It's good to see us all. And everybody's home folk, I reckon. I was thinking a while ago, I came here in May of 1986. I thought it was 27 years. It's 29. I had a public school education, so I can't add them, so try a little bit. But you'll have to accept the failures and all that. Amen. It's good to be saved. Had a great trip up. I mean, Brother Jones and I, I'll tell you, we've had a good time together. And precious memories, they never go away. And they're wonderful. And we grow, don't we? Been, say, 58 years in July. 59? 59 years. 55? This is it. I can't ask. Got a calculator. Let me borrow one. Anyway, in July, it took me a little while to get my thing in gear, you know? I just thought everybody saved this kind of side issue. After I got saved, you know, when I first got saved, that wasn't no side issue. It was a big deal. But everybody's kind of laid back. So it took me a little while to get a hold of it. But after I got a hold of it, I put the pedal to the metal and I ain't never let off of it. Amen. Amen. Yeah, you don't have to believe it. I don't care if we do or not. We'll get to heaven and find out. I never did let off. It ain't never right for you to get cold on God if you ever do. There's something you're doing wrong. God didn't cool off. You did. Amen. New heights I'm gaining every day. It don't matter how many days you live. He can break His own record every day all your life. And your next life and all the other lives. He's a good God. And I was thinking this morning, you know, it's always good to come here because you're all of my friends. You know, if I really got in a pinch and I had to call, I'd die before I'd call anybody. But if I did ever call anybody, I'd call y'all. That's the truth. And I have people all the time say, you know, if you need me, you call me. I won't call nobody. I'd starve to death before I'd call somebody. But if I ever did call anybody, it'd be y'all. Ain't that right, Totsie? Y'all been good to us. You've been good to us in your friendship. Money don't buy sweetness. You can't buy love. And you don't have love. Love has you. Ain't that right? I'm going to read a verse this morning and take my text over Easter. This year Easter got to me. Hallelujah. You know, new heights you gain. You dig deeper. You know I've got a little garden. I can't do a garden. I'm going to say how big it is. It's about as big as the park here. And I bought two loads of the best topsoil I could find. A friend of mine, he's a mennonite, and he done me right. I bought two big loads of, and I got a raised garden. It's two cross ties deep. He brought that in there, and you could throw a rock in it and it'd grow. And I till it all the time. I till it to, you know they say, agriculture said, your roots only get six inches. That's all you'll get, a deep root. About six inches less than a tree or something. I'm talking about garden. And I till it every day, every year, two or three times. And every year it brings up another rock. I got all the rocks out, I get another rock. And reading the Bible, it's not rocks, it's jewels. They just keep rototilling it and it brings up another jewel. Don't it really? I followed my grandpa behind Prince, old Prince, big old, great big old mare. She's so fat, the water's staying on her back when it rained. And we really worked her hard. You know we did. She never broke a lather as long as I ever seen her. But she could pull a plow. She's so heavy, just lean over and the plow will go. And I followed that plow, and plow same, and listen, five acres behind one old horse at a plow. I mean, that's not a 15-minute job. I saw a guy plow probably 30 acres in two licks with one of them four-wheel drive John Deers, and he got done letting all that stuff out. I didn't know he could even get it in the field. Well, now, it took us a long time to plow five acres. I don't even think it's five acres, but I followed Grandpa. And you can invariably, he plowed it, every time I stayed down there, we plowed it. I stayed in the spring, he plowed the garden. I mean, he plowed the cornfield, it wasn't a garden either. Plowed the cornfield, and I followed it, and every year I went, I found arrowheads fall out of that sod. I found something fall out every year. You'd thought I got it all the first year. And that's the way the Bible is, ain't that right? Every time he plowed, it's another Another relic of love and glory. Not a relic. It's a treasure to you. And I thought about coming here to preach and you all are Bible people. Let me tell you something. This whole thing is messed up over we don't believe the Bible. I mean our country, our world, it's all over God's Word. God's Word tells about Jesus according to Scriptures, according to Scriptures, according to Scriptures, according to Scriptures. It's all about that. If you had never known Jesus, you hadn't got a text message from heaven. Ain't that right? So it's all on the Bible. And I ask you, Pastor, Brother Johnny Jones, I called him Johnny, he called me Wayne, but I guess we should do that. But anyway, he had a book called Evidence That Demands a Verdict. Have you ever read that, Gerald? Anybody in here read anything that you remember? Do you know what? He wrote a book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict. Here's what it said. He said, and we believe there's about 140, 130 or 140 scriptures in the Bible that's perfectly fulfilled in Christ from the Old Testament. I believe it's 130 or 140. He said if eight scriptures, eight prophecies got fulfilled in one man, the chance, the laws of chance, and he put the, I wish you'd get the book. You'd think I might be just telling you a bunch of bloney. He went to the mathematicians and said, have I done this right? He's got their list of their names in that book, who he went to. He figured the laws of chance of eight prophecies being fulfilled in one man. You ain't never gonna believe what I'm gonna tell you. It's like 18 inches of silver dollars put on the state of Texas, one silver dollar with the mark on it, a blind man turned loose on that, he walks straight to that silver dollar and picks it up. That's the chances of eight prophecies and 130 or more got fulfilled. And what kind of fools are we if we had any book in the world that had that much accuracy in it and we say put it on the shelf, it ain't no good. or we need to fix this book. A revised logic book. We're foolish. Our country's foolish. Why is a sodomite going to get a job in a church when they don't want him in there because we don't believe a book? It's all settled in that book. It's all settled in