In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the power of Jesus' love to unite people from different backgrounds and nationalities. He shares a personal experience of calling up individuals from eleven different nationalities in his church and witnessing their unity and love for one another. The preacher also recounts a story of a man who carried the guilt of killing a soldier during the Civil War, but found forgiveness and peace through Jesus. Additionally, he shares a story of two sisters who were estranged for 12 years but were reconciled after hearing a message about God's forgiveness. The sermon highlights how Jesus preserves and protects believers from destructive behaviors and false religions.

Thank you, Bill Beck. The Bible is the only book written by Jews that's loved by Gentiles. It's the only book written in the Orient that's loved in the Occident. It's the only book written by a people that are not generally liked, who wrote a book that's universally loved. It's the only article that increased in sale after its writers died, and after it's given away free of charge. It's the only book that sinners hate. You can go into a saloon, or any kind of a wicked place, with any other religious book you wish. It won't affect the people. But you go in with a Bible, and you'll see a change at once. It's the only book that tells you what's beyond the tomb. And it's the only book that I've ever had anybody ask me for in my 50 years of medical work in the death chamber. Beloved, learn to know your Bible, and love it, and love it, and read it, and read it, and read it, and do something to your heart. All this has nothing to do with my sermon. One talker, you know, we go to an old cow to get fresh milk. We go to an old hen to get fresh eggs. We go to an old spring to get fresh water. We go to an old apple tree to get fresh apples. I'm going to John 3.16. We go to an old passage to get something sweet and fresh from our blessed Lord. You know the verse so well, because it's given by our Lord Jesus to a Jew, because salvation is of the Jews. You know it's in the plural? Salvation is of the Jews. That's what Jesus told the woman of Samaria. Salvation is of the Jews. There's always two Jews in everybody's conversion. That's the Jew that tells you the story in the Bible, and the Jew he points you to up there on the throne in glory. Those two are absolutely essential in salvation. That's the reason folks can't be saved out of any of these false religions. They're not Jews. Salvation is of the Jews. You can't be saved through these people that start religions. They're not Jews. You can't be saved by them. You can be led astray and get a false security, but I can give you a security with ether and chloroform. Makes you feel very happy and wonderful. Go sleep in the middle of a storm. Just give you a little ether and the devil has it. There are five miracles in John 3.16 that I want to talk to you about, and I hope, beloved, you didn't come just out of curiosity to see what this guy knows, because I know very little. The older I get, the less I seem to know. One time my workswoman out in the kitchen was eating her supper, and I said to her, Jack, if the people knew the truth about you and me, wouldn't they think we were two big ignoramuses? And she looked at me very seriously and said, Dr. Walter, you might be one of them, but I don't think I've had enough education to be one of them. This verse contains five wonderful miracles. I want to speak to you about them because they embrace almost everything that you and I love in the things of God. The first is a miracle of a universal love. That's a remarkable thing. You couldn't do that. Nobody could do it. We don't even live on our own relatives, let alone everybody else. You know lots of people you're glad you're not married to, don't you? You wouldn't have them on a silver platter. In our home, when our children fussed, two of them would fuss, I'd make them kiss each other, and they'd rather drink wine. But I used to say to the boys, some boy will come along and want to kiss your sister, and they'd say, let him have him. God so loved the world. That's really a miracle. What is it about any of us that makes him want to love us? You can't explain it. There's no explanation to it. He just loves us because he loves us, and he sees our tremendous need, and he loves every kind of a person there is. You can go to anybody you want to in the world and say God loves you. He won't believe you. I have talked with folks in my medical practice that said nobody loves me. They want to commit suicide, and do try to, and they'd take morphine or pergolic or something rather. I'd just take out a little tenth of a grain of apomorphine, put it in the arm, pretty soon everything comes up except the shoes and the wound. But they want to die because nobody loves them. Listen, beloved, you will never question your condition before God if you really get that into your heart. You won't. But the devil tells us it isn't true. We have