In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the brevity of life and the nearness of eternity. He reminds the audience that every human being is just one breath away from eternity, whether they are a Christian or a sinner. The preacher also emphasizes the holiness of God and warns against hardening oneself against Him. He shares examples of how people can suddenly be destroyed and sent to hell, such as accidents or God withholding the next breath. The sermon concludes with the preacher expressing his desire to preach and highlighting three points from the text in Romans.

I'm going to start the message tonight on the way I get through with it tonight. First time in my ministry, a cold has settled in my throat. I'm in a desperate fix. There's somebody bringing me some water tonight. I guess I'll preach a minute, take a cup of water. I've bragged and told young preachers how to take care of their throats, learn how to breathe properly. And here, at 35 years, I've got an awful sore throat tonight. I'm going to weave many things I would say by way of thank you. You just believe them, or we've got a privileged orientation dipping in and menacing to you. And in a few minutes, I'll be going elsewhere. I'd like to say so many things, but I hope they're full of spirit. So help my throat to clear up, and I'll be able to preach to you tonight. I go tomorrow night to the kind of meeting I really like. About a year ago, a young man said, would you come and start, and stay to have victory or judgment, victory or judgment. And so it may not be that one night. It may be that month. We're that desperate now, my friends, that we must somehow or other set ourselves that we're going to have victory from God. We don't have to have a special meeting. We just need to set ourselves that we're tired of this foolishness, and we're going to be on our face witnessing to the sinners until we have victory. It's been a joy to be with Brother Bill and his dear people, and with you, dear folks. As I'm speaking now, is the microphone working all right? Thank you. All right. Now let's bow our heads. Our Father helped me tonight. There are people here tonight that have been listening to the word. They're in bondage to the devil, and I need help tonight. I pray that you'll show your strength in my poor weakness. If anybody brought to Christ tonight, nobody glorified the preacher of the church. They say that's God. I pray that it can be your will that you'll help me bring a message in the power of the Holy Spirit to these people. I pray that the Spirit of God will reprove sinners once again, and bring them to the place of pardoning themselves for yielding to the Lord Jesus Christ. Do it, Lord, if it pleases you, and glorify thyself in this service tonight. For Christ's sake, we pray. My friends, one of the most solemn thoughts that I face as I go from place to place in these desperate days is that something tremendous has happened to America, the only nation on earth that can fitly be described as the land of sudden death. Those who deal in statistics tell us, and we know they're speaking the truth, that every time two people in America die now, one of them dies a sudden death, a sudden death. Dr. Ernest Hancock was out in the yard raking leaves with his wife the other day, and he said to the madam, said, You go in the house and make out a grocery list, and get the leaves raked up while we go buy groceries. And she went in and got a pencil and piece of paper, and she was writing down the grocery list, looked out the window, and the husband was lying out in the yard, sat out there in bed. Sam Jones, a great Methodist preacher, went up and down America and said, Quit your means to a definition of repentance. That's what keeps people from coming to Christ, a rotten spot in your heart somewhere. One sin damns people. Most folks are willing to be saved from every sin except one. They've got a darling sin. If we could fix it so God would save them while they hold on to that sin, they'd be tickled to death. You can't have sin in Christ, too. Old Sam Jones went up and down the country and saw God work. The last sermon he ever preached was in Oklahoma City many years ago, and he even held up the train he used to leave town on until he could finish his invitations. And he preached from Proverbs 29.1, He that being often reproved, hardened at his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. And all he did was to recount some of the instances he'd experienced as he'd gone up down the land where men had hardened themselves against God, and God had taken his hand off of them, and hurled them out into eternity. Now, let's don't chew gum tonight. This is God's house. Let's don't write notes. Let's don't do anything. Let's listen to the word of God. Does that offend you? This is God's house. We ought to demand some respect from God's house. Is that all right? It's not a picture show. This is a little humble house of worship. We're here to hear from God. And Mr. Jones told about how God cuts people off, and he gave his invitation, and he waved goodbye to the folks, and they took him down to the train. The Pullman porter took him to his berth, and began to arrange his luggage. And old Sam Jones, very tired, leaned over with his left hand, gone to his