In this sermon, the speaker encourages the audience to take a moment to appreciate the good people in their lives. He emphasizes the importance of being grateful to God for the ability to appreciate others. The speaker also discusses the ability to appreciate music and mentions his admiration for Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart. He highlights the need to stand against societal trends and listen to the voice of God. The sermon also includes a story about a man who was shot and left in a vegetative state, and the lack of sympathy for the victim compared to the sympathy for the perpetrator. The speaker concludes by discussing the importance of giving and sharing possessions with others.

Now, I'd like to ask you, please, to help me, at least with the text, and turn to 1 Kings 18. We'll all turn to 1 Kings 18. I'll give you a moment to find that. 1 Kings 18, and I'll read verse 16, you read 17, we'll read responsibly, up to and including verse 40, but not after that. End of verse 40, that's the end of the scripture passage for us tonight. 1 Kings 18, 16, responsibly. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandment of the Lord, thou hast followed Balaam. So Ahab went unto all the children of Israel and gathered the prophets together under Mount Carmel. Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I, only remain a prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men. And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord. And the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, it is well spoken. And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice or any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lances till the blood gushed out upon them. And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord which was broken down. And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar as great as would contain two measures of seed. And he said, Do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time. And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. Join me in reading verse 40 for the last. And Elijah said unto them, Take the prophets of Baal. Let not one of them escape. And they took them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook of Chisholm, and flew them there. Father, we pray that the Spirit of God, thy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father and the Son, may take this ancient truth and let it be released in power tonight over our consciences. Lord, we haven't long, and we're in great need. So we beseech thee, O risen Lord Jesus, confirm thy word this night and perform the counsel of thy messengers. Amen. This story covers a period when Israel was in the low times in her history. By birth and by covenant and by blood purchase and by all the high privileges God gave Israel, the nation was committed to the highest righteousness in personal living and conduct and in the purest worship of the Most High God. This was not something added. This sprang naturally out of Israel's birth and covenant and purchase and the giving of the law and the privileges which God gave them. And yet, in spite of their being, in spite of all this, they were living such lives as that there was a continual and constant controversy going on between them and God. Part of the difficulty and the chief difficulty had been the coming of the Sidonian vampire Jezebel. Now, Jezebel was the wife, as you know, of Ahab. Ahab was the king of Israel. He wasn't much of a king, really, but he was there. He filled the place for the time being. And he had a wife, and that wife was not a Jewess. She was the daughter of the king of Sidon, and thus she was a Sidonian, and she was a Baalite. Her husband, Ahab, was a Jew and was supposed to be a worshipper of Jehovah. For wherever the word Lord occurs here in capital letters, it's Jehovah, the great God, the I Am that I Am. And the Baalites, of course, were set over against that. And this man went out of his own nation. There were lots of women in Israel, I suppose, and he wanted a wife of the royal family of Sidon, so he picked this good-looking cramp Jezebel, married her. I suppose he told himself, I'll marry the girl, and then after I marry her, I'll make Christian out of her. She's a Baalite now, and she paints herself like a refrigerator, and she's all mixed up, but I'll win her, I'll win her to Jehovah. But the thing worked the other way around. He didn't win her at all, and I don't mind. Now, we men, we're supposed to be the strong race, but why don't we men wake up and admit it? We're not. You never heard of a man marrying a woman, a Reformer, that ever worked? It just never worked. It rarely works the other way around, although occasionally some strong-willed woman will marry a weakling and pull him up with But mostly it works the other way, and she pulls him down to her level. Very, very rarely the other way around. It didn't work the right way with Ahab and Jezebel. She was a Baalite, and she believed her religion. Now, this is one thing that I never could understand. Why the people who have a religion that right, half the time