sinned against him so much that he doesn't want anything to do with us. I had one time an experience down in southern Missouri with a tall, fine man, about 80 years old or 85. He was quite an elderly man, and he wouldn't speak to anybody hardly. He'd just nod as he went along the street of this little town. He wouldn't have anything to do with anybody. Nobody knew his real name. He would get mail once in a while. He would get a pension check or something of that sort in the post office, and they knew that wasn't his name because they asked him what was his name. He said, that's the name I go by. Nobody could touch him. He wouldn't go to church. Evangelists would come and try to get him to go to church, and he wouldn't have a thing to do with So I went to see him, and I said, see, Mr. Curtis, I understand that you have a sorrow in your life that you won't tell anybody. Is that right? Yes, sir, young man. I said, look, you tell me what it is, and I promise you I'll not tell anybody around here. No, I won't tell you. I went to see him three or four times to get him to tell me what was on his heart, and he wouldn't do it. Finally, I said, look, how can I help you or anybody help you if we don't know what your trouble is? Then he told me this story. I was a sharpshooter in the Confederate Army, and one night I was up in a tree at the edge of the clearing, and I saw a boy in blue walking up and down with his gun over his shoulder, a sentry from the Union Army across the field over in the other woods, and I shot him and killed him, and when he fell, he fell with his face up, and I looked at him, and I went down, went over to him to get his gun, get his number away from his neck, and as I looked at him, I said, Curtis, you've committed the unpardonable sin. You've murdered this boy in cold blood, caught him in a battle. You delivered and murdered that boy, you've committed the unpardonable sin. God will never forgive you. Then he said to a young man, God won't either. I said, listen, Mr. Curtis, I want to quote you a verse. Are you listening? Mr. Curtis, I'm reading this to you. Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. Now listen, Mr. Curtis, and by him, all, A-double-L, all that believe, R-A-R-E, Mr. Curtis, justified from all, A-double-L, did you hear that, Mr. Curtis? All things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses, and I read it again to him slowly. Then I turned to Colossians 2, 13, heaven forgiving you all trespasses, A-double-L, Mr. Curtis. Then I read verse 14 to him, blotting out the handwriting of all things that were against us, written against us. He took it out of the way, nailing it to Jesus' cross. I saw that dear old white-haired fellow there on his knees. He said, Lord Jesus, I never knew you loved me like that. I didn't think you loved me at all. I thought you were going to send me to hell. I am glad you put that word all in the Bible. And I saw the dear fellow with the tears of joy running down his cheeks, find out God really loved him. But we commit sins, and we think that God's through with us. He doesn't want us. For God so loved the world, a universal love, and you can go anywhere you want and tell that person about it. Because love covers a multitude of sins, a multitude of sins, not just a few, and iniquities as well. You remember, iniquities are the things that are in the mind and heart that don't come out sometimes, or usually don't come out. They're too wicked, and we just pass them up. We don't commit them. Those are iniquities, and he had to bear them too. He loved them because they were so helpless, so helpless. Oh, I've seen some cases, medical cases, that I just love because of their utter helplessness. I saw a girl 16 years old on a farm, and that precious girl had arthritis deformans, and her father had wrapped her arms to one by three boards, and tied her legs down to one by three boards with cotton rope, so she couldn't grow up out of shape. There she was, she couldn't do a thing, just move her head a little bit. I just loved that girl, 16-year-old girl, absolutely helpless. I wished I could do something for her. Of course, we couldn't. And God loves us because of our helplessness, absolute helplessness. No matter who we are, no matter who we are or what we are, He loved the world, and that includes every kind of a person there is, including us in this place and on the radio. That's the universal love, and nobody else could do it, only He could do it. You know, a lot of things that He does, He made Himself of no reputation. Remember in Philippians? He made Himself of no reputation. You couldn't do that. You have a reputation, you can't help it. I saw battling Nelson one time in the Congress Hotel in Chicago. He never was whipped, if I remember rightly. He just quit because he got along in the years, and he didn't want to fight anymore. He made all the money he wanted and lost it all to his friends. And I saw him standing there, a reputation all over the world for being a wonderful