In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the power of inviting Jesus into our lives to overcome any strongholds that may be holding us back. He shares a personal experience of preaching and witnessing a powerful response from the congregation, with people running to the altar and surrendering to God. The preacher then highlights the importance of doing something for the Lord Jesus Christ and the need for the Holy Spirit to empower us in our soul-winning efforts. He references the prophecy in Joel about the outpouring of the Spirit in the last days and encourages believers to be filled with the Spirit to reveal Jesus to others.

...one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as a fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words. For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken out by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass, in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. And on my servants, and on my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord, shall be saved. May God add his blessing to the reading of his holy word, transcribed by Saint Matthew and Saint Luke, from the lips of our blessed Redeemer, and unto the unction of the Holy Ghost of God. Those are the words of the Holy Ones of Israel, to your heart and mine tonight, and may God grant that his servant and you shall have open cups, receptive vessels, hearts that are burning, hands that are reaching, feet that are ready, tongues that are on fire, to go out and spread the Pentecostal blessing of full salvation around the world. Our Father, we ask for the unction of the Holy Spirit. We ask for the anointing of heaven. We ask to be used of God. Thou shall have the glory now and forever, world without end. Amen. In the sixteenth verse of the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, there are three monosyllabic words that I call your attention to tonight. This is that. Unmistakably, undefiably, this is that. There is absolutely no mistaking but that God has the answer for the problem that confronts his people in any age, in any geographic clime, and under any condition that the devil may bring about. We need not cringe like beaten whelps. We need not, with broken blades, hang craven-like around the battle edge, when we can get in the fray and out in the center of the list and draw our sabers and go out and wait for God. General Stonewall Jackson was military instructor and professor of mathematics at Virginia Military Institute in the days before the Civil War. And when General Thomas Jackson one morning was called out from his quarters, said the professor to him, the young military students of VMI are routing. There's talk of secession, the Union's about to be broken up, and these boys from the Deep South are saying they will not train under the flag any longer. They are going to leave the Union. General, can you go out, a major, can you go out and do anything for them? Major Jackson walked out and said, young men, we are still a part of the United States. Virginia has not seceded from the Union. We are not at war. I want you, young men, to quit this foolishness, go back in your barracks, get back to your classrooms, and perform your duty. But before you go, young men, if Virginia ever leaves the Union, if Virginia ever needs you, walk out and draw your swords and throw the scabbards away and fight for your country. And so, beloved, we stand tonight ready to draw our swords, throw the scabbards away, and go out to do something in these last days for our Almighty God. We cannot do it of human ingenuity. We cannot do it by organization. We cannot do it by socialized order. We cannot do it by bringing the trappings of the devil inside the church. We cannot do it by replacing upper rooms with supper rooms. We cannot do it by alluring of the standards of old-fashioned, radical, second-blessing holiness. We cannot do it by an impure, watered-down, half-baked, holiness professed but not possessed. It's going to take the mettle of men that will fire the hearts of men while we stand in these dark and awesome and bitter days, or we shall not stand at all. The clarion call has been clearly sounded from the lips of Dr. Reese, from the lips of Dr. Jaffe, from the lips of Dr. Sheets. The clarion call has rung out that the challenge of our generation is do something for the Lord Jesus Christ. I am well aware of the fact that straight to heaven is the way, narrow is the gate, few there be that will find it, but it does not excuse you and me from doing our utmost to get that few press in, that lovely gate that leads to heaven. The essential for soul winning is the Spirit. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. Joel, one of the minor prophets of Israel, writing about 800 B.C., said in the last days, I'll pour out of my Spirit on all flesh. I'll pour him out so young men and young women will prophesy. I'll pour him out to gather up a name for myself. After I've done that, I'll send the signs of the coming and the tribulation, but before I do that in that period known as the last days, I will pour of my Spirit upon all flesh. Now in that beginning fulfillment at Pentecost it is carrying on till now. He has not stopped the pouring out of his Spirit. He will not stop the pouring out of his Spirit, but him that let it will let until he shall be taken out of the way. And the thing that holds back the flood tides of the Antichrist tonight is the power of the Holy Ghost operating in the church, preserving the world, giving you sinners a chance of salvation. The only hope is the Holy Ghost. This is that. Now when he has come at the day of Pentecost, when