don't believe it, and those who have an all-mixed-up, false, miserable, degrading religion believe it fervently? She did. She believed in Baal and the Baalite. Baalim is the plural, and Baal is the singular, and there were lots of them. If you're talking about one God, you call him Baal. If you're talking about two or more, you call them Baalim. Well, the Baalim were everywhere, and this woman was promoting it, you know, and that was a degrading worship. Now, we're not using words carelessly. You couldn't worship Baal very long, but what you were worse than you were when you started, because of the degrading quality of the worship. And it had cruel and immoral ritual. I never was any of these fellows to titillate a congregation by borderline descriptions of immoralities, but your imagination will picture for you, I'm sure, if you don't know from history, what the immoral rituals were that went with the worship of Baal. And this woman was pushing it and promoting it. She was the evangelist of the hour, not for Jehovah or decency and righteousness, but for Baal and evil. Now, Israel had a moral dilemma here. Here was the royal family. Ahab, the Jew or the Macedonian, he was committed, at least nominally, to the worship of Jehovah, and she was committed positively to the worship of Baal. And Israel was in a state of dilemma. When they knew what was right and good, for Israel did know what was right and good, Israel knew partly by the deep wisdom of life. You know, there's a passage of scripture that's very mysterious, and if you say much about it, they'll accuse you of being a mystic. But it's that passage that says that he was the light, that light of every man that cometh into the world. Now, you mark it, my friend, that even the man who has never heard of the Bible, God, nor the gospel, nor anything having to do with revealed religion, yet has more light than you imagine he has. For he has been in some measure illuminated by the light, that light of every man that cometh into the world, so that a pagan man living in nakedness in the hinterlands of New Guinea knows something of what right and wrong are, and he knows when he's broken the code. Now, his culture, his practices, and the crystallization of religious beliefs may make right wrong and wrong right to him, but nevertheless, the dim light that shines over the landscape of his soul shows him the rocks and the crevices and the dangerous spots, and God will hold him responsible for it. Now, Israel knew partly by the deep wisdom of light, the light that lighted every man, and also because of the holy scriptures. Israel had the divine revelation, the holy scriptures, that nobody else had. And then there was the example of good men. When you're thanking God these days, when you're worrying about crooked politicians and movie actresses with five husbands, change it around and thank God for the good people you know, for you all know some good people. You ever think about that? Sometime when you're feeling real mean, when you just feel emotionally as if you weren't a Christian at all, your faith is holding and you know you are and your anchor holds in the storms of life, but you're just feeling really bad, nothing right. Take a little time out, get down on your knees, get an ordinary tablet or flat piece of paper, and write down the names of the good people you know. You know, it'll surprise you. Find out how many good people there are left in the world. And I'm grateful to God for every one of them. And I'm grateful to God for the ability to appreciate them. Thankful to God. You know, I think it was Milton that said that next to being a poet, the next degree of genius was the ability to appreciate one. And so it is with music. I listen to the great musicians, particularly the four great Germans, for I admit that the four great Germans have won me. Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart. The others are all right, but those four great men, they've won me over. Now I can't write a line of music and I can't even sing on pitch, but I have this much ability I can enjoy it until it hurts. I believe that it's possible for us to appreciate good people, even people better than we are. That's why I believe in reading the scriptures constantly, in order that I might fellowship with holy men and women. And if I am not that good, I at least can appreciate them. And as I mingle with them, why, there seeps into my heart by a kind of spiritual osmosis a little bit of what they were, and I'm a better man for having gone along with them. So Israel knew not only by the deep knowledge in their hearts, they knew by the instruction from the scriptures, and they knew by the example of good men. And they knew by that inner voice which is the Holy Spirit. Now, here they were, knowing what was right, knowing who to worship, knowing how they should live. But it happened that the popular vogue was the other way. It was the other way because of this pretty, nasty, bad, wicked personality plus gal that had married the king. And had him, the little fella, poor little Ahab, you know I pity Ahab, by God forgive me, I