middleweight or welterweight fighter. And I went over to see him, he was standing there so solemn, sad. And I said, is that your name? Yes, sir. Why are you looking so sad? He said, mister, I'm glad you asked me. This morning, I tried to borrow five dollars to have something to eat today, and nobody would lend it to me. I haven't got a friend. Our children bought a friend he had that loved him when he was broke, as well as when he was being carried along on the shoulders of the crowd. You can get anybody with that, and we ought to. Because people get ideas that God doesn't care for them. They're so wicked, and they're so bad, and they're so disobedient, and they're such atheists. Nobody cares. Ah, beloved. That's universal love. Then there's the universal gift. He gave his only begotten son. Now, that's a miracle, because you couldn't do that. Nobody could do that. I had eight children, and at Christmas time, being a wonderful thing to go down to the ten-cent store and buy nine gifts, twenty-five cents apiece, for the family. That'd be wonderful. But I couldn't give my eighteen-year-old Elizabeth the same thing I gave my one-week-old Catherine. I couldn't give the boys what I gave the girls. I couldn't give my wife what I gave the children. You can't find any gift in all the world that would suit everybody. You couldn't give a fountain pen to a man with no arms, like your old brother McPherson. He had no eyes and no hands, and yet he read the Bible with his tongue. You may have seen Rickles. He was a Kansas City man. I bought him a moon-type Bible. He couldn't read Braille, because his tongue couldn't distinguish the little dots. So I bought him a moon-type Bible, and he could read as fast with his tongue as you could with your eyes. No use giving him a fountain pen, or a watch, or an automobile. Can you think of anything you could give to anybody, anywhere in the world? Africa, China, the Isles of the Sea, in your own city, in your own neighborhood, in your own family? Do you know one gift you could give to anybody? God found one gift that suits boys and girls. I've seen Him do it. And suits the aged ones, I've seen Him do it. I saw three dear old men, 82 years old, each one of them trust the Lord Jesus. After years of wishing they had peace, I saw three of them trust Him. All of them 82 years old. And I've seen little boys and girls trust Him. And fine men and women, and bankers and lawyers and doctors and circus people. This gift is the strangest gift in the world, because it satisfies everybody that gets it. I get gifts given to me. I have no interest in them, I don't care for them at all. So I just save them till Christmas and give them to my friends as though they came from me. Do you know any gift, now you think, use your mind. Can you think of any gift you could give to everybody or anybody, educated or uneducated, sick or poor, rich or poor, sick or well, black or white, red or yellow, anywhere, anywhere, on land or on sea. You think of any gift at all in the world that you could give to everybody or anybody and could satisfy their hearts. But this gift, oh, He, He satisfies the heart. I don't care who it is. You know Count Winsendorf, who established the Moravian mission, was saved at five years of age. Dear sister Abigail, who wrote that wonderful book, Little Is Much If God Is In It. Over here, Bethel, she was saved at five years of age. My boy, Walter, was saved at nine. Dear lad, I thought he was going to end up in jail or the asylum when he was a kid. Then one day he kicked her into my arms and said, Dad, Lord Jesus saved me this morning, and now I'm such a man of God, wholehearted for the Lord. Well, the gift suited him. And I saw a man who told me down here in Indianapolis that he'd made all the fortune that he could ever want. I have everything anybody could want and all the money I could ever use, but I have no peace in my heart. And in his beautiful mahogany office, I told him about that lovely, precious, wonderful Savior. And I saw that man bow his head over the glass top desk, the tears streaming down. And he said, Lord Jesus, why didn't somebody tell me about you long ago? I've been to the mourner's den six times, but nobody told me that Jesus saves. And when he took that Savior, oh, the relief that came. I saw the wife of a federal judge who said, Dr. Wilson, I've been trying to find Jesus for a year. I can't find him anywhere. And as I explained the book of Hebrews to her and got to the ninth chapter, she said, Lord Jesus, I'm taking you. I never knew you came to save me. I'm trusting you right now and taking you and God gave the peace that passes understanding. I saw eight high school teachers get saved in one meeting. They had education, but didn't have the Savior. He gave his only begotten son a gift that suits anybody, anywhere, any place. But the gift has to be taken. Remember that the gift has to be taken. It isn't enough to know it's true. When I was a practicing medicine in a small country town, everybody in town knew