In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of humility and the foolishness of pride. He uses the example of a wealthy person who only wears one pair of pants, eats one meal, and sleeps in one bed, just like everyone else. The preacher then shifts to the story of Samuel, a young boy who hears the voice of God calling him. He highlights the significance of recognizing and responding to God's voice. The sermon concludes with the message that there is a voice inviting people into God's presence, urging them to come and receive forgiveness and salvation.

I remember when a nurse came to see me and she said, Mr. Tozer, I'm the backslider. She said, I have backslidden completely because she's doctors and I find their cats. It was her expression. And she said, they're no good and I, I've lost my spiritual life. And she said, I am so bad that I bother God about it. She said, I just don't think that God would do right if he forgave anybody that's as bad as I am. Well, that was a tough one now, if you preached when it was. You didn't have to convince her when she was a sinner. She knew it, but she was so self-condemned that she felt that God wouldn't do right. So I was thinking hard and praying hard and finally I got enough wisdom. I said, well, listen, Elizabeth, you've hurt God off with all. I've wounded God by my sin. Yes, I've wounded God. Well, I said, are you willing to give him one more blow to smite God's heart one more time? She said, no, but how could I do it? I said, one more blow would be to walk out of here and accept his forgiveness. She dropped to her knees and said, I'll never do it. I'll never do it. She said, I've hurt God so much I won't hurt him anymore. And God forgave her and started all over again. So you see, self-condemnation almost ruined her. Don't let it drive you into the woods and don't you let it drive you to the end of a rope or to a gas chamber. Remember that God condemns you in order that he might forgive you. And he brings conviction in order that he might pardon you. And the voice invites you. Now, that's my message tonight, really, that there is a voice that's inviting you into his presence. If you say, I am no good, whatever, anyhow, thank God, my friend. Thank God for that. There's a lot of people strutting up and down, maybe some of them right in this campground. Maybe some of them out there sitting to me. They are so proud of themselves and feel they're somebody. They're so important, you know, as the fellow said, they can strut to their mouth or something. They are somebody indeed. They drive a big car. Well, it's too bad for them because they think they are somebody and therefore they're nobody. But the man who thinks he's nobody is only nobody if only he'll take Jesus Christ at his word. Oh, what a sinner we've been. What a sinner you are, man. Not all the chlorophyll toothpaste in the world can get the nicotine stains off of those. Your mouth is dirty and your lungs are dirty. And if you had all the smoke that you run through your system in one place, you could inflate on the continent. And your tongue's dirty. Your tongue's dirty. You're cussed and black-hearted and told dirty stories are dirty. You look at every woman you see and your mind's dirty and you think evil all the time. You're just plain, and yet you take two showers a day and rub yourself with no-smell sticks. And you're absolutely fastidious when it comes to the outside and you're full of dead men's bones in the inside. And because you smell like Mr. Colgate, you want me to think you're all right. No, sir. Not all the aftershow will take away the smell of pollution that God Almighty smells coming up out of your heart. But it was that kind of smell that God came to when he came to the garden. They were already reeking with iniquity, but his presence was there and his voice was inviting them. And it's that fellas like you, if you'll admit it, it's fellas like you that God's looking for tonight. Now, if you try to cover up, God will overlook. And you'll never hear a sound of his voice. But if you'll say, Oh, God, I did it, I did it, God will draw very close to your feelings. God wants the confessing people and honest people, the people who won't hide and say, I didn't do it. The generation now growing up is cursed with psychology and psychiatry. They have invented other names. David said, I have sinned in my sight. But now they call it by some other name. But you can call a cat or a skunk, call him a striped pussy if you want to. But he's the same old foul, reeking animal he was before. You can call a sinking dead body by the name of cadaver or some other nice scientific name. But it's the same old foul thing. You can call garbage by another name, but it's garbage still. You can call your