then one day west. He wanted a little time with Isaac. He had to pray this thing through. And they came to the foot of the mountain and the servant was with him and he said, well now this is where we're going to make the sacrifice. And I want you to hear this because this is the father of those that believe. And Abraham said, you stay here. You stay here. The lad and I will go and sacrifice to my God. Now listen. And we will come again to you. We will come. Oh, he knew what he had to do. He knew he had to plunge Isaac. He knew he had to light a fire that would consume his body. He said, in thee and in thy seed shall all nations of the earth and God who could swear by no other, swore by himself, so it shall be. And he said to the servant, wait. We will come again to you. If you don't feel a hallelujah, you ought to say one just to keep in practice. To think he had a resurrection faith. Now that's the Abraham we read about in Romans 4. I want you to understand that. Verse 13, For the promise that he should be heir of the world, not to Abraham, but to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made thee a faith father of many nations. And you that have through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ have been born into the family of God, have been made an heir to the promise that God made to Abraham in thee and in thy seed. Not only physical seed, not only the seed of the law, but the seed of faith in such a way. And the promise therefore is that in his seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed. And everyone that is born of God through faith in Christ is an heir to the promise made to Abraham and has a worldwide ministry offered to them. That's why Christ, taking leave, the one who walked between the parts of the animal there and made the promise and sealed it by his own name, that same Jesus says to that company, After that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto the honorables part of the earth. Worldwide ministry for Christ is the birthright of every believer. When I became deputation secretary for the Sudan Interior Mission, my mentor and teacher to help me get started was Harold B. Street from Minneapolis. Harold was a man of God. Been a missionary, he and his wife in Ethiopia. And I traveled some weeks with Harold in conferences, learning how he did it. Not to do it just that way, but to know at least how he had done it and learn as much as I could. And in the course of that he told about an experience. He said that in George, Iowa, was a family of farmers known as Cordicamps, Mr. and Mrs. Cordicamp. They had 160 acres of some of the finest corn land in America there out of George, Iowa. It was great land. They grew great crops. They were successful farmers. And then they had an opportunity to sell it in one of those high periods of time for about $1,000 an acre, which at that time would be the same as $3,000 or $4,000 now. And they sold it. They moved into George. They bought a nice house on an elm-shaded street, put their money out with their banker, and told him to make the best and safest investment for them because they were going to retire. And he came to them and told them how he had disposed, how he had invested their money, and they were satisfied, and he was satisfied. They went to bed one night quite wealthy for George, Iowa standards, and they awakened the next morning broke. The banker had put all of their money into Samuel Insull, insured stocks and bonds, a fraud, and millions of American people had everything taken from them by Samuel Insull. Mr. Cordicamp went to bed that day and the shock of it was too much. Six weeks later he died. Mrs. Cordicamp didn't have that luxury. She had to take care of Mr. Cordicamp. There was left in their checking account about $1,500. They had owned the house free and clear. There was absolutely no mortgage on it. She knew she had to have income, and so she went to the school board and said they knew the tragedy, knew what had happened, and said she wanted to take in teachers if there were some that were interested. She'd give them a board and room, and she moved down to a room, a little sunroom, and she partitioned it off with a hanging curtain, and that was her bedroom, and she had the dining room and living room basically for her boarders, and she fixed the meals for them and kept the house for them, and she had three teachers there that stayed with her, and she lived adequately. Hal Street had a conference over at Spirit Lake near George, and Mrs. Cordicamp got one of the copies of the announcement and invitation, and she decided to go. At the end of the week she came to Hal. She said, You've been telling about the fact, and it was true then, that for $5,000 we can build a station that will give the gospel to 500,000 people who've had no contact with the message of Christ. Mr. Street, I'm going to go home, back home. I'm going to put my house up for sale, and I'm going to sell the house, and I'm going to send you $5,000. I must have fruit for the glory of God out of Nigeria. He said, You can't do that. This is your living, Mrs. Cordicamp. He'd come to know her. She said, Mr. Street, you serve the Lord, and if God tells me to sell my house, to build a station, and to send the money to you, you are an honorable servant of God, and you will do what you're supposed to do. Thank you. And she turned and walked away. About three months later, Hal got a check for $5,000, and the letter said, And isn't it just like the Lord? Here I've got not only my house sold and the money for the station, but the Oak Hills Fellowship in Bemidji, Minnesota, have needed a laundress, and I'm going to go up and be a laundress and help the missionaries. Well, she went up and she was that. Three years later, she came back down to Spirit Lake for the conference, and she came to Hal Street, and she said, I'm like Sapphire. I kept back part of the price in case I got sick, and I'm going to send you a check for $2,500. Oh, you can't. She said, No, we've gone through that. We've gone through that. You just do what I tell you, so I'll recognize you. Out in the Sudan, Howard Borlas and I had come on the Yaboos area, and three little tribes that never had the gospel. He sent a letter back to New York saying we've got to have $2,500 to build two small houses and a storeroom so we can have two missionary couples for just a few years to establish the gospel here. By return mail, we got a letter saying this is a gift from Mrs. Kortekamp. Nothing more. Well, I was in New Jersey, and I told the people what I've told you, and when I finished, a man, a very dignified man came down and stood in front of me. He said, Mr. Redead, you only knew part of the story. I said, Tell me the rest. He said, I'm from Oak Hills Fellowship. His voice broke. He said, I'm the director there. We have quite a staff, and we have Mrs. Kortekamp. And he said, you know in our area we have the Jack Pine Savages. That's the families that try to make their living off of blueberries and wild deer. Well, once in a while, the husband has to get money. He'd go to the Twin Cities and try to get enough money to keep his family off, and he doesn't get work. He said, we got a message in about one family. Husband was in the Twin Cities, hadn't had work. Mother was sick. Children were sick, and no money. In those days, there was no welfare. It was all from the people of God, where it ought to be. And he said, we got the message. And the message got to Mrs. Kortekamp. And so she found out the ages of the children, whether they're boys or girls. And she put aside boxes of clothing, and then she found out how many beds there had. She put in clean sheets, clean blankets, clean pillows, clean pillowcases. Then she went to the kitchen, and she got a big thermos canister of hot soup and another of stew, and then bread, and all the food. And then she came to me and said, please, have somebody drive me out. This afternoon, it was Friday, she'd finished her lunch, and pick me up Monday evening. So there wasn't anybody there but me. I drove her out. I helped her carry things into the house. It was squalid. It was filthy. It was dirty. The mother was sick. The children were sick. Several of them. She said, will you be sure to come back for me Monday because I've got all the laundry to do. She went in first. She bathed the mother, gave her clean night clothes, changed the bed. And she bathed the children, gave them clean clothes. And then she served warm soup meal. And then she scrubbed the floor, cleaned the house. And when she'd finished this, she sat down, she told me, by the bed, got the children out. She said, now, I'm not a missionary. I'm a laundress. But I want to tell you who Jesus is. And what he's done for me. This tall, dignified man wrote it. Tears running down his cheek. Said, Brother Adam, she said, she says she's not a missionary. But she has won more people to our Lord. Seen more people born into the family of God than all of our missionaries put together. You see, Hal Street had taught the way Brolin Bingham had taught, Robert McWilkin had taught, that every believer is an heir to the promise made to Abraham. And can and they will have a worldwide ministry for Christ. That's bound for you. Thy word comes to our heart, our Father. But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. And ye shall, shall be witnesses unto me. Both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the world. Now Father, we take thy word to be true and real and we accept it and we believe it. And we're asking that you'll fulfill it in the lives of the people here this morning. For the glory of Jesus Christ, our risen Lord. Amen.