shoelace, and he pitched over in the aisle of the train, already gone to the Lord. As if to illustrate the truth of the scripture, you're one breath, just one breath, between here and eternity. Every human being here, you're just one breath away from eternity. Maybe some Christian here tonight, you served your day. Tomorrow you'll be in heaven. And there may be some sinner here tonight that God will cut off. All on earth he'd have to do. He wouldn't have to send a flood. You'd just have to withhold your next breath, and life would go out of this body. You'd go out yonder to eternity. Every time two people die in America now, one of them dies suddenly, dies without a chance to pray. I begged a young lady this morning, get out on her knees and seek God. Couldn't do it. Too many people died. No chance to pray. No chance to pray. I've been preaching here for a week and saying to you, there's nothing on earth that's worth anything in time and eternity except by faith to be vitally joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. Until a union of peace is established between you and him, until you have assurance in your heart that he's yours, and you're his, oh, that men would seek God. Seek God in Christ Jesus. Because there's just one breath. That's all. Between you and eternity. People die without a chance to repent. People die without a chance to set their spiritual house in order, just die. They start to cross the street and an automobile hurls them into eternity. They get in the bathtub to take a bash, foot slips that bash their brains out on the curb. They get up in an airplane, the airplane has an unexplainable accident, they're hurled out into eternity. America, the land that's had more gospel than all the world put together, the land the Holy Spirit has striven with more than all the rest of the world put together. Now America, glowing in the smoke of its unbelief in the nostrils of a holy God, thumbing its nose at God, daring to confess him with our lips and deny him with our deeds, God is taking his hand off the people all about us and let them drop out into eternity. Even as this verse of scripture says, he that be an orphan reproved hardness his neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that destruction shall be without remedy. I want to call your attention tonight to three things this text has to say. I wish under God I were fit to preach to you. Always the last service breaks my heart. Not that I'll take God with me, but that I have to meet you at the judgment. I have to meet the messages I've brought at the judgment. I wish I could reach out there and gather you in a basket and bring you to the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray as I desperately need help tonight just to talk to you. The Lord will get glory. Listen to me. This text tells us God does reprove sin. I sure am glad of that. I was a senior in college, president of an infidel club. Got 300 young backers people to join the infidel club. When God smoked my heart, took him eight months to conquer me. I'd been graduating from school and going off to teach, but he wounded me. He crippled me in college. You see, God can't save you without crippling you. Did you know that? God can't save you without wounding you. You won't listen to him. If we loved our loved ones, we'd say, Oh, God, bring calamity on them. Do something, Lord, so they'll listen to you, so they'll listen to you. I never saw but one man die in the electric chair. Did you ever see a man die in the electric chair? I think I won a young man to Christ in death row. And he requested that I be present when they killed him. And I went in that little old room. It's a bare looking thing, the electric chamber. There's just an old ugly chair in the middle. The rest of it's just stone and steel. The witnesses gathered about. The man's strapped in the chair. He still had to pay for his crime. And the warden asked him if he had anything to say before he died. He said, Yes, I do. And he turned to the newspaper correspondents who were there as witnesses and said, My last request is you print this in your paper. Tell the world that I'm glad I'm sitting in the electric chair. I had to be brought to death row in a cell in death row and sentenced to be electrocuted before I'd ever listened to God. And he said, I'm going to burn my body up for a minute. But they're not going to burn me up. He said, At last I heard God. And any sinner that'll hear God will get saved. And he said, I'll be in heaven when you take my old burned up body out to the cemetery. He said, I'd rather die in the electric chair and go to heaven than to have continued my wild ways and stayed outside and die and go to hell. You know who? You know who talked to that young man there in death row? The Holy Spirit finally got him hymned up where he could talk to him and where he could listen to him. Oh, I'm so glad that the Holy Spirit reproves men and women. My verse of scripture says, He that be it often reproved. I'm speaking to people here tonight. The still small voice of the Holy Ghost has fingered around your soul many, many times. Many, many times. He's beckoned you. He's disturbed you. He's made the alarm clock go off. He's made it ring in your soul. He's made you sit up and take notice a little