he has come today, if the Lord delays his coming till tomorrow, whenever the Holy Ghost comes there are numbers of things that takes place. The first thing that takes place is it removes the hindrances to God's will, God's way, and God's wishes for his church. May I repeat that? When the Holy Ghost comes in sanctifying power, in his radical baptism, in his second blessing, he removes out of the heart of the church, out of the heart of the born again, out of the heart of the regenerated, out of the heart of the justified, everything that hinders God's will, God's way, and God's wonderful wishes for that lost soul. It will take out that that fights the will of God. It will take out those stumbling blocks in the way of God. It will take out those hindering things that mar the wonderful works of almighty God. It will do that on a personal level. It will do that on a collective level. It will do that for the seeking individual who wants to be sanctified. It will do that for the sleeping church that wants to be aroused. There is no answer but a Holy Ghost revival for my heart and the heart of a church. I was preaching a number of years ago in the city of Chattanooga, in a Methodist church, in a revival. A young preacher boy that had been called a preacher went to the altar one night and was beautifully sanctified. He died out. He went the sweat route, if you will please. He prayed prayer through. He cut loose. He obeyed God. He walked into Jordan waters. He rose with a shining face. He went out of Wahoo. He turned wrong side out for God. He started living. When you get sanctified, it'll not kill the devil. The loved ones around you don't get sanctified when you do every time. Here's high-stepping, highfalutin, dignified, worldly, cultured, money-crazy, money-making, little wife, red-lipped, red fingernails, jewelry-wearing, no-sleeve-wearing, short-wearing, worldly, church member, unconverted, not even ready to be sanctified. Set her heels in the ground. Said, I'm not a-going the holiness way. It may bring a divorce, but I'm not a-going the holiness way. She tantalized. Three days later, he came to me and said, Brother Hicks, what on earth am I going to do? I don't know what I'm going to do. I said, one thing, you're going to be sweet. You're not a-going to argue with that girl. You've got the blessings. She don't know about it. You've got light, and she's in darkness. You're in Canaan, and she's over in Egypt. You're just out of Carolina arguing with that girl. You can't drive her out of Egypt. She's got enough lashes on her back from the devil. You be sweet. You read your Bible. You pray. You stay true. You leave her with the Lord. Beloved, let's leave the other fellow with the Lord. Let's don't put on the robe of a judge. Let's get out of where he is and live it out and testify it out and leave him with God. The next Thursday night, I preached and gave an altar call. I guess we had 500 there that night. I walked down the big center aisle of the church doing personal work, and I don't ever aim to quit that long as I'm living, God being my helper. I walked down that center aisle, and I started a journey in where I felt a pull to speak to somebody. Out from that pew came a beautiful young girl, long black tresses hanging back from under that hat that in those days cost plenty of money, and it was just at the end of the depression. Oh, she was beautiful and dialed up and looked like she'd stepped out of a Hollywood fashion place, but as she came out, I tried to shake hands with her. She didn't see me. She never run over me. I got out of the way. She started down that aisle taking long strides. She fell about the last six feet and landed across the mourner's bank, pulled that big broad hat off, and sailed it one way, tossed her pocketbook, and it jingled the other way, began to cry and wring her hands and scream. I let her pray through, didn't know who on earth it was. About 30 minutes later, I saw my fella that had just been beaten in the ground after he got sanctified, a hug in that woman, and a hug in that woman, and a hug in that woman, and I saw what had taken place. She'd hit the mourner's bank. She'd gotten sanctified. She came back the next day looking like a walking ghost. God Almighty had gotten a hold of her and sanctified her wholly and removed the hindrance that God will and God will, and God wonders. Now, my brethren, not only will it remove the hindrances, that's one minor case that I could multiply a dozen times over, but the clock won't permit it. Not only will it stop the hindrance of your way personally to get sanctified, but it'll move the collective hindrances out from the front of a church if it gets sanctified. I happen to be preaching in another church. Better not call too many denominational names, I guess. But anyhow, I had to be preaching in another denomination, and I preached for a week and a half. We had the auditorium packed. We had the wing off over there where the sliding doors were packed. The choir was packed. Roller seats down the aisle. The whole little town was getting pretty well waked up, and God was a-helping me. And I'd preached, and it hammered along, and a good Asbury student was the pastor, and one of the best piano-playing wives I've ever seen sat down at a keyboard, and God was a blessing a little bit. We'd had a trickle at the altar, twenty or thirty people, but that break, brethren, you preachers know what I know, that trembling up, that subsoiling, that earthquake of sunny eyes, that trembling of swirls had not taken place. There was a lock in the wheels. They were beyond my fingertips. I'd prayed and fasted and walked the floor and