don't want to be unkind to you. God made him and let him pass for a man. But he wasn't much of a man, really. He was a weakling. He was a kind of a mouse, trying hard to be big enough to be a rat. But he never quite made it, you know. And this poor fella, here he was, and he was under the control, we can just write him off now, because from here on Jezebel takes over. Talk about hand-pecked, he was so full of holes he wouldn't shut out the light. Because she'd pecked him so, Miss Jezebel, he had nothing to say about what went on, all he did was sulk. Remember when he didn't get what he wanted, he went to bed and turned his face to the wall and his countenance fell. He sulked, he was a sulker. And I know very few things in all the world that are more disgusting than a male sulker. Now when a baby sulks, it's cute when their little lip comes out and they look cute, I like to see that. But the trouble is, some of you fellas have been voting for years and you still stick your lower lip out and pout. Try to get your way by going to bed and turning your face to the wall. Oh boy, I'd just let you lie there until you rotted, if I were your wife. But this king was that kind of a king. And he didn't have anything to say, and Jezebel was setting the moral standards. She didn't have any Hollywood to help her out, but she managed it pretty well by herself. Whatever she wanted, everybody did. If she painted two layers, everybody painted two layers. And if she cut it short, everybody cut it short. And if her dresses were long, theirs were long. And if they came up, they all came up. And they all had excuses, but they were all careful to follow the fashion of Jezebel, running after her. And then they worshipped the way she worshipped. That was the vote to do, too. They worshipped the way she worshipped. And the people then were too weak and cowardly to obey God, and they found it easier to worship her, to follow her. That's always the easiest thing, the old saying about the dead fish. Any dead fish can float down. I get amused, and I set my English jaw a little bit harder when I find everybody saying the same thing. Somebody wrote it from California, said that when Carl Chessman was put to death out there, that at a particular college, they said it for the people were walking about like zombies on that day, and there was a deep gloom prevailed in all that college. And the professors walked around with tears in their eyes, because that's the vogue, you see. That's the way folks should feel about it. Nobody pities the woman that's been raped. Nobody pities the man that has been slain. In Chicago, there lies in a hospital a man who was a cab driver and was a decent fellow behaving himself and making his money to keep his family. The fellow got in his car and said, Give me your money. And there was a little scuffle, he was shot through the spine. He didn't die, he's better, but he didn't die. But he went into a deep state of unconsciousness, and that has been probably five years ago. And he still lies in that state of unconsciousness, simply a vegetable. He has no consciousness, no intelligence, no anything. And they never caught the man who shot him. His wife works to keep the family, and the newspapers reported the other day that every day for five years, that little woman after her work has gone to the hospital and talked to her husband and said hello and patted his forehead and talked to him and he lay in deep slumber unable to reply. But if they catch the man that shot him, all the professors will wipe their eyes and blow their nose copiously about the fellow they caught. But they'll have no sympathy for the victim that lies a vegetable in a bed. And the woman, his wife, who weeps over his silent form for five years, can't get sympathy for the decent people that are victimized. You can only get it for a thoroughgoing scoundrel who deserves ten thousand times more than he'll ever get. Well, that's the vogue, you see. If the vogue ever turns the other way, all these learned boys will blow their nose on the other side, and they'll get all worked up about something else. Brother, if you're going to be a Christian, you're going to have to learn to stand against the vogue. You're going to have to learn to listen to the voice of God and to heed the sound of an inaudible drum. You're marching all together in another parade, and the world's parade marching to the world's music is going the wrong direction. One of my little boys, when he was about a little blond fellow, he's about two, a band went nearby on Memorial Day. And they marched on, and I always just raise my eye and look at them, wait until I can't hear the drum anymore and go back to my business. But little Bud, he decided to follow them. So about two hours, we got a phone call. I don't know why. My wife always was very careful to know where they were, and so was I. But in this case, we slept. And then about two hours of both phones said, have you got a little blond boy? And we said, yeah, we have a little blond boy. And we said, he's up at our house. He followed the band out of 111th Street and up Western Avenue. And