In this sermon, the speaker shares his personal experience of encountering Jesus and finding victory in Him. He describes feeling lost and burdened, but then meeting Jesus and experiencing a transformation. The speaker references the story of Jesus healing a blind man in Mark 8:22-25, highlighting the three conditions the blind man went through before being fully restored. The speaker relates these conditions to the different spiritual states that every person is in. He concludes by sharing how God touched his heart and changed him, and encourages others to seek a similar transformation through Jesus.

It's customary for the preachers to ask the people to pray while the priests. I suppose they always mean it, as a rule they always ask. Sometimes I suppose to pray. Now sometimes I've been gifted in getting the people to nod and go to sleep on me. I don't know whether they should pray in variable prayers or not. When there was a snoring man asleep on the front bench. And I preached aloud and woke him up and I begged his pardon for it. And it made him mad. Bless his heart. Tell me Uncle Bud, where is the first man that ever... He's gone to heaven long ago. And some of you are wondering, you've all got more or less curiosity. Well, I'm now 81 years and 2 months and 23 days old today. I want you to remember that. And don't tell them you don't know my age. Age 1 years and 2 months and 23 days. Then you say, well how long have you been in the ministry? 60 years and 8 months and 13 days today. Well you say, how long have you been a preacher in Holiness? I was joyously and powerfully and everlastingly sanctified on the 2nd day of June of 1890. In Hill County, Texas on my little farm, 4 miles north of Mount Combe, Texas on the Cotton Bells Railroad. Got halfway between Waco and Cochitan, 1890. So I've been a 2nd Blessing Holiness Preacher 50 years and 10 months and 21 days today, this morning at 9 o'clock. Glory be to God. Does the Bible teach it? I was born January 27, 1860. But I like just a few days lack of being 21 years old that come over the plains of Texas. I rode 22 miles in a mule wagon to get the knees out of my breeches and the elbows out of my shirts and the toes out of my boots. And no socks on and no coat to put on. And no home to go to and couldn't read a word and write my name. Then I'm listening to that old man that preached on Heavens and wanted to go. And he preached on Hell and I was afraid I would go. Glory to God. He had a teacher that time. I went down there crying and met Jesus Christ and I come up a-flying. And God Almighty just pulled me in and struck me right in the heart. The Lord rushed in and kicked the devil out. And bit up his finger in my heart and me and I got up a-scrawling. I shot a little midnight and went down on a rally and took a couple more guns. I had a good gun, a fire shooter, 32 Smith and Wesson, the same kind. You boys used to flop around with it. Then the thing happened to it over in the ravine. Would you say, who told me? I don't know. But I met Jesus and I was unloading. I went over in the ravine, went a little further down the ravine, put up a junk bar, put an old grease deck of cards in them and watched them burn up. I did a play and stepped up and lost the game. That night I played two down and one. And two down, a big difference. Went back up and crawled under an ox wagon, put an old grease hat on the junk for a filler, and Jesus come on the wagon that night. I laid down and laughed like a boy at a circus. I was nearly tickled to death. Say, what are you laughing about? Well, now that might have been a great thing to hear in a novel or two. Well, my line was gone and my seeding was gone and my cutting was gone. And my old gun was gone. And my old deck of cards was gone. I was unloading. The Lord looked at me. I didn't know that he wore a crown of thorns. Never heard of such a thing. I didn't know he had on a purple robe. I didn't know they beat him in the face. I didn't know there was any blood sitting about over his beautiful face. He stood before me that night. His face was mangled in blood about on his face. Crown of thorns and an old purple robe hanging over his shoulder. He looked at me. It broke my heart. He said, I want you to preach my gospel. I said, Lord God, I'll go at it in the morning. And gentlemen, it wasn't a matter with you. Well, I figured on nothing and got everything. I made a good deal. I believe any man will agree Stephen fought for a robe of righteousness. I feel the grief. And as I was running down Boots for a peck, when I went down to the altar, I couldn't read a word. And I come up and got an education. Now, for a textbook is perfectly familiar to you people here. But how in the world could a man get up his band of students and be a professor? There ain't nothing in a sense much new to you. You might say things in a different way. But we've got the best thing in the world, and that's teaching. And he commits the best sin. And they bring a blind man unto him. And they sought him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when he stood on his eyes and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw art. And he looked up and said, I see men as trees walking. After that, I want you to notice that. After that, he put his hands again upon his eyes and made him look up. And he was restored. And so every man