sin by another name, but God Almighty knows it's sin. And until you've called it by its right name, God won't do very much for you. A man who's under conviction and a pastor goes to a psychiatrist. And the psychiatrist says, the trouble with you is you've got a guilt complex. I can cure you of 17 lessons, $3 a lesson. Lie down on that couch. He lies down on his couch. Now, try to remember their back as far as you can. I know what happens. If I ever was in the hands of one of them, he'd say, what's the first you can remember? I'd say, when the doctor said it's a boy. Well, we go to the psychiatrist now and get our back scratched in place of going to the preacher. Wounded. But we need to go and know that there is a voice of self-condemnation that's a very good voice. And stay away from us. God comes where condemned men are. But he never goes where men are that aren't condemned. Condemned man, the voice of the Lord is drawing near. And you can hear the voice of the Lord in the garden, calling you into his presence. As Christ has quenched the fiery sword, and now you can enter the presence of God and he'll receive you. Now, if you'll only know it. Let's talk a minute about Samuel. And I remember little Samuel, there was a voice sounding. And little Samuel, I don't know how big he was. Let's say he was seven years old. He was so little that he still had on. And I don't know how big that would make him, maybe six or seven. And little chap, and God spoke to the boy. Never heard that voice before, but was friendly. And he thought it was Eli. He jumped up and went into the other room and said, Didst thou call me? No, he said, I didn't call you. He went back to sleep and he called him again. God called Samuel. A voice was calling a boy. And the boy it was. He went back to the old heavy man of God. And he said, Thou didst call me. No, he said, I didn't call you, but I perceive that God is calling. So the next time you hear a voice, say, Here am I. And Samuel went back. And I bet he didn't go to sleep that time. I don't know if there was anything into the text. But knowing boys, I'm pretty sure that when he found out the high God of heaven and earth was trying to get through to him, I'm sure he didn't turn to sleep. I'm quite sure he kept tuned in. I don't think he went to sleep. He lay there, his ears all cocked in the flickering light of the candle. And Samuel, he said, Here I am, God. And there began one of the greatest ministries that the world ever knew. God was calling Samuel, and Samuel didn't know it till an old man told him. God's calling some of you tonight, and you didn't know it tonight. Now, if you have as much wisdom as Samuel, you listen real hard in the next five minutes. And you'll see to you, this presence is here, and that voice is speaking. Now, if you listen real hard, you may have the beginning of a life such as hasn't been lived on earth for a generation. I don't promise it, but oh, I say it'll mean a change. I haven't forgotten. I haven't forgotten how I roamed the hills of Pennsylvania, dirty mouth, lying, high-tempered, unsaved boy. I haven't forgotten that. Nobody would have loved me then except my mother. Nobody, because they couldn't. I was a little mouse trying to get big enough to be a rat. I was a wicked boy trying to grow up and be a wicked man. And then I heard the voice of the Lord speaking to me over in the city of Akron, Ohio. And God spoke to me and said, If I'd go home and pray and say, God, have mercy on me, a sinner, I could be converted. Thank God I'd never read the Schofield Bible. Thank God I'd never been to Bible school. Thank God I'd never heard the professional evangelist. Because if I had, I'd have known that that verse was actually for me. I'd have known that it belonged to somebody else, but not knowing it, and God knowing that I didn't know it, I went home and went back and got on my knees and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And God converted my poor old soul, my poor young soul. Thank God they came to me and tried to explain that verse. If they had, probably I wouldn't have been converted today. I'd have been lost in the explanation. I said, Mel Trotter. Well, Mel Trotter was a great Christian and a great brother. He was preaching out in Biola one time at his Bible evangelist where they're pretty dispensationalistic. And he got blessed as he was talking and he started giving his testimony. Here I was, and he described himself, a terrible, I think, drug addict, certainly a drinker, and wicked kinds of bad habits, and the devil riding him and putting his spurs into him, and he was about exhausted and ready to die. And he said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner, and God save me. Well, he got blessed on it, you