he's up here all lost and wandering around. Well, I said, you just keep him there. So I went up and got him. He had followed a parade, and when the parade broke up, he was lost. He didn't know where he was. And if there hadn't been a decent neighbor miles away in the city to call us, it might have been days before Bud showed up. Because he didn't know where he lived. He didn't know where to tell him his address was. But he had followed the parade. He loved the sound of the music. And the Jews here were doing that thing. Jezebel was beating the drum, and poor little Ahab was playing the royal kite. And off they were going on their way to hell. And Israel was too weak to obey God, so they fell in line behind the parade. Now, there was the dilemma they were in, and there is exactly where we are today, my friend. Here we are in Avenue Road Church tonight in Sydney, Toronto, the corner of Avenue Road and Roxborough. We're intelligent. We're educated well enough to read and write, most of us, some exceptions. And we, I don't mean you either, but we're some are too young to read and write, I mean. But here we are, and brothers and sisters, we've got to make a decision, that's all. We're going to have to decide whether this religion business is of God, whether God's in this, whether the Bible is real, whether hell is hell and heaven is heaven, or whether we can just follow the vogue and be like everybody else. We're going to have to make up our mind. Israel was in that state, and of course, nobody's at rest when he's in that condition, really, because he knows he's being cheated. Everybody knows he's being cheated that follows a band or parade that isn't going to heaven. Everybody knows he's being cheated. He knows he's being robbed of something very precious and it worries him. He knows he's dishonoring his soul and he's deeply ashamed, but he covers it up with amusement. He knows he's violating the holy laws of God and it makes him afraid. And of course, the effect will depend upon the degree of light. Now, is it to be Baal or Jehovah? And here was the question. If Baal, in the verse 21 text, how long, Halki, between two opinions? I've heard that in the original that says how long, Halki, between two unequal legs. On Thursday they were up on the long leg, that was Jehovah. But on Friday they got down on the low leg, that was Baal. And on Saturday they got up on the high leg, that was Jehovah again. So they were trying to walk in the middle and they were one leg shorter than the other. That's what they're telling me it means there. Now, is this a Baal way? For after all, the religion of the day is the religion of Baal. It's a religion that will let you get away with anything. If you just talk about love and the unity of mankind and the brotherhood of the world, including cruise ships, if you just talk nice about that and sound very pious, you can just do anything, there isn't any limit, the sky is the limit, and there's no morality, no righteousness, no godliness required. Just live anyway, provided at the last you say, well, we're all going the same way, we're just going by different roads. You know, that sounds so very spiritual. And that's the way the Baalite lady talked, Jezebel. She told them, now you Jews, don't you know that Baal has something to be said in his favor, too? Of course! They have sex orgies and rights of iniquity to worship him, but that's all right, that's our way of looking at things. Don't imagine that you know it all, they said, I've heard that. Well, Baal, now, what does Baal offer? What does the world offer and what does the cheap, shallow, religious world offer? Well, they offer a few things. They offer the customary fun and conformity. If you do it, you conform and go along with the crowd, they have it. But Jehovah, he calls you to the good, hard way. The good, hard way with its present cost and its eternal compensation. What has Baal to offer? What has the world to offer if we surrender to the world? What have they to offer? They would lead you to think they have a great deal to offer, but how utterly helpless they are when tragedy strikes. How utterly helpless when tragedy strikes. Only a Christian knows how to die. Everybody has to die, but only a Christian can die with dignity. Only a Christian can die with peace in his heart. So the world makes you believe they've got the answer. But the world doesn't have the answer. I've seen through the world. The world is a painted mask. And behind that painted mask, there's a mask of fear upon the face of the men and women who march up and down. They've got to have amusements and fun and liquor and dope and demoral dance and all the rest in order to keep from crying out in fear like a child in the night. They cover up the fact that they're scared and making a lot of racket and saying that this is fun and then paying people for it. I'll never believe in the civilization. I'll never believe that we're a civilized people. When the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of the United States make less money than the cheapest clown in Hollywood, I will never believe that