cleared. Now, that's the three conditions. And everybody here today is in one or the other of them. No exception. Don't care how rich or how poor or how learned or how dull. Everybody here is in one or the other of those three conditions. Well, here he is. Here is no vision right here. Right there is no vision. Right here is partial vision. Over here is clear vision. No vision here. But one church and partial vision. The second church and clear vision. You can see that. Perfectly plain. I lived in those three conditions. Almost 21 years. And on the 11th of August of 1880, when I was beautifully and powerfully converted, I moved up into this state right here. And I preached for 10 years without the blessed experience of a hole in me. When I preached six years, however, Dr. W.B. Godley from over here at Farrington, in this state, come across the plains of Texas, I heard there was a crazy man in Alvarado, Johnsontown, Texas, preaching sanctification. I said, let's get on my horse and go over there and see what the fellow's got. I taught again for four long, weary years. But really, the four years didn't add anything to it. If I'd have done the first day, what I've done the last day, for four years, oh, I'd consecrate my mother. And she was a prisby Karen, and argued with me, you'll never get it till you die. Couldn't get it till you die. Now, how anybody in the world can read the Bible and find, people find some things, and we find the second blessing, and a big preacher told me it wouldn't squint at it. But I believe you did. But mother would argue with me, you can't get sanctified, but it's till you die. And I'd keep going. I consecrated mother. My poor brother was off on a big drunk, and I consecrated him. Mother, it's an awful job for a measly boy to consecrate a priby Karen mother and a drunken brother. Neither one of them wanted it. Then I put my mules on the altar, and they're all from stubborn. Then I put a crib of corn on them, and said, Lord, see what's between you and the altar. There's a priby Karen mother, and a drunken brother, an old elephant, and hundreds of big mules, and your Jersey cows, and the old sow, and all the shoals. Crib of corn, and here's a rick of hay, and you're on top of the rick of hay. And the altar's way down yonder, and you're way up here. Well, I consecrated and re-consecrated. Went on to it in the fall of 1889. I made a big barrel of malaises. I could make as good malaises as a man ever wanted his biscuit in. I had to hide in the world, that I put on that judgment bar of God unsanctioned. Turn your brains over now, and use the other side just a minute. You may have some good ideas that way down in your noggin you haven't used yet. Dig them up in front of me. Down on the ground, down below, all like the city. I could pray up there in Christ. But when I went down down to the Garden of Gethsemane, I couldn't even pray there. I couldn't pray there. I don't know what was the matter with me. I got right down, down the Garden of Gethsemane, and spread it further. And then I was nearly dead. I couldn't, I couldn't pray. I couldn't do nothing. I just got out on the ground and just crawled it out. Right that way for a minute. Bless his name. Don't it look like that every human being on earth would want to be a Christian? And don't it look like that every Christian in the known world would want to be clean, and pure, and holy, and kind, and loving, and gentle, and good, and Christ. It's the strangest thing in the world to me that they don't. Oh, look at this poor fellow here, blind. And then one person here, the poor fellow stands. He had a vision, but all wasn't clear. He could see many trees and water. Brother, I'll be right. I had an experience like that. And over here, he got the second church and saw every man cleared. Now you'll pardon me for saying this properly. I remember before I got sanctified, I used to look at my presiding elder. He was the handsomest fellow I ever saw. He wore the most beautiful long black coat. The fur was all run the same way on it, just a glitter in the sunshine. He wore a beautiful high-heeled cap. Fur was all running around on it, a glitter. And I'd look at him. I'd say he was the handsomest man I ever saw in my life. Me and I saw him as a tree-walker. He wasn't a textured black jacket. I saw him as a California red wolf. He was the biggest thing I ever saw on earth. Right over here, I got the second church and I saw every man cleared. I loved him better than I ever did before, but I saw him in a different light. Up here, he was a tree-walker. Down here, he was a brother, a man like myself. And what a difference. As sure as you're on that bench, brother, God Almighty can give you a second church and everything on earth looks different to you. Down McCornfield, I was a preaching soul, but without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. I'd pray a while and get up and preach a while and see him call in a while. About nine o'clock in the morning, Jesus Christ comes through McCornfield in a chariot of fire. Second day of June of 1890. He filled up a fire down in my little old heart and anger boiled up. It was as ugly as a chicken's neck and God skimmed it off. Fire boiled up and God skimmed it off and jealousy boiled up and he skimmed it off and envy boiled up and he skimmed it off. I said, Lord God, I'm going to