agonized, but somehow it was beyond me. And Sunday morning came, and the Lord said, preach from Romans 5-1. Being justified by God, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. I took my little Bible, left that dignified pulpit, walked out in front of those big stained-glass windows, and stood behind the chancel, a young preacher beside himself, and beat on my Bible till it came loose and the pages got out. And I just kept preaching, and I kept preaching, and I kept preaching, and a quarter to twelve o'clock, a nicely dressed, dignified gentleman got up suddenly over there. One just as nicely dressed jumped up over there. They ran behind me and fell into one another's arms. I heard a fellow let out a war-hoop in that dignified church and start running like he'd been shot at. I saw another one do something else. I looked over, and that woman was at the piano, and the tears were streaming, and she was playing that thing from one end to the other, and folk are running to the altar, and I got out of the way, and when the smoke cleared away at two-thirty, the slain of the Lord had been mighty around there, and I called the pastor aside. Pastor aside, I called him by the first name and said, Son, tell me what's happened. He said, Brother Hicks, don't you know what's happened? I said, No. He said, They were both members of my church board. He said, They'd been in a political contest running for a political office. That man had the office. He was the incumbent. That man over there didn't have it, but wanted it. Both of them members of the saint's board. Election day waxed hot, and there was words between the factions, and for three months they had sat on the church board and voted without speaking to one another. They had sat on the meeting without speaking to one another, but being justified by faith, they sought to have peace with God, that they'd have to have it with one another. When they hugged, God pulled out the stopgates, and a deluge of water poured down the house, and we had an old-fashioned Holy Ghost Revival that got to us in that day. In an interdenominational church, a lovely church in a summer resort town, beautiful thing, beautiful country, I preached along Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, house packed full of people, standing down the aisles, look out the window in the cemetery on either side, white faces in the lamplight, couldn't get them in, out the front door, nobody getting to God, burdened on, two or three hands offered in prayer, one old man sought the blessing, multitude like that couldn't get anybody saved, and on Friday night I called a prayer meeting. Just a boy preacher, before I learned how to have too much sense, maybe I've learned too much, you don't know, just a boy preacher, called a prayer meeting, that night 13 of the old fathers met me. No electric lights, kerosene lights, you know, Aladdin lamps, and we blew everything out, just one little old kerosene light that let a little yellow flame out, and you couldn't have seen 20 feet away hardly, and there we started our prayer meeting, and it grazed heavily on the wheels, you know. We just prayed, and dry, and we prayed, and dry praying, by and by one old father that's shouting in heaven tonight, just quit praying and said, brethren, we know what's the matter, this young master's preacher boy don't know, but we know what's the matter, and I'm gonna tell him. I said, come on with it father, what is it? He said, you know there's a board member, there's a board member in this church, and a prominent woman in this town who's a member of this church, you know that board member holds a responsible political job, you know that woman is a good liver, and you know they will not speak, and they've threatened penitentiaries, and they've carried guns for one another. He sits over there, she sits over there, and everybody knows that we'll never have a revival. I dismissed the prayer meeting. We prayed on secretly. The next night at midnight, I sat out in front of the post office with that man. He said, Reverend Hicks, I can't go any further. I can neither eat, sleep, nor drink. I want you to tell me what to do, and I'll do what you said do. I said, meet me tomorrow night after dark at that old rotten stump out in the graveyard near that church. The next morning, a knock on my door, and the lady said, Reverend Hicks, a message for you. The message was from that woman. Brother Hicks, I can't rest. I can't eat. I can't sleep. Tell me what to do. Meet me at that old rotten stump tomorrow night after dark before we have church. He didn't know I told her that, and she didn't know I told him that. But the next night, with a singing going on, they met, and called one another by their first names, and shook hands, and made up, and walked in the church, and down the same aisles they'd always walked, sat down where they'd always sat. But I preached, and they got saved in the back, and they got saved coming down the aisles, and a few got to the mourner's bench. What had happened? This is that that removes the hindrance and gets us a God! Now I'm going to say something that may shut the door to some camp meetings and conventions for me, but let them shut. If we Nazarenes, and we Pilgrims, and we Wesleyans, and we Friends, and we Free Methodists, and we Baptists, and we Presbyterians, and we non-denominational people, and what have you, will get our eyes off numbers, and get our eyes off proflighting, get our eyes out of jealousy, and forget that we've got the only little patch, and roll up our sleeves, and draw the blade, and throw the scabbard away, and get shot down, we can have a revival! This is that number