bit. But somehow or other you are able and by summoning all of your strength to resist it. And until this good hour you've met all of his reproof by saying a great big no. My text says, He that be it often reproved keeps on hardening his neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy. I'm so glad for the Holy Ghost. I'm so glad for those four years when I never went to bed at night that I didn't get down on my knees and ask God to save me. Of course, he wouldn't do it. Of course, I wouldn't come clean with it. You see, my mother and father gave me to be a preacher before I was born. When I was eleven years old I walked down the aisle of a little church in Alabama. What name of Christian they told me I was. And I said, I'll go where the Lord wants me to go and I'll be what he wants me to be. And you remember that the Lord always takes everything he's given. You can make a vow and forget it, brother. You'll get in trouble. I did. I went through four years of hell. The Holy Spirit strived it with me. And by night, I'd get out and pray for him to save me. By day, I'd call him. I'd say there isn't any God. I knew there was a God. But you see, I knew if I ever surrendered to Christ I'd have to be a preacher. And I didn't want to be a preacher. And the instant I surrendered to preach, God saved me. And the instant you turn loose that rotten spot in your life, God will save you. And you'd make all the professions and praise you blue in the face. But you've got to come clean with God. The reason he's reproving you is because of sin in your life. And he's disturbing you about it. And he's got to come out in the open. And even God will send you to hell for he'll save you while you're cleaving too. Anything under God's shining sun that's near to your heart. And that's the way it was with me. And I remember four long years, brother song leader. I begged God to save me by night and cuss him by the daytime. And yet, he didn't cut me off and send me to hell. It looks like he would have. But he didn't do it. He didn't do it in his long suffering and in his patience. He kept digging about this old sinner and blessing me and disturbing me and reproving me until he conquered me by his saving grace. I don't believe in this generation of church members who switched their gun from one jaunt to the next and said, I'll take Jesus. I don't believe they know a thing on God's earth about what it means to be saved. For I found out that whom the Lord blesses, he first cripples and heals and wounds because we won't listen to him. We'll just spit in his face. We won't even count his blessings. We won't even say thank God for him. Until he cripples us by his mercy and brings us to where we shut up and we got nowhere else to go. And when he's robbed us of all of our hopes and all of our gods, sometimes he'll save us. I thank God for the reproving work of the Holy Ghost. I tell you right now, brother, I tell you right now, nobody ever got saved apart from the Holy Ghost taking the truth of God and disturbing you and setting off the alarm clock and wooing you and drawing you. That's the way sinners get to God. And I'm so glad he hadn't quit. I'm so glad he's still in the reproving business. I'm so glad the Holy Ghost hadn't been done away with. I'm so glad that I still meet men and women who are products of the Spirit's work and he disturbed them and he alarmed them and he wooed them and he reproved them and he brought them to the place they called on the Lord. And when a sinner does that, he's liable to get an answer for the Lord will answer when sinners call upon him. Praise God for his reproving work. I bow my head in shame, bad throat and all now, and I look at you, dear people, and I've been preaching to Baptists all of my life and I wish Baptists, I wish Baptists believed in the work of the Spirit. I wish we'd come to where our churches would get serious about it. Oh, Brother Bill, I go from place to place. There's so little, so little, so little dependence upon the Holy Ghost. So much flesh, so much of us, so little place given to it, so little honor given to it, and so little prayer, and it seems to me like that the dear Holy Ghost might come and take the truth and plunge it into the very marrow of people, because people are not saved apart from that. People are not saved apart from that. How much longer will we go ahead going through the motions? God helped them. Christian friends of mine, some way or another, God limited himself to us. He's turned the business of witnessing the Christian over to us. He don't know any use of us. He's committed to us the ministry of prayer. Why don't God just save a man or send him to hell? He could do it. He's sovereign. But somehow or other, He's committed the business of proclaiming the truth and intercessory prayer to His people. What a challenge. I'm so glad I see the Holy Spirit fingering around people's hearts. But there's a mystery that's followed me for nearly 35 years. I've studied the Bible a little bit, but this is still as mysterious to me as ever. I know all of the answers that are given, but I still can't understand why men will harden themselves against the Lord God but to do. This text says, he that be an orphan reproved hardened himself. Men spit on their hands, they grit their teeth, they