me, but they didn't all have me. I treated and took care of those who took me. Beloved Christ, Jesus is able to save and willing to save, but you have to take the gift and you ought to be able to look back in your life and say, I took Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, at such and such a place or such and such time. Now that isn't necessary. I have no slight doubt about my first birth. It's all hearsay with me. I was told I was born in rural Indiana. How do I know? It's all hearsay. I wasn't there. I mean, I didn't learn anything about it. I was born down there. I was supposed to be close to my mother. But you know, it's a wonderful thing that you and I take it for granted where we were born. You don't have to know when, where, and how, but you ought to know whether you have him now, tonight, whether you have him. I don't mean if you believe about him. I mean, do you have him? Is he yours? Have you seen anything in that gift that made you want that gift? Oh, so beloved. He gave. We think we have to give God our hearts. What does he want with your heart? He wants you to take him. You get saved by getting something from God, not giving something to God. Did you take that lovely gift? The gift, and I'll tell you something else. I've never seen anybody take that gift and say he didn't satisfy their hearts. And I've seen Swedes get saved, and Germans get saved, and colored people get saved, and Chinese, the leading Chinaman in Kansas City got saved. I led him to Christ, and some years later when he died of cancer, I preached his funeral, and there were 110 Chinese there, every one of them in tears. I don't know when I've seen such an exhibition among foreigners. That dear fellow trusted that lovely Savior, took the gift, and the gift satisfied his heart. Did you ever take the gift? A gift has to be taken. And you want to be sure that you did, beloved. Up in Lake Sammamish about six years ago, there was a printer who had no limbs. He had to be carried everywhere. He'd lost both his limbs in the war, and he had to be carried in a wheelchair and carried here and there. And he was at the front gate. Somebody, some folks carried him in off of the bus from Seattle, and he was inside the front gate, and I was asked to go and speak to him. And he said, I believe the Bible, Dr. Wilson, but I don't seem to be able to get the thing that I ought to have. I don't seem to have peace like I should have. And just then the bus came from Yakima, going up to Seattle, and stopped right there just a little way from us. And I said to this printer, will that take everybody to Seattle? He said, if they get on. And I said, the Lord Jesus saved you if you get on. Right away he trusted the Savior. Just that little word, and he trusted that. He saw he had to trust him, he had to take him. About a year and a half later he died, and the man he worked for sent me a telegram saying, send me by night letter the details of how my printer got saved. I sent him a long telegram, oh, a long, about 200 words I guess, telling how that dear man took the gift. Could anybody send a telegram about you taking the gift? He gave his only begotten son. Gave his son! Think of it! You know, we always wanted to get forgiveness and redemption. There's a verse in the Third of Romans that says, there's none that seeketh after God. And I resented that. I didn't think it was exactly right. I thought there was a wrong translation. You know, when you disagree with something, you think there's something wrong with the Bible. And so I did what I should have done. I went right to the Holy Spirit about it. I said, Holy Spirit, you wrote that in the Bible, and I'm questioning it, and I'm sorry. I know I'm wrong, but I can't see how I'm wrong. I've seen lots of people weeping about their souls in the homes, on the train, in their office, in the home, at the church. I've seen lots of people weeping about their sins and wanting to be saved. And while I was telling the Lord this, he suggested to me that I'd better see what I was seeking when I was in soul trouble. And he said, Walter Wilson, were you seeking the Lord Jesus and God the Father, or were you seeking his gifts? Well, I quit praying right then. And I said to myself, I was after forgiveness and redemption and pardon and salvation. Those were his gifts, not himself. I won't tell you that changed my whole thinking. I wasn't after him. I was after what he could give me, what he could do for me. Like the criminal that comes before the judge. He wants the judge to forgive him, but he doesn't want to go and live with the judge. He wants a pardon, but he doesn't want to go and live with the governor. You see, salvation is a wonderful thing. It's wrapped up in a person, not an experience or a gift of gifts. That kind of gift is the gift of himself. It's himself. It's like in the wedding. You know, when I marry a couple, I don't say, Harry, you take Margaret, whom you hold by the hand, to be your lawful wedded cook. I don't say that. Or a lawful