two? That not only will it remove the hindrances, but will revive the Church! Down at Chattanooga, Tennessee, First Church, our pianist tonight will be familiar with the name I'm going to call, for she's kin to this name. I had a lovely high and wide group, that's our teenage organization in our denomination, I had 40 in it, a handful of them were saved, but Virginia Curl, a good born again, sanctified little girl, was the president of it, a senior in high school. We had a revival booked with Brother Elbert Dodd from Louisiana. I just got it on my heart that Sunday before the revival was to start too, tonight, that what we need to do tonight is to have a prayer meeting in the teenage department. It came from God. I sent for Virginia, and she came in, that little quiet, sweet, sanctified southern girl, and sat down at my desk. I said, Virginia, I want you to forget the program you've gotten mapped out tonight over in the teenage department. I want you to forget everything that you've done over there. I want you to get that crowd on their knees and get a prayer meeting going on over there tonight. She looked at me in startled expression, that's a man-sized job to send up anybody to get a bunch of worldly teenagers in a prayer meeting, let alone one of their numbers. She didn't know anything to say, but I'll try, sir, and got up and walked out. And she got over there and said, we're going to have a prayer meeting, and got three or four that knew how to pray on their knees, and they began to pray. And God came, and some of the rest began to repent, and God stepped in a little further, and some more began to repent, and by—they started at 6, 10, and by 10 minutes to 7, the fire was pretty well kindled. And there was a roaring by that time, and folks were getting through and raising a shout. And now at 7.30 it was getting bigger. We just left them, took the other group upstairs, and they filled that big choir, and about 400 had filled out in the audience, and Herschel Ervin got up singing, and the young people had started out of the annex and come into the basement and had gotten halfway and had gone into the main prayer room to have another season with God. When I got up to preach, I could hear that roar coming up through the floor, just a murmuring roar, you know, and people were shifting around looking at one another sort uneasy, a tingling sensation running up and down my spine. I preached, you know, for about 15 minutes, and I heard them get loose. They came out in the hall, up those two stairways, and through those two big doors, and down those two long aisles, and singing, My heavenly home is bright and fair, and I feel like traveling on. And the tears are pouring down in a wave and anxious, and people began to jump up and run to the altar, and 20 fell in the altar. Somebody hollered up the back stairs, and each in the basement, and I ran down there in time to see one great big old boy that had joined a college fraternity against everybody's orders, appealing at that piano, saying, I'll do it, Lord. I'll do it, Lord. I'll do it, Lord. I'll do it, Lord. I heard a girl scream, I've been a bad girl, Daddy, you thought I was a good girl. God saved about 40 that night. Monday night, I preached again. God saved another 10. God poured people in the altar every night. I tell you, if we can get God, if we can get the Holy Ghost, this is the time to revive our churches and bring down God on our services. Praise God. A number of years ago, down in a mountain gulch, now you don't know what that word means. Down in a mountain cove, you don't know what that word means. Down in a valley, a little place between two mountains, had a little church. Preached there for a two-week revival. I was away from my Methodist circuit preaching there in that revival, and it's a pack full. Folks sat flat down around me on the platform. I didn't have any maneuverability. I could move about six inches this way and that way, and back and forth, and it was in August, and down where the wind couldn't blow, and small windows, and you could have wrung water out of my shoestrings when I'd go home at night. I preached in my house full of people, and I preached for about nine days and saw five or six go to the altar, maybe ten or twelve. Nobody coming. On Saturday night, we were closing out. I preached and pulled every string I knew, and they sang four hymns and not a soul sought God at the altar, the last church. I said, we're going home. In the back of the house, there was a big old steward with his arms around a boy that had gone away to college and come back backslidden. He said, Brother Hicks, for God's sake, and my sake, and the sake of my lost boy, please ask that man to sing one more verse. I don't know what the song was. I heard the organ start. I heard him start that song, and that boy let out a scream and started toward the organ. Pandemonium broke loose. I heard the organ quit, and the organist had staggered around and fallen to mourners' bends. I looked back in the center aisle. There was a big 240-pound ruffian sitting right flat down on the floor, beating the dust up with his fist, people walking over him, trampling on him. And he was screaming, I'll have her to die. I'll have her to die. I'll have her to die. I heard her scream out the window at the bank, ran out and looked out on the ground, an old mountain bootlegger that had named moonshine liquor, 65 years old, bald paint shining in the moonlight, on both of his knees reaching toward heaven, screaming, oh, God, don't let me fall into hell tonight, to the top of his voice. When the smoke cleared away, over 20 had been saved. I came back the next night