grit their fists, and they refused to be melted by the love of God that greater power. Men summon up all of their strength and hang on to that pet sin for dear life and harden themselves against every effort that a loving, sovereign God brings their way. I've been in meetings, and I speak the truth, where people have fainted so deeply where they've been convicted by the Holy Spirit, but they would not yield to God. I've had strong men carried out on stretchers for weeks when the Holy Spirit was fleeing sinners all over the territory, and yet to be somebody that would hold on for dear life and grit his teeth and summon up all of his strength and hang on to that one pet sin that damns the souls of men everywhere. It's the sin you don't want to be saved from. It's the sin that's bigger to you than your hope of eternity. Just one sin. Man's rebellion always heads up in one sin, and you're willing to be delivered and saved from everything except that. And if you sit there tonight without God, it's not because he's not dealt with you. It's because as he's dealt with you, you've hardened yourself by holding on to your pet sin. And you're going to go to hell holding on. You must be pardoned and delivered and saved from your sin or you'll have to be sent to hell. Men harden themselves. Why do men harden themselves against God? When I was younger, I thought it drives me crazy. Brother, this old world's changed since I started preaching. It's changed. And I'm telling you now, America's full of men and women to the top. They can resist God in ways our fathers never dreamed of. Men harden themselves against the spirit of God. I was in Detroit, Michigan, in a great tabernacle-style church building. I remember the platform was way up high. And one Sunday morning after the morning service, I was standing down on the lower floor, talking to people as they came to greet me. I felt something tugging at my coat pocket. And I looked around. This little three-and-a-half-year-old curly-haired, golden-haired girl tugging at my coat tail. And I looked down at her, took her loose of my coat tail, held up her little arms to me. And I took her up in my arms, and she put her arms around my neck, a little bit of heaven, three-and-a-half-years-old. And she began to sob. I can almost hear her sobbing now. She said, Oh, Bubba Bun, I want my daddy to get sick. Oh, Bubba Bun, I want my daddy to get sick. I want my daddy to get sick. About that time, my mother came up, took her out of my arms, and the mother began to sob. The daddy of that little girl, one of these tough fellas. Brother, he'd resisted everybody that spoke to him about his soul. He was quite proud of how he could resist. He kind of liked you to talk to him, just so he could turn you down. I'd been in his home with the pastor. The pastor told me everybody in that section of Detroit had had a crack at that man. He was right proud of how tough he was. He wasn't dark in the door of anybody's church building, but he did have a sort of a habit of listening to the radio. And that church had a Sunday afternoon program at three o'clock. That afternoon I used to be the speaker. And I said to the wife, I said, you make a special effort if you can to get your husband to listen to me this afternoon. I'm going to send him a message. That afternoon I preached a little while and said, ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience, you'll pardon me just a minute. I got a message. I think it's from heaven. And I'm going to send it out over this radio air to one man. I said, mister, I think you're out there listening to me now. I said, you've turned down every preacher that's ever talked to you about your soul. You've ordered people out of your house and cussed them out. He is rough. I said, you pride yourself on how many people you said no to as they begged you to yield to Jesus Christ. I said, I believe God's sending you a message and I'm relaying it to you now. I said, mister, this morning your little three and a half year old girl, beautiful, tugging at my coat tail till she got my attention. I took her up in my arms and I said, that little girl broke my heart, the heart of the people standing around, as in a little three and a half year old, beautiful voice. She sopped out with her arms around my neck. Oh, Bubba Barton, I want my daddy to get sick. I want my daddy to get sick. I've seen little children weeping for their parents. I've seen them walk in the aisles of tabernacles and tents and church buildings, sobbing their hearts out for their daddies and mothers. And I said to myself, as I delivered that message over the radio, if that man is a human being, although he could turn down the preachers and cuss them out, surely the heart breaking cry of this little three and a half year old girl will break his heart hard and he'll yield to Christ. And I said, mister, if there's a spark of manhood in you, I demand that you get out there by your radio and repent of your sins toward God and seek the Lord Jesus Christ. I said, God sent that message to you through the tears and the sobs of your little baby girl. You know what that fella did? He slammed that radio off. He slammed his head on the hip. He gave his wife a good cussing out. He slammed out of the door and went down to the nearest beer