when great and good men with the weight of empire on their shoulders, such as the two men I've named, have an ordinary salary and they're fabulously wealthy out there, cheap bulls of Bayshan, with nothing to recommend them but a little ability. When we're really civilized, we'll pay the milkman more than the clown. He brings milk to the baby. When we're really civilized, we'll pay the grocer man more than we do the actor who only amuses us. The grocer man feeds your insides. When we're really civilized, we'll put the farmer up on a level with the politician. But we're not civilized. We only think we are. I don't know how I got over on that. That's not in the script, really. I thought I'd say it anyhow because I'm going to heaven one of these times and I want to get everything off my chest that I can. Now, there's a good hard way, and God calls you to it, my friend. He doesn't call you to be a softy, to be a blubber boy. He calls you to be a soldier, a good hard soldier. I heard about a young lieutenant. He said, you know, first lieutenant, I believe they call him out in college. Well, I heard about a second lieutenant. And when the war got, when the battle got on, he ran screaming and said, they're shooting at me. And a tough old sergeant said, what are you out there for? Of course they're shooting at you. Of course they were. He'd had it too easy. Well, brother, that's what you're out there for. And Satan is shooting at you. He's going to get you if he can. And we Christians are called to be tough, to flex our muscles, and have a bit of hard godliness. Oh, I don't understand why the ministers feel that they've got to pet and paw over everybody to get them in, and dilute, and edit, and modify, and amend, and trim down the gospel. Won't work, my brother. A trimmed down gospel never saved a soul. A trimmed down, diluted, edited religion is not the religion that Christ died to establish. And the heaven over yonder is not filled full of weaklings that had to have somebody to go along and help them over the rough spots. It's full of men, soldiers, and men, the matron, and the maid, and the martyr, and the dreamer, and the prophet, and the clean man who lived and loved his God, and loved his generation, and lived and died living a good life, a hard life. We've got to make up our mind. Are we going to go the way the world goes, excuse ourselves on the ground that it's revoked? Of course it's revoked. Go to Jezebel, oh, see to that. What are we going to do about it? The veil has a lot to offer, and we might as well admit it. I hear it sometimes as preachers, and I suppose I've done it myself because I've done almost everything I can then, some time in my life. But I have heard the preachers talk about how terribly burdened down men are with sin, how they're burdened down. Picture men with great weights on their backs, and they say that there's no pleasure in sin. Did you ever read that passage that says, Moses gave up the pleasures of sin, and that he would rather take the hard way than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season? Of course sin has pleasure, of course it has. But you've got to break with that, you've got to break from it, and follow Jehovah. And the worse the country is, and the worse the state of society, the harder it is to break, and the more it's going to cost you to break. What has Baal to offer? Baal has something, don't imagine he hasn't. The world has something to offer, all right. And the world will offer something. There's something out there. I don't say that it's all empty, there's something out there. You don't want to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, if Baal be God's follower. But if the Lord Jesus Christ is God, follow him, but see to it that you make up your mind. Don't be in the middle, because you're neither hot or cold, I'll spew you out of my mouth. The only place in the Bible where God gets sick is when he faces up to people that can't make up their minds whether to serve God or Baal. I believe that God has more respect for a Baalite down on his knees before a sect over, all given over to Baal, than he does a fellow caught in the middle who's afraid to worship God, but is afraid to go all the other way. And there he crumbles in the middle between right and wrong. Does that describe you? God says it makes him sick. I'll spew you out of my mouth. Well, Baal has a lot to offer. Let's name a few things briefly. Baal has fun, if you're able to enjoy it. If you have health, you can have fun. If you're in an economic position so that you have time off, that's one thing that capitalism has done, it's enabled us to have time off for fun. And the average person works hard for a short time in order that he might have fun for a while. And he's willing to work hard as a price for the fun that he'll have. So Baal will give you fun, all right, if you want it. But when it's all over, what then? If Jehovah should be God, and if what I'm preaching tonight is true, and if Jesus Christ does say, come and take up your cross and follow me, and if there is to be a judgment, and God is to judge every man's