after driving across the mountains 50 miles and preaching four times in my own churches and back for the fifth service, and it sunned down when I drove in. I had to park my car several hundred yards up the highway. I couldn't get near the church. Finally worked my way down and said, what's going on here? They said, preacher, we met for Sunday school this morning. They said we didn't have a class, and we ain't been home yet, and we've been playing folks through all day. And I gave it all to God, and a big, old, long boy got up and walked down the corner, walked in the back of the pew, said, I want to get saved, just walking straight across him and fell at the altar. Now this is that. That'll revive a church. Are we honest? Are we straight shooters? Do we tell the truth? Do we live apart from the world? Are we where we ought to be with God? Do we slip away for our vacation and go nude and semi-nude and think nobody's looking on? Jesus is looking on, and you're leaving an example. Do we sneak away to the theater when nobody knows it but our angel Jesus knows it? Do we play around the edges? Do we take chances? Do we tell the truth when we fill out our tax returns? This thing will reveal Jesus when it comes into our house. Glory be to God. Glory be to God. Now as a student in the University of the South, and before, I used to walk out the Eagle Cliff in Montego, Tennessee, look down over that beautiful Pelham Valley, a lovely thing it was, panoramic beauty it was, down 1800 feet the sheer drops into the top of the trees, and on a cloudy day you could have gone out there and seen nothing. But if the wind had shifted, and the gossamer robes of the clouds that dragged across that mountain had been snared asunder by the granite fenders that reached out to catch that ephemeral shade, then the sunlight would have shed through, and suddenly there would have leaped up before your gaze almost enraptured a crimson clover field that looked like a hairy carpet of deep red crimson. Bordered by a silver streak we called Elk River, that murmured its way down between its green braids to meet the impetuous embrace of the blue Tennessee. The father babes in October would sing their sheets in plenty as they nodded one against the other, and the golden sunlight would have shown you a photographic beauty of that lovely Pelham Valley with the richest land in Elk County in it. In the fog you couldn't see it, in the sunlight you could. The thing that showed you that valley was the sun. You were not aware of the sun, but the beauty of the valley. And when the Holy Ghost has come, He will not talk of Himself, but will show you Jesus and lift Him up and exalt Him and give you victory and give you glory and put your faith on Him and your eyes on Him and box your compass and chart your map and get you in. Jesus is the answer. Amen. Nail scarred hands. Sacrifice if you please. For where there is no cross there will be no crown. The highways and the hedges if you please. The death rod of restitution and repentance and consecration if you please. Brother Hicks, don't you know it isn't popular to preach that thing? Who cares for popularity? I've lain aside auditory and apologetics and semantics to plead with men there's a burning hell and a beautiful heaven and a life of cheap worldly so-called pseudo-religion but a life of holiness that scans the mountains and spans the gorge One day we'll wind up inside pearl gates where shouting saints and singing angels make jubilee in the land of God. This is that that'll reveal Jesus. This is that, number four, that will reassure the soul when we start to cross over the dark rivers of death. I'm gonna die. I don't have to be a popular preacher. I don't have to pastor Ashland First Church with its lovely big parsonage. I don't have to have a best crowd in America to pay me a lovely salary and let me loose as much as I want to go and furnish a full-time pastor, a full-time assistant and a good secretary and give me an automobile when I want it. I don't have to have that but I've got to meet God. I said to Bob Renfrow tonight, blessed are the pure and high for they shall see God pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this to visit the widow and the fatherless in their affliction and keep thyself unspotted from the world. James 1.27 I was called about three years ago to come to the hospital Sunday afternoon. I got there and the lady who called me said I'm not a member of your church. I've heard you preach. I've got a dying sister from Pittsburgh here and isn't a member of your church either and she's never heard you preach but my sister's unsaved. And I know if there's any man in Asheville who'll tell my sister how to get to God I believe you will do it, Brother Hicks. Come and tell my sister how to get to God. I walked inside that room. There was that lieutenant from the Army standing there gripping the foot of the bed with his bars on, looking down at his dying mother. They thought she was dying. There sat her husband weeping over in a chair. There was the old gray-headed father and the sister almost beside herself in grief. I slipped in and said, My lady, you're not a Christian. No, sir. You've never been. No, sir. I'm a church member but I've never been saved. I said, You're pretty sick. Yes, sir. I'm desperately sick. I'm imperably sick. I said, You want to get saved with all my heart. Are you sick of sin? I'm tired. I've never been a sinner. You can't pray much but you listen and do what I tell you to do. You tell God you're sorry. You tell God if you live a day or a hundred years you'll live for Him. You tell God you'll make a clean break with the world, the