wedded housekeeper. Or, Margaret, you take Harry, whom you hold by the hand, to be your lawful wedded banker. And I never do. You know, getting married on an orange blossom doesn't mean you didn't get a lemon. Anyone would get a gift. You get himself. I like that. And you don't take Christ as something. Our evangelistic effort has gotten wrapped up in all sorts of languages that isn't in the Bible at all. You don't take Christ as something. You take Christ. John 1.12 says, as many as receive him, not him as something. In my office, I hire a girl as a secretary. I don't expect her to go and do the cooking. That's her job, secretary work. In the home, my sweetheart used to hire a girl as a cook in the kitchen. Didn't expect her to teach music lessons or do anything else. Don't limit the Lord Jesus below by as anything. You take him, and with him you get all the 226 offices that he bears. You get all. You take him as your shepherd and as your bishop of your soul and as the Lord of glory and as your high priest and as your Redeemer. You get it all when you take him. Don't take him as something. God so loved the Lord, he gave his only begotten son as a Savior? No, no. As Lord, as Redeemer, as shepherd, as lover. Oh, beloved. You don't take him. He's worthy of it. His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him, that's the universal faith. That's the miracle of the universal faith, and that's the only thing in the world that everybody can do. You can't name another thing. If salvation was for walking across this platform, paralyzed people couldn't do it. If salvation was for reading a page in the Bible, blind people couldn't do it. If salvation was by knowing the arithmetic table, there are thousands of people who have never heard of the arithmetic table. Salvation is based on faith, the only thing that anybody can do from the youngest to the eldest. It's a universal faith, and that's a miracle that God would find one thing that saves the soul that everybody can find and can do. Anybody, no matter who the person is, whether they've been to school or haven't. A child can trust him, and they do, and a saved university professor can do that. I saw three high school principals get saved when I was addressing the students, and they were university graduates. I wasn't. I never got to go to anything except high school and medicine, and they were men with degrees. You know, people die by degrees. I saw those men trust that lovely Savior. I was addressing Rotary Club one day, and I saw the supernumerary school get saved in Rotary Club. The only thing anybody can do, anybody can do, is to believe God, that whosoever believeth in him believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I remember a woman brought her little child to me, a little girl about 10 years old, a stranger. She said to me, Dr. Wilson, I'm bringing my little child to you because I believe in you. I said, thank you, sister, that sounds good to me. How many times, taking somebody into the operating room, I hear them say, Dr. Wilson, I'm going into this operating room because I believe in you. How does he feel when you tell him I believe in you, Lord Jesus? Don't you think God affects him? He offers himself to you, and you say, I believe in you. I was going across the Missouri River one time in a boat. There were three boats lined up there at Lexington, Missouri, to go across the river. One was an elderly man, an old river man, and you could see he'd been at it a long time. He'd be 70 maybe. Then there was a young fellow about 30, and then a boy about 16. Each one had a boat wanting to take over for a quarter. And I looked at him, I had to believe in somebody. And the boy says, that old man, he's too old, don't trust him. And this fellow, he'd take risks I wouldn't take, let me take over. And the middle fellow says, that kid, don't you trust him. That old man, he's no good, let me take over. They all told me what they could do. I had to like somebody. Now the world is offering you themselves a multitude, 232 kinds of religion in the United States are offering you something. And there that lovely, nail-pierced, wonderful man stands and offers you himself. And God the Father gives you himself. He wants you to believe in him. Take a look at it. Look unto me and be ye saved on the ends of the earth. And the more you look at Christ Jesus, the more you'll trust him, the more you'll believe in him. That one who is able to save to the uttermost all those who come unto God by him, universal faith, that whosoever believes in him should not perish. A universal preservation. The only person in the world that can preserve you. He doesn't say your soul won't perish. That's included. He says you won't perish. When you trust Christ Jesus, he saves you, all of you from head to foot. He saves your pocketbook. You quit spending it on foolish things and careless things and wicked things. He saves your time. You begin spending on things worthwhile and things you'll be glad of when you meet him face