heart according to his thoughts and according to his deeds, then what about that thing that Baal offered you? You've had your fun, now take your medicine. We'll be in that day. Every time you're led astray, remember the person that leads you astray leads you in the lurch. When Judas Iscariot betrayed Christ, Judas Iscariot was deserted by the people that he had sold Christ to. When with a spasm of conscience he went back to the priests and said, here, take the money, they turned coldly away and said, what is that to us? And it's always so. They lead you astray and then leave you. Thank God for that one named Jesus that leads you on the right path and never leaves you. And then, of course, there's possessions. You can pile up possessions. They're very rich here, very rich here in the Western world. You can pile them up, but when you get them piled up, what good are they going to do you? Well, maybe I told you this, too, but I made a family mad one time, very mad. And they proved that they had a right to be mad by buying and going to church anywhere. Well, I wasn't meaning them, I was just talking about people. And I talked about, say, they moved away and built themselves a beautiful home. And I knew that was going to be the end of them around our place because it was too far to come. And I mentioned one time, just nice to unite in a sermon, that you can die just as dead in a great, big, beautiful new home with a picture window as you can in an apartment on a busy street. And that sometime there's one car that'll back up to that big house, and that'll be the hearse or the dead wagon. Well, they got so mad they turned green and never came back. And it was all right. There hadn't been much to start with. But, brothers, when your positions are all petered out, you can die just as dead, surrounded by beauty and riches. I was called into a doctor's home one time. A fellow invited me in to look over his place. Well, he was fabulously wealthy, showed me $70,000 in money. I actually held $10,000 in my hand. I never knew there was that much, but there was. Well, here he had. He had statues from Europe. He had paintings on the wall. You always were afraid because there were so many split levels, you were afraid of tumbling over. But there was such deep carpet that if you had tumbled over, you wouldn't have hurt anything. And it was just riches, just riches. A fellow was living in a museum, in an art museum. That was a long time ago, and I suppose the old fellow is dead now. He was a very old man. You know, when he died, he left all that. He got it all right. He hated the United States government so bad, and the tax collectors so bad, that he was giving it all away to religious people so he wouldn't have to pay taxes on it. I kind of admired the old boy for that. But his possessions, his possessions, now, your possessions. If you don't get delivered from your possessions, they'll curse you. If you get delivered from them, you can have them and use them, and they'll be all right. Well, then there's position and fame. Most of us won't make it as far as fame is concerned. The only time we'll get in the newspaper is when we get in the obit section. People will look us up and phone, want to know what we died of. But then there's success. People are successful. It's surprising the people that succeed, and then it's surprising the people that don't. I've met brilliant people that didn't have one dime to rub against another one, and I've met people that were just barely, they had an intelligence level so low, really, that you could look over it on your knees, and yet to hear they were successful is all, get out. Talking in terms of thousands of dollars. I don't understand that, but I only know that you can have all that, and if they'll offer you that, say, come on, take it, it's yours. All this, he said, will I give thee, thou wilt fall down and worship me. Somebody says, don't you believe in beings like businessmen making money? Sure, I do. You know how John Wesley handled that? John Wesley, one time in his life, said, I have come upon, of course he stated it in very cultured terms, I'll have to just slangify it for him. He said, I've noticed that the people called Methodists tend to live clean industrious lives, and when they lead clean, industrious lives, they make a lot of money. And when they make a lot of money, they save a lot of money. And when they save a lot of money, they get a bank account, and a lot of money laid up. Then he said, when they get a lot of money made up, they tend to desert the kind of life that they lived in order to get the money. So he said, there's a vicious circle. If you're decent and good and hardworking and frugal, you save a lot. And when you save a lot, it makes you backslide. Now he said, what are we going to do? He said, I've got the answer. Make all you can, and then give it away. So he said, that'll take care of it. And when he died, he left twenty-eight pounds behind him, and I'm sure if he'd known he had twenty-eight pounds, he never would have died with that much. So that's the way to handle your possessions. That won't cost you