know, and he'd had a long lifetime of blessing behind him. Teachers, I think it was, came up to him afterward and said, Mr. Trotter, that was a good sermon, but you were all mixed up in your exegesis. So sensationally, God have mercy on me, a sinner, wasn't for you. You shouldn't have prayed that prayer. And Trotter said, well, maybe I didn't know it at the time. And he said, anyway, the mess I was in, God would have saved me if I'd have said Mary had a little lamb. He walked off. God doesn't care about your theology, but he wants to know you've got a hungry heart. If you've got a hungry heart tonight, man, and you've heard a voice, you can come home, and you can come home now. I was in Chicago some years ago preaching down among Skid Row, among the bums. And a young fellow with a bright face, maybe 22 years old, got up a little early when they get enthusiastic, turned around, faced the audience to give his testimony. He'd just been converted maybe a week, and he was all boiling over with it. Dear friends, God saved my soul, and you know how he did it? He saved my soul the day I took his name in vain. And he said, I want his name in vain, and you convert him. Well, now, of course, he didn't mean that, but God knew what he meant. And I suppose a theologian there, particularly if you had a degree, they'd have had to have brought him too, with a good stiff shot of ethyl gasoline, just to bring him to, you know. But that poor fellow came up out of paganism, and he had an honest heart, and he believed in Jesus Christ, and God converted his soul. And there'll be many a theologian rightly dividing the word of truth, that when he breathes his last, where dead men go that have rejected the blood. And there'll be many a poor ignorant fellow who didn't know the difference between believing and taking his name in vain. I mean, he knew better, but he didn't at that time know better. Now, after a few years have gone by and he's read his Bible, he probably laughs at his own foolishness, and he got converted. That's all. So if you will put your pride aside, now, man, you got a big chest? Yes, sir. And you know, those big chests are the places where thrombosis hits first. The bigger the chest, the greater the chance you have of tumbling over with a coronary case. Foolish fellow. God doesn't care about the size of your chest, but he wants to know, are you a self-condemned, sin-hungry man? You're very beautiful, are you, sister? Very beautiful. Indeed, I'd like to see a fifty-year-old. Huh? Oh, you're so beautiful indeed. Those eyebrows are arched beautifully, and those lips done up so gorgeously. Wait till old Mother Nature and Father Time get done doing the tango on your face and see what happens to you. No, no, you haven't got anything to be proud of. If you've got a pretty face on in front of your head, God gave you that, why don't you thank him? Why don't you take a yoke on your shoulders and carry it for the Lord Jesus? And if you've got an education, why don't you put it under your feet and come to the blood? You've got a lot of money, why don't you thank God for your money and start distributing it right and left, helping the poor and supporting mission? Now, I saw a fellow two or three weeks ago. He has a Cadillac, and he has a big four-port hole, no, a three-port hole Buick, a cabin cruiser, and a power motor. But he just wears one pair of pants, the same as I do. He doesn't wear two, and he just eats one meal at a time, the same as I do. He doesn't eat two meals at a time. He just sleeps in one bed at a time, the same as I do. He just walks around in one pair of shoes. He hasn't got any Buick, or any Cadillac, or any cabin cruiser, or any speedboat. So let's put away our pride, and let's listen to the voice tonight, the gentle, sweet, inviting voice. Oh, how foolish sin is. How damnably foolish the whole business is. How wonderfully wise it is to come to Jesus Christ and believe. So come tonight. Maybe you're a little Samuel there. Maybe you're a Mel Cotter there. Maybe you're a Jerry McCauley there. Maybe you're another Dr. Simpson there. You don't know that whatever you may be in potentiality, you're a sinner in actuality. So come just on, please. Throw yourself across this altar tonight. Put your pride under your feet, and in one sweet, happy moment, you'll get the light, and Jesus Christ will become your Savior. Please get silent. Please get quiet. Let's listen. Everyone, everyone, as you speak unto your man and to your woman, get quiet, get still. This may be your hour, of your visitation. Pray, people, all you have. Oh, the joyful sound. You pray. There are a lot of people in the earth that aren't happy Christians. Lead us in a song. And as he leads us, the altar's open. Pass me not, O gentle rain,