to face. He saves your voice. He saves your gifts, your talents and gifts. And you put them into good use and godly use. He saves everything about you. Saves your home. Oh, haven't I seen him do it? Homes that were hell on earth. And that lovely, precious Savior came in and the sin went out and the hearts were knit together. I've seen it so many times. He saves you from despondency. He saves you from being dejected and down in the dumps. Remember the deep place of the earth is in the hand of the Lord, it says. So when you get down deep, you're getting close to his hand. Remember that. He saves you from heartaches, from family troubles. There are two women in Kansas City, they hadn't spoken to each other for 12 years. Two sisters. They fell out over the color of a niece's dress at the wedding. Can you beat that, you fellas? Think of that. And for 12 years they hadn't spoken to each other. And I gave a lesson on the radio one morning about the way that lovely Lord loves to forgive. And about two weeks later I met a man on the street in front of Keith's furniture store, saying, Wilson, come here, I want to tell you something. We had two sisters out in our neighborhood that lived about eight blocks apart. They hadn't spoken to each other for 12 years. They fell out over a dress a niece was to wear at a wedding. So for 12 years they kept up that miserable thing. But after they listened to your message on the radio, they started to each other's houses and they met right in front of my house. And I was sitting in the window reading and I saw them. And they met and they threw their arms around each other and they sobbed out their shame to each other. And the trouble was gone after 12 years of sorrow. Oh, beloved, he preserves you. He keeps you from doing things that wreck your body. He keeps you from things that wreck your mind. He keeps from false religions, the devil's imitations. He keeps you from habits that make an offense to other people, an offense to yourself. Should not perish, he keeps you from perishing. Do you know the $32 million a year approximately spent in New York City alone, not one cent, on cosmetics to keep people's face from perishing. Great institutions are built to preserve stuff in shipment, cartons to keep them from perishing in shipment. All sorts of drugs and remedies are used in our canned goods to keep them from perishing. And men spend millions of dollars traveling so that they can get to where the sunshine is supposed to be or the weather is supposed to be or something or other to keep them from perishing. And they all fail. And some people go on a diet to keep from perishing. Thing of it. People eat brown bread on the way to the grave. Of course, everybody else is too. We'll try all kinds of things to keep from perishing. Oh, beloved, listen to that. Should not perish, should not perish, should not perish. He saves you. I love that. You want to write in the Bible, God, thank you. I'll take the gift. But have everlasting life. That's a fifth miracle. Every other life separates us from each other. And the Swedes don't like the Russians. And the Chinese don't like the Japanese. And the Ethiopians don't like the Italians. All other lives separated from one another. This is the only life that is in the world that knits together hearts of all the people. One Sunday night in my church at home, I saw quite a variety of people, and I called up 11 nationalities. Most of them, back then where they came from, are in enmity with the others. I called them up on the platform. Each one gave each one four minutes to tell what he thought about the Lord Jesus. I had to pull a coat tailor of one of them. They couldn't tell him four minutes what they thought about that Savior. I've seen men who in their native habitat wouldn't speak to each other, come and sit down at the Lord's table together and love each other. This life that he gives links all of us together in one great big wonderful family. That's a miracle. No other life will do it. The gift of eternal life. And we have to have it, you know. Because when we go to glory, there's going to be all kinds of folks there. And we have to have a life that loves each one. And we get it down here, and we start loving them down here. A life that links us to each other. A life that makes us want to be with each other. And we don't ask what nationality are you. We don't ask what race are you. When I was a paperboy, I used to put a gospel tract in the paper where I left in each of the homes. I had 575 customers, and I put a gospel tract in each paper and left them up on the porch. And one morning when I was coming back about 6 o'clock having delivered the papers, I went past a big beautiful palatial home where I'd thrown the paper about 5 o'clock. And there was this very dear Godly colored man standing out at the gate. He was quite dark and had white ringlets of hair on his head. And when I came along he said, Hey paperboy, have you the boy who threw the bible up on the porch this morning? Yes I did. And