anything extra. Just throw that out to your brother. So that's the way to handle it. That's the way to do it. Now don't pile it up. Somebody gave Will Spurgeon fifty thousand dollars. He said, Mr. Spurgeon, I suppose that you're going to put that fifty thousand dollars as a nest egg for your family. He said, do you think I'd plug up the pipe that brings the blessing of God into my home with fifty thousand dollars? No. He said, I'm giving that to our villagers and all the rest. Well, a position, fame and success and all the rest. But at the last what? And I want to ask you, at the last, what can the world do for you at the last, my friend? You know what you want is just exactly what the world can give you. You want forgiveness of sin. And there isn't a boxing arena in the world that can give it to you. There isn't a theater in the world that can give it to you. There isn't a tavern on the continent that can give it to you. You want inward cleansing. And there isn't anywhere in the world a place that you can get it. The Baalites have their fun, but they can't cleanse you inside. You're going to die and you want to die clean. How do you die clean? The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. So, Baal, if Baal be God serving, but he'll never forgive your sins, if Baal be God serving, but he'll never cleanse you inside, and you want a power to direct your way. You want to have somebody that can direct and lead you through. Baal can't do it. Baal can have a big time Saturday night, but he leaves you with a frightful hangover Sunday morning. Baal can't help you through. I heard once of a Chinese boy, who gave his testimony, and it was something like this. He said, My testimony is like this. He said, I was down in a deep pit, in a deep hole, and it was getting dark. And he said, I saw a shadow, and I looked up, and a kindly face peered down on me, and said, If you had obeyed my instructions, you wouldn't be in that hole. He said, That was Confucius. He said, I was pawing around, trying to get out, vainly out of that hole, and I saw another shadow, and I looked up, and there was another face, a very venerable face looked down, and said, Son, I see you're in a deep pit, but all that is imaginary. Just forget. Withdraw inside yourself. This is all imaginary. He said, He went away and left me, and that was Buddha. He said, When I was in despair, suddenly someone jumped down beside me, took me on his shoulder, took me out, cleansed the mud off of me. He said, Now, Son, that was a bad hole you're in, but I've redeemed you, and I'll never leave you. I'll go along with you and see you don't fall in another one. He said, That was Jesus Christ. So he said, That's why I'm a Christian. Confucius can lecture you, and Buddha can advise you, but Jesus Christ can save you. And then directions go along. You need an advocate. This is the day of counselors, you know. Everybody has to be counseled. Even I understand that the dog catchers are going to have the psychiatrists in Toronto. I've been reading up on that in the telegram, that before they will, I don't remember, dog catchers or street creepers, maybe, something they do, it's rather humble, and they're going to have them all investigated by psychiatrists. These head rubbers, see how they are, these head shrinkers. Well, this is the time when everybody wants a counselor, you know. They write in and say, Dear Abby, we want to know what to do. I wonder how many dumb people there are in the world. I never went to anybody yet to ask them anything, you know. I always prayed and looked up to God. Sometimes I blundered, but I got out. But why should I run around asking people that don't know any more about it than I do? My grandmother was a psychologist. She was a farm woman, but she knew as much as these psychiatrists. No, they just invent terms. My mother used to see a sissy and see a grandmother and she'd say, he's tied to his mother's apron strings. But you know what they call that now? They call that an Oedipus complex. Well, it's the same thing. Only it's a five dollar word and it takes four years to learn in college. But my mother, grandmother had never been to college and so she said, he's tied to his mother's apron strings. He was the same little old sissy that now gets an Oedipus complex and has to lie down and relax and look up at the ceiling and try to remember if he fell off out of his highchair when he was two. These are the days of counselors. Everybody has to be counseled. But you know, I read in the scriptures it says, his name shall be called counselor. There is one who knows and that one is not Baal. That one that doesn't belong out there at all. They don't know in Hollywood and they don't know in Wall Street and they don't know in Broadway. He only knows whose name is Jesus Christ. He leads them blind by way they know not. He guides them in times where they've not been. He makes the darkness light before them and the crooked things straight. He does all this, but Baal can't do it. If you choose Baal, you go without a counselor or an advocate. If you choose Baal, you go without anybody to direct