sin. And God got my heart and it's empty as a bass drum. On a river of his love broke loose in the clouds, come crumbling down, poured into my poor little old heart in the way that heaven got to be. I got down on the ground and stretched out between the cornrows and God run a river through my heart. And I've been a different man. I have religion for ten years. Boy, I got that. And I had good religion, but something in me didn't have it. So when I preached for nine years, a man gave me an awful cushion and I couldn't get him to quit. He got worse. And me, in spite of all I could do, something got up in my left side here. Come on up here and crawled over my chest and the thing got in my shoulder joint and crawled down my arm like a lizard on a rail and got into my knuckles and I left a book not over his eye to remember me by. And it is freezing. But oh, me and that afternoon, then God made me go and beg his pardon. Well, he said I had no business with the church. He went, that may be so, but if I would have had what ought to have had, I never would have been a Christian. One week to a day in the house and instead of me getting married, getting it started to be on time, I was just as calm in my heart as a meek morning. And he leaped up and down and cussed, was going to beat me to death. And I listened and asked the why. As he waved his arms and cussed, I begun to sing as loud as I could, Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing fire? Are you washed in the blood of the Lord? And when I sang from the first verse and begun on the second verse, he turned his heels on me and never saw a man around so in my life and nobody asked him. I left a pump knot over his eye. What does it matter? What is the difference? Why, you can see, no vision, no touch. One touch and partial vision. Second touch and clear vision. That plain, anybody can see there, there is three conditions. No vision and partial vision and clear vision. Now link on to that the 17th verse there, Genesis 19 verse. And it came to pass when they had brought them forth abroad, he said escape for your lives and look not behind you, neither sit on all the plains, escape to the mountains, lest thou be consumed. The first one was three conditions, no vision, partial vision and clear vision. Then there is three localities, but brings out the same great truth, there is old Sodom, representing sin, there is a man in Sodom. Now he is supposed to leave Sodom. And then what? And he said and look not behind you. You go looking back at Sodom, you are allowed to go back to Sodom. Then the next point, and neither sit on all the plains, but with death to sin Sodom. It's absolutely dangerous to look back at Sodom. It's almost as dangerous to stay too close to the place where you started from. If not a young man or young woman in your city that had the habit of dancing, to illustrate, and made to come here to a notice of it, and God saved them. They go downtown and get them a room adjoining the old dancing parlor where they can hear the fiddlers creaking and the floor rocking. It won't be thirty days until they'll be out looking through the windows to see who is the troublemaker. In sixty days he'll be in there a hard swing on the corner, lady on the left, eight joined hands, and settled to the left. He's going back. See the point? Look not behind you. Then neither stay thou in all the plains. Then what? Escape to the mountains, lest thou be consumed. Get that. Sodom and the plains and the mountains and thou the two escapes. You've got to have the first escape from Sodom to the plains, and the second escape from the plains to the mountains. Now think of it. Look at that man. Where is he? He's down in Sodom. Is thou on the plains? No sir, he's still in Sodom. Is he on the mountaintop? No sir, he's down in Sodom. But now he makes the first escape and leaves Sodom. Where does he go after the plains? Where is the man now? Is he down in Sodom? Up on the mountains? No sir, he has left the plains yet. He's down on... And now he makes the second escape and leaves the plains and goes to the mountains. Where is he now in Sodom? No sir, he's left Sodom. Down on the plains? No sir, he's left the plains. Where is he? On the mountaintop. On the mountaintop. I'm not surprised that people call it the higher life. And I remember after my mother got sanctified when she was 70 years of age. Dr. Morrison and Joe McCracken come to Waco, Texas when mother was 70. I was in Southern Texas holding meetings and I gave a letter and sent her a money order and said, Mama, I want you to come to Waco to the camp meeting and hear a sanctified Biblican priest and get ready to be there for any day. I said, well, you won't die. God wants to sanctify you before you die. The old cotton belt pulled up and mother stepped off and I grabbed her. We had a hug and space. The next day my clergyman priest from the church, Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? He made an order called and the one that wants it the worst gets here first. And mother started. She got to the organ. She was going to her knees. God better sanctify her. And she began to hop and skip and jump like a two-legged donkey on her own. And she kept it up to the middle of the afternoon. And we put her down in an old rocking chair. She sat there and clapped her hands and prayed, God, and shouted. Then Mary