then just like lightning, he threw his arms around me and hugged me. He said, Jesus doesn't save me too. There wasn't any vision there. Somehow the Savior breaks down every barrier of race, of money, finance, of social standards. He loves to do it. My father-in-law C.J. Baker was a great man of God. At his funeral, about 500 people walked past that chancel. Many of them in tears. The first one was the colored washerwoman that worked for him, and she was weeping. And the next one was the president of the biggest bank in Kansas City, and he was weeping too, right behind this dear old colored buddy. And there were lawyers, dear Mr. Pratt, great lawyer in Kansas City. He couldn't keep his tears back either. They all loved that man. He was a great man of God. You know the Lord Jesus breaks down every barrier, everyone. When you have him that ends that kind of trouble. And it ends pride too. I think I may have told you, I don't know about Mr. Somerville. Over in Kilmarnock, Scotland, he went out into the hills and held college meetings up in the little homes in the hills. And he carried a folding stool with him, because those folks didn't have much furniture, and he carried a stool with him, a folding stool. So one night he was going out in the evening to hold a Bible class up in the home, and the stool under his arm, and an atheist man, a fellow that hated him, he said, Willie, I got you where I want you now, I'm going to tell you what I think of you. So Willie unfolded his stool and sat down and said, I'd be very happy to know. So the fellow told him with trimmings and gravy what he thought of him. And it wasn't very nice, it wasn't complimentary at all. And when he got through, he said, that's what I think of you. Isn't that enough? And Willie said, yeah, that's quite enough, but I want to tell you a secret. If you knew the truth about me, you'd have said worse things than you did. Isn't that right? Aren't you glad you have a thick head so nobody can see what goes on in there? A life that makes you different. You know, the scripture says, in him was life, and the life was the light of men. And this life set you at liberty. There are two kinds of liberty mentioned in John 8. At verse 32, if the sun shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. In verse 36, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. The sun makes us free from wrong living. The truth makes us free from wrong thinking. We have to have both. There are some whose lives are beautiful, but they are atheists. Their thinking is all wrong. There are others whose thinking is right, and their living is all wrong. This lovely person sets us free both ways, to live godly and right and lovely, and to think right. This blessed sun gives us a new life. And in him was life, and the life was the light of men. And he gives you a life that makes you love the things of God and makes you feel at home in heaven and in the church. Oh, how often I see in some of the churches I go to, where they yawn and look at the clock and look at the watch and wonder if it's running, and say, oh Lord, how long? I say, that's because they didn't have life. God gives us a life that loves the things of God, loves the word. It's a gift that he gives us. And you can't work it up, and you can't get it in religion. You can't get it in a church. You can't get it by going through church forums and religious exercise. It's a gift from God that makes us a different kind of person entirely. So we love the things we want to hate, and we hate the things we want to love. Let me ask you, beloved, does this mean anything to you, this lovely person? God gave you his own son. Well, listen, did he give him to you? Did he? And when did he give you that gift? And did you know that you took that gift and said, Lord, Jesus, I'm taking you? We had a revival one time in the tent factory where I was, and the boy and lots of folks were getting saved. There was one fellow there named Will Leashman, a Scotch boy, that was in soul trouble, but he didn't get saved during the meeting. And one day he came down the stair late, and he punched the time clock, and I looked up at my desk and saw him there. So I went up to him, and there was a little tent factory. I had the tent pitched in the sales room, and when he came down, I said, see, Will, I understand you'd like to be saved, but you haven't been saved. He said, Walter, I'd like to be saved, but I don't seem to know how. Well, I said, come in here in this tent, and we'll lead on with our Bibles and read what God says. And then he said, I can't get peace anywhere. I've tried to get peace, and I can't. So I wrote a little Bible to 1 John 5, 12. He who hath peace hath life. He who hath not peace hath not life. So he said, let me see that. So we were meeting at a table in this tent, so I turned over to 1 John 5, 12, and he said, well, it doesn't say that. It says he that hath the Son hath life. Oh, he said, I see. I've been after peace, and I ought to be after Jesus. He looked up and