flesh, and the devil. You tell God you believe that you're going to get saved and you believe that and see what God will do. I prayed not over a minute and a half and the tears lost themselves in a smile and God saved that woman. It don't take forever to get saved if you get desperate about it. Praise God. I prayed as long and she got better and was back in the hospital and out and a year later in the middle of the summer I got another call. Come upon prospect. This woman that you prayed with is dying this time. And Brother Hicks she says she's saved but I don't understand it. She says she's not ready to die but she says she's saved. She said she's got a rebellion she don't want to die and leave her husband. She's gonna die and she's saved and not afraid of hell but she's not submissive and she wants you to come. She's getting in a bad shape. And I went. And I walked over to the boy bed and she said, Reverend Hicks I know Jesus saved me. I know I've been true but why is this rebellion in my heart? Why is this thing that makes me not want to die? Why is this thing that makes me want to live for my boy and husband? Why is it that I can't be submissive like I've heard people can be? I said, you don't know theology. You never was around to hold this church. But we holiness folk know there's another work of grace and we call it sanctification. Don't you puzzle your head about what it is. You don't need to know that. But it's that thing that'll take the rebellion out and make you submissive to the will of God. That's what you need. Yes, sir. I'm going to get out of here on my knees and pray. You pray. And it didn't take over five minutes and she said, Preacher, it's gone. I'm ready to die. I'm ready to live. That rebellion's gone. I'm happy. She died three days later and made it in. This is that that will it reassure the soul and give victory. This is that. This is that that restores the temple of the human body from a fallen backslidden abode of every foul and unclean spirit to a temple of the Holy Ghost. This is that. When I was in school I did a paper one time on the temples of the Jews. In my research work for that important paper I read about how magnificently and magnanimously Solomon built that first temple. The billions of dollars worth of gold leaf spread on the wall. The carving in the wood and the ivy. Magnificence. Taggering is the price that cost. And when he got to building it God looked at it and said, This is temporary. I'm not going to spend much time here. I've got something else. And then I began to think about that something else. And I thought about me and thought about you. These human bodies. Up here in this thing that we call a head he's planted some bones locked together around here that we call the cranial bones. Inside of that cranial cavity is a little patch of gray matter that looks more like an English walnut inverted half of it than anything I know. Right back at the back of it and a little under there's a little line of gray matter that we call a spinal column a spinal cord and it drifts down between bones that are laying in barren layers like a brick mason building a chimney. And between each one of those layers is a little shock absorbing material and enough holes there for little nerves to run out from that central gray thing and go out and break down into the sensors and into the axons and the dendrites until they're tied onto every cell and a fly can't light on the extremity of the right hand without a message flashing into that central telephone system and going down this hand and it comes over to knock him away and there's not a telephone system on it like that thing is. Then he moved down and in here hung a big wedge shaped bone that he called the sternum and buckled into that some other bones called the ribs and hinged them around and finally tied them in back here and made a cavity in there. Right in behind that and a little to the right he hung a little organ in the shape of a heart, that's what we call it in that shape about the size of the fist or the one it seems and it turns a little bit and twists a little bit and by the process of opening and closing little valves it lifts millions of gallons of blood a lifetime and sends them out through the arteries and the capillaries and brings it back to the veins and back into that heart and will run 80 years at about 74 strokes a minute and never miss a beat never have to have a drop of oil on a valve never miss pumping the right amount of blood at the right pressure to the extremities of that body there's not a water system on it like the blood vascular system of the human body then right in behind that he hung two big belluses and we call them lungs and he filled them with thousands of microscopic tubes and sacks until I can eat a beefsteak and then breathe in the oxygen and that beefsteak is turned into energy by the belluses of those lungs and flung out into that bloodstream and I can walk around and preach and work my arms up and down like a mighty steam engine that's had fire put in the firebox and steam in the boiler look at it another time and right on each side of that backbone he hung two little P-shaped organs and called them kidneys and piled into them thousands of miles of microscopic tubes that'll pull all the waste materials and all the poisons out and drain them out into a major sewer line and it'll get the body purified and there's not a sewer system in Tokyo or Berlin or London or Indianapolis or anywhere else like that that God has made and called them kidneys and put in a body then up on each side of that body he's hung what they call the oracles of the air and digged a long trench down