came down. We threw down the old coffin and put a pillow on it and lifted mother out. And laid her down, down. She laid down on her back. And she clapped her hands long and she could get them up. And finally she couldn't raise her hands any longer. They raked her down beside him but she didn't see it. She thought she was clapping her hands. You could stoop down and listen to that little priest and mother and she'd be saying, This is what Buddy has been talking so awful much about. This is what Buddy has been a-talking about. This is what Buddy has been a-talking about. Do you remember on the day of Pentecost? Peter jumped on a good box and said, Gentlemen, this is what joy used to talk about. It's 90. And I believe mother become a I believe she could diagnose the case of a sin sick soul and prescribe the remedy equal to anybody that has ever hurt in my life. And I'm not sure my mother mother got the gift of laying on of hands all our creatures ball and and yelling and the pecking combs would come out all up and down the whole office and mother would lay her hands on them and mother would would pop out like popcorn in a hot skillet and scream like the world is a-burning up. Mother got a wonderful gift as if she was 90 years old. The night mother went to heaven she went out to holding a meeting in a big tabernacle in in Red Oak, Oklahoma. And they said that night they said, Grandma, you're mighty feeble, she'll be. Why, buddy? To come? Oh, she said, Children, children. Why, buddy? Don't you know, buddy, the holding a meeting? And what if he is to come to see me go up and get my crown and a dozen souls that belong to him alone? But why not get this great salvage and the old book, brother, and go out and absolutely give that devil a blowout, a knockout? There's enough people in this country and right in in Asbury College, this country, if every single one was absolutely filled with a holy ghost and on fire determined to do the job of God, God like a bulldog kicked up the ass and said that. Well, all right, look at James again. In the first chapter in the eighth verse, it'll come. He said, A devil-minded man is in all of his ways. That got me into trouble. Way back there, I didn't know the meaning of words and don't use it much. But I said, Now, Lord, you tell me if I've got two minds in me that you have no stable to put me in. What are you going to do with me? Well, you said you didn't know any part of the word. Was that it? Well, I was. Now, you say, You know so much. Now, how would you explain that? If you have two minds in you, you're unsafe. If you're unsafe, you're unstable. You say, Well, man, you don't mean that. Well, come on. I said, Lord God, and if I've got two minds in me that you have, you know, I just held on. God said, My son, you don't mean that I have no stable to put you in. Well, I said, That's what you said. Two minds in me and unstable. Well, the Lord showed me. Of course, you're not a savage. You're a handy-pandy, milk and silence, sweet and cold. One week on the mouth, they shout to me. And you know, they testify to me. And I've heard them testify like this. They said, Brother, I'm like everybody else. I have my ups and downs in life. And when I would do good evil, it wasn't with me. And I'm making many crooked paths from the sea. And I'm doing the things that ought not to do. And I'm, even though I'm doing the things that ought to do. And brother, I'm just a poor, weak worm of the den. Nine times out of ten, he's a tobacco worm. Not a savage. But brother, there is nothing in this world that will establish you in divine things like the baptism of the blessed Holy Ghost. Now brother, you can have it. You can, right here in this town, you can be blood red and sky blue and snow white and red hot and treated like gun shit. Or you can work the devil in his butt. This is God's book and he said he made his ministers a flame of fire. Does that mean a pile of cold ashes in the backyard? You never saw a man sitting on a flame of fire. And a young teller from a university booked like a dog going and said this, if you don't cut out second designation, we are going to shut down on you. I said, if you do, bless God, I've learned a bit on you. You know, brother, you can live like a bald headed bumble bee in a hundred acres of cushion the highest cost of living. It takes a man to do that. Not a bumble bee. He said, Uncle Bud, did you believe we were bumble bees? No sir, I didn't think you were. But guess what Uncle Bud believed. He said, he woke me to call me Uncle Bud. Well, would God feed the bumble bees and set up their own great white throne and watch you starve to death? Oh man, I'm about to have a religious tale now. You think of it. A man can be cleaned up and cleaned out and sealed up and sent out and charged and surcharged and wound up and have nothing but unwind, run down, shine and shout and the devil can come around and cut it out. We've got the best things that I've ever seen. Our followers together have the privilege of coming back to the heart very calmly with men and women that will walk them down this land and start their bibles of old time hearts the old mourners bench kind like an old general's boot. He used to write this to get to the finishing to the finishing form and pray him through till he hear from God. Praise God, give us a Bible blessing. Glory be to God.