said, Lord Jesus, I'm taking you right now. Go and save me. Just then, Ralph Liverfield came down the steps. He was one of our boys working upstairs, and I introduced him to Brother Willie. Brother, he said. Brother, I said, yes, he just trusted the Savior. He said, I must go up and tell the boys to quit praying. They're all up there praying for him right now. He went up the steps three times and said, stop praying, boys, stop praying, it's all they say. They didn't wonder why I stopped the prayer meeting, because God had answered the prayer. Has God given the Lord Jesus to you? Now, listen, you don't have much fear to get him. This thing that every head bowed, every eye closed, gives me a pain. God didn't say he's going to sneak into the kingdom. Here's a man in a burning building. He wants to get out, but every eye must be closed. He doesn't want to see anybody get out. He doesn't want anybody to see him get out. No, sir. The idea. This is how he's going to confess me before men, right in front of everybody. And listen, it's worth it. This thing is sneaking into the kingdom. It doesn't suit me at all. Now, if you're the last one to be saved, get right to the Lord Jesus where you are, right now, and look up to him and say, I'm taking you, Lord Jesus. I'm taking you right now. You came to save me, and you can have me right now. Do it tonight. What a wonderful way to begin. This is the first day of the week. Begin the week with him, and I give you his word. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that confesseth me before men, before men, not men with their heads bowed and eyes closed, that's not confessing before anybody. They're going to sneak into kingdom, going back nowhere. What a shame. I don't want to embarrass you. What a bunk, baloney. Embarrass a man that's getting out of the, off the road to hell, off the road to heaven, from escaping the judgment, getting all his sins bled out, embarrassing. What a shame. Beloved Christ Jesus, where are you? Trust him right out loud. Tell him you're taking yourself. Trust him with your soul, and escape the wrath of God, and the judgment, and hell. You don't need to sneak around about it. I heard he loves, he didn't sneak around Calvary. On top of the hill, where everybody could see him, and General Lew Wallace said, he estimated there were a million people out there to see Jesus dying for you and me, and for them, right out in the open. This thing was not done in a corner, the Bible says. Beloved, make Christ Jesus your Lord, out and out, and tell it, and you can shout about it if you want to, and tell him tonight you take him right where you're sitting. My Jesus, I trust you. The minute Peter and John, Andrew and James, and Peter and John saw him, they gave themselves over to him and trusted him right away, and took him, and let all to follow him. Beloved, you do it. And then when you go away from this tent, from this building, say, you can sing it to yourself. My Jesus, I love thee. I know thou art mine. For God so loved me, he gave his only begotten son to me, and I have taken him, taken the gift, that whosoever believes in him, and that's me, Lord Jesus, that's me, should never perish, thank you for your preserving and keeping care, but have now, right now, everlasting life, a new life that fits us for heaven, and will make us feel at home with God here and hereafter. Do it tonight. Some of you aren't saved. Some of you are professing Christians, and you've been around it like the fish in the sea and the salt water, you know. They swim around in the salt water and don't get any salt in them. You can be around the religion. I was. I was raised in the church and wasn't saved at all. And when the pastor took me in as a member, he didn't tell me anything about Jesus Christ saving my soul. Never mentioned it. After the Savior saved me, I went back and told him, and he was a bishop, too. I said to him, Pastor, if I'd have stayed under your preaching, I'd have gone to hell. You never told me I need the Savior. Lord, have you ever been to the Savior personally and taken the gift God gave him to you? Because God loves you. He knows you'd be lost otherwise, and he's not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repent. So I bring him to you by faith tonight. Make him yours so you can go home and sing, My Jesus, I love thee. I know thou art mine. Do it now. Let us pray. I want to thank thee, blessed God and Father, for giving Christ Jesus to us and giving so many of us to him. So we are his and he's ours. And Lord Jesus, we thank thee that thou hast given thyself to us without reservation, holding back nothing, letting us have all of thee for all time and eternity, making us thine own. We thank thee for it. And we look to the Holy Spirit to work in every heart in this place until Christ Jesus sits on the throne of each heart, Lord and Master and Redeemer and Lover and High Priest and Shepherd, with whom we make him real and precious and dear to each heart that hears for Jesus' glory. Amen.