behind them called the auditory canal and blocked that up with a thing called a drum and set a little bone behind that and a little bone behind that and a little bone behind that and put them on some little hair-like appendages called nerves and send them down into another little thing that curls around and around and around until a mockingbird can whistle or a bell can sound and I can pick it up and that brain says that's a bird or that's a bell or that's a soprano singing or that's somebody talking not a radio broadcasting system on earth that's got it that perfect and that complete and does it that instantly as the human air glory be to God then he cut two big windows in the front of it for doors for windows and he hung stained glass in them till some are blue and some are brown and some are green and some are green and some are of slight slay shade and called them eyes he opened a doorway out of which can go my brain children cloaked in the words of my vocabulary to bless you or curse you at my discretion and when he got through making that wonderful thing he said now it's too tender and that brain is too delicate it's got to be somehow another shock absorbed and he put the bones in the feet and made perfect arches out of them and and and pockets in the hips and that spinal column under the boy can jump three feet high and land and as the quivers come up it's taken out till when it gets to the brain there's not even a jaw he shock absorbed it till he can walk all day and never despair of the tender mechanisms that are on the inside of that body and then he said it's going to get hot that thing will run a hot box and the summer time will come and it'll be 120 on the outside and I've got to keep the temperature up a little above 98 on the inside of that so he made the sweat glands and the sweat ducts and he drank water and it pumps that water out and brings the heat out and it has an air condition system built in all the time and you just don't get overheated glory be to God and when it got to making that thing what did he do it for? that's the major question did he make it like an automaton to put down and let it run on it's own pressure? no did he make it mechanically like an alarm clock to dance around 75 years and die and be no more? that big ol' alligator rolling in the slime of Miami Bay eating about 15 pound of fish a week and sleeping in ooze the rest of the family of 350 years and I'll live 75 and die and is that the answer? did God love that old brave brute better than he did me? that little ol' goose will land up on the lakes of Canada and pluck her down out of her own breasts and build a nest out in the rushes and lay her eggs and brood over them and the sun will get hot and the little gossam will float in that downy beauty on the crystal mirror of that lake and get a little strong and take their first flights and stretch their wings and cream themselves and the first snowflakes begin to swirl down across the arctic circle and the wind shifts out of the north and the frosts fall and the rushes turn from green to brown and those geese lift in the air and turn their heads and look at a waning sun and fall in behind an old gander who leads them in a V down across Minnesota and down the Mississippi Basin and down towards the guff farm trees where they stretch out like a maiden trying her hair in the wind where the rice patches of Louisiana have plenty of rice grains left who told that baby goose born in Canada there was a southern land with a blue guff and a pine tree and a patch of rice to feed him all the winter he planted another little grey back in the heart of man's soul God planted a thought that over yonder's a realm where a crystal river flows that over yonder's a hillside made out of solid gold that over yonder's a diamond studded avenue called Hallelujah Avenue that over yonder's a home land of the soul that over yonder the frigid breasts of death can never grow that over yonder the mounds will never disdain the rolling beasts of the paradise that over yonder the golden doorknobs will never hold the black crepe of morning that over yonder the banners of God will ever fly over yonder the burning church of an everlasting well will stand out defiantly in the eternal sunlight of the day sprang from on high over yonder's a land called Heaven over yonder's a land where one day with victory on our hearts and hallelujahs in our souls we'll raft out of this old world and leave it behind while we go into that region that lovely land, that summer land, that glorious land, heaven on high Praise God This is that that took an ignorant hillbilly boy named Lawrence Phoenix made his six feet four inch body from a rotten incorporeal thing to fill a grave and be a banquet for the toothless worm to a temple of the Holy Ghost Glory Glory to God and in closing this is that that reopens the gates and turns us back to the tree of life in Genesis 3 24 draw your sword archangel turn him out of Eden's garden and stand at the eastern gate to keep it lest he put his hand also to the tree of life and live forever but in Revelation 22 14 blessed are they that do his commandments to keep them that they may enter into the gates and into the city and have a right under the tree of life Glory be to God started out of a locked gate while an angel wept his valedictory and left his last footprints on the gnawing pages of time and plummeted back to heaven like a shooting star in reverse started with a withered garden but blessed God when the golden circle runs out to an end it'll open up a solid pearl gate where a tree of life stands beside a crystal river bearing twelve manner of fruit with a healing