tavern and that afternoon somebody put a sick gun in his belly and shot it five times and sent him to hell. He hardened his heart and God cut him off. Oh my soul, the tragedy, brother, is that you're liable to succeed. You're liable to keep on hardening yourself against the still, small voice of God, the Holy Spirit who takes the truth as it is in Christ Jesus and fingers about your spirit and soul. And I can't understand this, but men and women are able, in spite of all of that, to say no to God and to harden themselves against God and to hang on to their sin. Men harden themselves. Don't do it. Don't do it. I asked a young soldier boy this morning, as the crowd was breaking up, do you know the Lord? No. Reckon I'll ever see you again? Maybe back tonight. May have to be shipped out. I'll see him at the judgment. I asked a young man this morning, do you know Christian? He said, after fashion. I said, that won't do. I said, will you yield to the Lord now? He said, I may sometime. How hard people are. What of the Lord Jesus Christ? I said, well, sometime I may die for sinners. Thank God he didn't do that. He just up and did it. He hung on a cross for sinners. Oh, lady, don't harden yourself against my Lord. You may succeed. You may succeed. For my verse tells me that he that being often reproved, that hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed. And that without remedy. The God of the Bible kills people. The God of the Bible cuts them off. The God of the Bible sent a flood to tell us there were over three billion people. I wouldn't swear to this, but the archaeologists tell us, the evidence is plain, that there were more people alive on the earth when the flood came than are living on the earth now. And God killed every last one of over three billion souls, except eight souls. Now, Ralph Barnett didn't do it, but God did. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ came to the end of his rope, lost his patience, wore out his forbearance, and sent a flood, and sent to hell in one forty days time over three billion souls. God did that, Mr. Cole. God did it. That's what this book says. God kills people. The God of this Bible opened up the earth and sent 26,000 people to hell without giving them time to pack a suitcase. The God of this Bible that the modernists say he's an old bully, but he's the God you're going to have to deal with. He's the God you harden yourself against. He's the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't attempt to explain it, but I'm telling you right now, brother, you're fooling with dynamite. You're fooling with the God. When sin had come to its head, he sent three billion people to hell in the flood. When some people tampered with the holy things of God, he opened up the earth and sent 26,000 of them to hell without even a toothbrush. The God of the Bible rained down fire and brimstone and wiped Sodom and Gomorrah and the suburban cities off the face of the map. You can't even find out where they were. The God of the Bible, my friend, says, I kill and I make alive. I've been going up down America. There's no man living in America that's seen more deep conviction of sin than this poor preacher. I've left a trail of death all over this country. I've seen God strike down people just like that, who are opposing the work of God. I've seen as many as seven deacons in one Baptist church have terrible deaths in four days' time. The fast I have to bear is seven of them, all of them bucking the work of God. I've seen God kill people. You listen to this preacher tonight, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God who so loved the world that he gave. He's a holy God. He's a God when man's cup of iniquity comes to its full, he'll cut you off and send you to spend eternity in hell. And he'll not apologize for it. This sickly, sentimental God that's too good to punish sin is not the God that's in this book. The God of this book is a holy God. Oh, my friends, don't harden yourself against him. All on earth he'd have to do to send you to hell would just be not to give you your next breath. In Acts chapter 17 and verse 28, the scripture says we live and move and have our being in him. Listen to me, my friends. You can't even reject Christ tonight with your lips unless he gives you the strength and the power to do it. You know? He'd have to furnish you the breath for you to say, I will not bow to Jesus Christ. I've been going up down the land. I've never had anybody collect it yet. Miss Brown, you come here just a minute. I'll give you $500. I'll borrow it from Brother Kenora, and I'll pay you tomorrow if you walk from here back to that door without the help of God. I tell you what, if you're willing to try and to put him to test and to dare him, if you're willing to save this congregation, I'm going to collect that $500. I know I can get back from right here to that back door back yonder without the help of God. If you want to risk it, you just tear out. I ain't lying to you. This isn't a frame-up. You think you can make it from here to that door without God? Are you willing to try it? This is no frame-up. Are you afraid of God? Why, my goodness, you could walk from here to that door without him, couldn't you? You couldn't. Couldn't you? Thank you. Is that right? You