your way. If you choose the world, you go without cleansing and forgiveness. And then there's a safe hereafter. I like to think about the hereafter. I don't know about you, but when the communists thought out that song about pie in the sky by and by, they didn't scare me. No, they didn't scare me. Of course we want something in the by and by. And that man is a complete fool that will live his life out to the end and not know what's out there. I want to know what's out there. Something in me tells me that I am going to exist when the worlds are burnt out. And I want to know where I'm going to exist. No communist, the bewistered one with the bomb or the slick one, of the modern day can make me at all ashamed talking about pie in the sky by and by. Of course we want to know what the man of God called the world to come whereof we speak. Today I looked over, I haven't edited it yet, but I looked over an article submitted for me at my request by one of the pastors in the district, Mr. Dempster from Hamilton. He had taken the wonderful old last section of Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress, where Bunyan finds his Christian pilgrim coming to the river and Christian is scared. But Christian blunders around and finally says, I see the face of my Savior and my feet find solid ground. Oh, he describes that beautiful land. And I'm not a bit ashamed. I want to go there. I want to go there. The dear old bishop once got up to preach. He was very old and very godly. And as he preached, he lamented. He said, you know, when I was a boy, we sang about heaven and we talked about heaven. Heaven was a place to go when you died. But he said now they're all changed. He said they call it eschatology now. He said they study eschatology. But nobody talks about heaven. They talk about eschatology. He said, he shouted rather, and said, I don't want to go to an eschatology when I die. I want to go to heaven. Remember that village blacksmith poem? It's rather sentimental, but it tells about the blacksmith with his brawny arm going to church on Sunday and sitting among the boys. He hears a person pray and preach and he hears his daughter's voice singing in the village choir and it makes his heart rejoice and makes him think of her mother's voice. And so with his hard, rough hand, he wipes the tear out of his eye. Good people living in expectation of the world to come. Nobody's going to shame me. Nobody's going to sing pie in the sky by and by and have me run for cover. I'll not run for cover. I believe in God the Father almighty. And I believe in his son Jesus Christ, our Lord, and I believe in the Holy Ghost. And I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the life everlasting. But Baal doesn't have it. The world out there doesn't have it. That slick world that comes into your home by TV doesn't have it. That theater doesn't have it. They don't have it out there, brother. Only Jesus has. No man cometh unto the Father but by Jesus. So if you want forgiveness of sin, inward cleansing, a power to direct your life and advocate, to plead with God for you above, a counselor to take you through in peace at last, and a safe hereafter and place in the Father's house, I recommend Jesus Christ now. Now. Come to him now. Don't wait. Because when you wait, your heart hardens. Don't do it. Come while you can. Well, Elijah knew the rule of God. And when he made his little prayer, they prayed all day and cut themselves. All day. Nothing happened. But Elijah prayed a prayer you can read in one half minute. And the fire came down. In other words, God confirmed his faith and witnessed through his obedience. And that's what God will do for you tonight. What about it now? Backslider? Cold fellow that's cooled off? Your business is got between you and God? Your home's got between you and God? You used to get up early and pray, but now you've got a family and babies and you don't do it anymore? Cooled off? Been listening to bells? Running with the vote? Don't do it. Follow me, says Jesus. And where I am there, ye will be also. O Christ, Emmanuel, God with us. The Word made flesh with Solomon. The Lamb that was slain. Who is risen again. Who is with us now. O Christ. We pray, help us. Out of this Old Testament story, which thou has said was written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world is. We beseech thee, O Christ. May the Spirit who inspired this story. May He use it as a torch, as a candle to search our spirits. Tonight. We pray for those who have been out there a little too much in the world. Listening rather with some sympathy to the siren song of Jessica. That have been listening a little to the soft cooing of the bailiff. O Christ, make us strong to take our cross. Turn our backs upon Baal and all that he stands for. And to follow the Lamb with us where we don't. Help us tonight. And in this hour, this moment of the sea. This moment of making up our minds whether it's to be Jehovah or Baal. Whether it's to be Christ or the world. Give us the courage. To say Jesus. I, my cross is taken. All that even follows me. We ask it in His holy name. Amen.