plaster forever as these nations ever had it's going to open the gate one day and turn us in to heaven on high I don't want to miss it, do you? I've seen too many funerals I've fed too many hungry children I've been a wholeness pastor too long I've heard the wail over this conflict too many times I've seen the bullet marks in the dead body I've heard the lament and I've heard the bitter wail and the agony of the dying and I've stood over a little white casket that held my own little baby girl and I've been over a coffin one morning where that old Baptist grandmother that kept me praising when a little boy was dead nobody's in the room and I jumped down with big tears running down my cheeks and kissed Mammy's old cold marble forehead and said, Mammy I'll see you in the morning and I said earth to earth and ashes to ashes and dust to dust and heard her mother say, my baby and heard her daddy say, what'll I do with this little brood when Mamma gone put my arms around the boy and said, brother, my daddy's dead and I've always pointed and said, son, he walked for Jesus, just over in that sinless summer land just over in that broad tomorrow you'll have him back again my precious mothers up there when I was a little baby boy seven weeks old nearly forty-two years, forty-three years ago come February she'd prayed for two years for God to give her a baby and I'd come along and she'd never left the child bed for the childbirth day and see that morning when the nurse brought me in, parted with her blue fingers, my hair and looked up and said, Lord Jesus I've got to come home to heaven take care of my baby boy but she'd prayed through about nineteen and nine at the Holy Salt when old Dr. Hiram Laws had preached second blessing and holiness and she'd walked with Jesus through nineteen and thirteen when her boy was born and answered the prayer and God called me to preach when I was three years old and I used to stand in Grandmother's old parlor down south and look up at that beautiful picture in a gilded frame with that auburn hair and blue eyes and high forehead and firm shin and say, Mother I wish you could come out of that canvas and put your hands on my head like other little boys mothers do and she couldn't move and I'd go to bed at night wondering though I had a good home with Grandmother and Uncle and Aunt wondering about, I wish I had a mother and one of these days when my last sermons preached and the last battle fought forty three years a pile of snows of winter and old patent graveyard near Thompson station in Tennessee forty three years the blue violets have danced out in the Maytime around that little angelic tomb with a little marble angel on it but one of these days a big angel's gonna float down lift the canopy of green if it's spring or the sheet of white if it's winter and say, get up Francis this is morning and I'm gonna see my mother ha ha ha and I'd like to tell the distant angels when you report back to glory tonight look my mother up and tell her God answered those prayers and she's got a second blessing holding this preacher boy trying his best to make it in Jesus is here he's here and we may never meet again but he has them on his bench and I want you to get up and come on down here if you need anything whatever from God and let's get on our knees and get saved and reclaimed and sanctified ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I want to thank you for coming and creating the atmosphere to make it easier to get to thee unless I should strive I pray move on us tonight in Jesus name don't break ranks if you can have it for just four or five minutes but will you just stand up all over this big crowd and don't leave for just four or five minutes get up back there just stand up everywhere don't sing yet just stand up while the organ plays a melody in the background bow your heads one more time how many folk are there now with heads bowed will step out into one of the many aisles of the Cato Tabernacle and work your way down to this altar of prayer and get that in your heart that will make a difference that brother Hicks just tried to tell you about tonight come on you come on Jesus wants you to come I don't care who you are or how mean you are or how good you are or how far off you are I know Jesus has got a remedy come on boy girls come on daddy mother come on dear I want you to come ha ha ha Jesus wants you to come ha ha ha come on come on come on come on I'm begging you to come oh oh I could do something if my hand wasn't so short ha ha ha well brother Butcher leads us in a song do what you can do Christians to get the lifeline out tonight come brother Butcher ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha not a pretty owner not a pretty but a but a but a Butcher for me shed blood for you brother for me shed cleansing crimson blood for you me brother but a Butcher I come but a I'm coming, I thank God, bless it God. Just as I am, and waiting not to let my soul abide. To this I can lay my soul at rest. I don't know how to do it. I don't want to learn how. But I know the blessed Jesus has got an answer for your heart tonight. I know the altar ought to be full, and I know you want to come, but there's a power holding you. It's supernatural, superhuman, but there's a stronger man here, and he'll break in and spoil that strong man that's holding you and turn you loose if you'll invite him in. Come on. Come on. About two more minutes and we'll have to pray. It's getting late. I'm not going to apologize for preaching too long, for I did what Jesus told me to do. Sing, brethren. Come on. If I can't, a lot can happen in a minute of my life. God bless you. Come on.