just can't do it? You're in the hands of God. You say, you're trying to scare me. You're dead right, brother. You're in the hands of God. I wish to God I could scare you. Why, a fellow can't even get drunk without God giving him the strength to lift the bottle to his mouth. You can't even use these lips to curse God without him furnishing the breath for you to curse with. All on earth God's got to do, ladies, to wind up the battle of whether or not you'll surrender to him or not, is just to take his hand off of you and your next breath will not come and you'll be in hell. That's the God people are cursing now. That's the God they use his blessed name to swear by. That's the God whose holy name they desecrate. We'll have a hard time getting through town, I'll bet you, when service is over. The church people of this town will church on Sunday morning to heal with God from then till next Sunday morning. And the streets will be jammed, as they were last night, with people thumbing their noses at the holy commands of almighty God. And that's the very God the scripture says, your breath is in his hand. I wish you wouldn't harden yourself against him. I wish you weren't so determined to provoke him to wrath. For I tell you, this verse of scripture, God says, he that being often reproved hardness his neck shall. He said, I'll take care of you. My patience will be over some of these days, shall suddenly be destroyed. That without remedy. Mordecai Ham was a muggly Oklahoma, my wife's birth, where she lived for many years. Forty prominent businessmen boycotted his meeting and made jokes. Mr. Ham prophesied from the pulpit that within a year's time, every one of those forty men would die a violent death. And they did. And they did. And they did. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes God lets us love you. And with tears streaming down our cheeks, we take hold of you and say, please yield to the Lord. Please seek the Lord. Please give your soul a chance. Please. Please don't keep on spitting in the face of the one who gives you the very breath you breathe. Don't harden yourself against him. Don't do it. When I was a student in Southwestern Seminary, I had a little student church and they asked me to preach the first revival summer meeting, summer revival meeting I was there. I remember the fourth night of the meeting, the biggest sinner in all that county started coming to the service. He's a big bootlegger. He's known to kill six men. Everybody in the county is afraid of him. He is a tough one. I remember he came to the service like he scared that church crowd to death. Nobody would speak to him. They were scared of him. Next night he came back and came a little closer. Next night he came back and came down a little closer to the front. People kind of got up a little to pray for him. A lot of prayer went into the ears of God for that old devil. I remember that I got to praying about it. I guess I didn't know how to pray, but I was doing the best I could. I said, Lord, I want to save that fellow, kill him once. He said, you be the one. The news of it spread all over this country. It sure would. They say God's still around. You know, he kept coming back. I remember I came out to take a seat on the platform during the psalm service one night. The rascal was sitting on the fourth row of beaches just in front of me on the end seat. I looked at him while the psalm service was going on. His face was literally bathed with tears as the Spirit of God was dealing with his heart. My big sermon I prepared for that night just flew out. I went back into the little side room where I prayed sometimes. I got down on my knees and said, Lord, what on earth can I preach tonight? Give me something to preach. After a while, the psalm leader came and came in the door and said, Preacher, we've sung about all the psalms we know. If you're going to preach, you better get out there. I'm going to sing one more. If you're not out there, we'll just have to dismiss the service. I said, I got nothing to preach. He said, well, I don't know what to do. I was going late. I gave you my word. I got up off my knees and I went out there and stood in the pulpit and opened my Bible. Then I looked down to where I'd opened it, the fifth chapter of Romans. The eighth verse, I think it is. I just preached from that text. I never have repeated it because I don't know what I said that night. I've never been able to say it again. But I do know this, I preached on for God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And from the north and the south and the east and the west, I poured the love of God into that old wicked sinner. He just sat there and wept while I preached. That's why we stood for an invitation. And all the devils out of hell, I don't believe in this much, but I did that that night. The Holy Ghost wouldn't let them do anything else. We sang a verse or two, and that old boy was gripping the pew in front of him until I could see the veins sticking out on his hands. And he had a regular pool of tears where he wept. And there I was holding on and we were singing. I went down out of the pulpit and put my hand on his shoulder. It was as soft as a little child. And he was trembling and sobbing like his heart would break. I'll never forget what I said to him. I said, Mister, God's talking to you. He said, That's right, Preacher. I said, Mister, this is your night. He said, That's right, Preacher. I thought I had him in. I thought I had him. Bless God. And I took my hand off his shoulder and I stuck out my hand. I said, Come on. Let's yield to Christ. He said, I can't Preacher. But I said, Oh, yes, you can. The Holy Spirit's drawing you. The Holy Spirit's breaking your heart. Yes, you can. You can if God's quit you. But if God's drawing you, bless God, you can. You can. And I'll never forget if I live a million years, that man, his complexion changed. The tears vanished away. He took his hands off the pew. He looked me in the face and I saw hell in his face. And he said, If you want the truth, I won't. And he pushed me aside and ran out of that building. And the next day, a man came into the store and said, I want a box of 12-gauge shotgun shells. And this man turned his back, reached up on the shelf to get the shotgun shells. And his customer, with his hand in his pocket, pulled the trigger of a six-shooter five times and shot him through the heart. You say it's an accident? No, God just took his hand off of him. God just took his hand off of him. You ever take an automobile trip without asking God to send an angel along to help you? He'll do it. You're a child of God. I tell you, God's still running this show. Oh, it wasn't an accident. God just took his hand off of that sinner. For days he'd drawn him. For days he'd wooed him. For days he'd played with him. For days, God bless you, he'd stood outside the door of his hide and knocked. And the man came to decision. And he said, I won't. And the next day God just took his hand off of him and let him drop into hell. That's all he's got to do. Send you to hell. Just take his hand off of you. He holds you. Just take his hand off of you. Let me tell you, I think, the most dramatic thing I've ever experienced. Now quit. Hear me now. Hear me, oh Christian, pray. Pray. I was in Detroit, Michigan. On the 22nd night of December, I preached. We stood for an invitation. The dear woman right down there began to talk quietly to the person standing right by, a young lady. And the Holy Spirit spoke to me. I went down the two rows of stair steps to get down to the lower floor. And I started walking. I was going to say something to that young lady. And I had my head bowed, and I was saying, Lord, what do you want me to go speak to her for? And I had no message from her. I kept walking. By the time I got near to her, I lifted my face and looked her in the eye and extended this hand. And I looked into her face and heard her say, For Christ's sake, leave me alone. There was nothing else I could do. You see, God sometimes uses me to send you to hell as well as to save you. And I walked back and continued the invitation. You know, it's a serious thing she did. Luke, the 10th chapter and the 16th verse. My Lord sent the 70 out to preach. And he gave them these words. He that heareth you heareth me. Isn't that wonderful? God bless your heart. No humble Christian ever went out for the gospel to ring a doorbell. They didn't have this wonderful thing to stand on. Brother, if they'll hear you, they're hearing God. He that heareth you heareth me. He that despises you despises me. He that despises me despises him that sent me. When I walked down out of that platform and started to say a word to that girl, and when she said, For Christ's sake, leave me alone. She didn't just say that to me. I had company on that trip. She said it to the Lord. She said it to God. Somebody talked to you this morning about your soul. It is more than just somebody. It's God talking to you. If you despise their invitation, you despised his invitation. That's a serious thing. That young girl, when she said, For Christ's sake, leave me alone. She said it to God. On the first day of January, the Detroit Free Press published it. This young lady and her fiancé got in her little coupe to cross the city to have New Year's dinner with some friends. They had a head-on collision with another car. There were five people in the other car. They were not scratched. A young man friend with her was not hurt. She was thrown out. The neck was broken. She was instantly dead. The Detroit Free Press said the girl was killed in an accident. But it wasn't an accident. On the 22nd of December, she told God, Leave her alone. On the first day of January, he answered her prayer. He just took his hand no further. That wound her up. That wound her up. He that being often reproved, hardened is his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. No remedy. No remedy. If God takes his hand no further, nobody will ever bother you again about your soul. God takes his hand no further. No remedy. Please don't harden yourself. I haven't been able to bring the message like I wanted to. The Lord let me mumble a little to you. But I'll meet you to judgment with this message. Oh, don't you harden yourself any more against my Lord. Don't you say no to him anymore. Don't do it. In the providence of God, he's kept his hand on you. And you're here in this gospel service. Don't harden yourself against him. Instead of saying no to him, say yes. Say yes. Say yes. Say yes. You bow your heads while we pray.