the Word that God gave us, anointed touch, Word of God. We don't need no help. We've got a book. And every time you till it, it brings up another diamond. Every time you till it, it brings another jewel. Oh, I'm just telling you, I was telling Dave this morning, he taught Sunday school, I thought, I said, Brother Dave, did you check the word fix? No, he didn't. But I didn't either. I said, oh, it's the story of him. I've been teaching the Bible 27 years. I didn't look it up either. Wouldn't it be nice if you found out that it means set the adjustable wrench and pull the screw just a little bit? My heart got fixed about 59 years ago, 60, 50, 60 years ago, whatever that adds up to be. My heart got the screws twisted. Amen. Amen. Thank God. Wouldn't it be, that is true whether it's in that Word or not. And so to come here and preach to this church, If you come to this church and you've got ears to hear, which is more than these floppers on the side of your head, and eyes to see, and that's more than them 20-20s. If you have ears and eyes, and some of you don't have, and I'm not being critical, but you go out to wake up yourself. We're trying to wake you up. You've heard the Word of God here. To me, it would be pretty near silly for me to come and preach a 30-minute message or a 40-minute message that educates you. If you ain't got the education now, you ain't listening. You just ain't listening. I've been around him for 30 years, nearly. I feared he was a goofball then. I still do. I stayed down there in that building with him a little while. He's just as doofy as the old one. It's a crazy thing. Amen. I love it. So I thought about preaching to you. I'm going to preach from Colossians 2 verse 12. And I'm really using it as a springboard for my thoughts. My thoughts come from the psalm, Up from the grave he arose. A mighty victory over his foes, what that psalm says. I just want the title. Verse 12, buried with Him in baptism. Who is buried with Him in baptism? You are. And I am. We're in also, you are risen with Him. Who? Who? Who's risen with Him? I am. Risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God. And it talks all the time about God giving you faith. Me and Totsie's talk about it a lot. We read the Bible. This is our sixth year reading the Bible. We missed our first day of six years Friday night. No, Saturday night. Was it Saturday? No, it was Friday night. Thursday night, Thursday night. We read together every night, five pages of the Bible. We end up about October reading it through, and then we read something else in the Bible, like 119th Psalm or something. But we've talked about it a whole lot, and I've watched her grow as we've read. She read it before, but we read it together and it just helped us. And I watched her, and we agreed, and we both grow. I mean, it ain't just her growing, I'm growing. I'm growing. You can't read the Bible and go to till the ground and not find the arrowheads. And I said, we agreed together. God has to open your eyes. You can sit there and add that thing up all you want to, but till God punches that button, buddy, and them eyes come open, I heard Nolan's testimony. They told your testimony this morning. Boy, don't you wish that happened to every kid in this building. Amen. Amen. Huh? Amen. If you don't want that, buddy, you're twisted. That's right. Amen. He had to open my eyes. That's right. Amen. And then I told Brother Jones, I sat up on the side of the mountain there praying. I had worship time, buddy, church. I didn't learn to live until I had to die. Y'all know what I mean? I didn't do that when I was 13 either. I mean, I got saved when I was 13, but I didn't die when I was 13. That may sound koopy to you, but buddy, the day I realized that nothing in this world is any good to me, and I wanted to quit, he took over. But all of a sudden, I started seeing them buds come out on them little hens. These little old leaves opened it up in my life. I never did learn to live, Sammy, until I had to die! I didn't learn to die! I had to die! I had to die! That Scripture said with him, Through the operation of God, through the operation of God. It's gotta be an operation of God this morning. That it's gonna have to happen in your life. Now look, and it says here, ye are risen with him. I wasn't even there had I raised with him by the operation of God. Amen. Amen. Who hath raised him from the dead. When he pulled him up by the roots, he pulled me up by the roots. Yes, amen. Hallelujah. Right, amen. Now, I'm just introducing them. I'll quit if you want me to. You know, it's a big deal for you to learn who God is. I think Philippians is probably my choice of books today, maybe tomorrow, something else. But in the book of Philippians, they're great. Look at it with me just a minute, and then I'm going to preach my message. Try to. He's helped my heart already. I didn't know he was going to help me, but unless he opens your eyes, it's the operation of faith, it's the operation of God. In verse 5, he said, let this mind be in you. Have you ever thought about that statement right there? And you know the rest of that. You heard it taught. If you hadn't, you just wasn't listening. Let this mind, allow this mind to be in you. He ain't saying get this mind in you, Randall. He's talking about let it be in you. It's in there, let it be in there. And we don't let it be in there. That's a great verse, isn't it? Let this mind be in you. What kind of mind is that? Well, he didn't think it was a big deal to have to be equal to God. He thought it was a big deal to get me though. What kind of logic is that? There's nothing I've got. There's no logic I've got. Why would God want me? and live equal with God, Christ was equal with God, laid aside that glory, humbled Himself to be a man, not just a man, to die like a man, and die the cursed tree like a man. The worst death you could... Cursed is the man who hangs on the tree. It went that way. That's a great verse, this scripture. Let me turn you over to chapter 3, verse 10. You know, if you're going to know somebody, You've got to fool with them. Don't you, Donald? I mean, we have known each other a long time, but we've not known each other like I know him. We've known each other forever, but not like I know him. And I know him a long time, but not like I know that lady back there in that middle right there. You fool around with each other. And you walk with each other. And you talk with each other. Ain't that right? Verse number 10, that I may know him, Anybody, if any sense at all, would want to know the power of His resurrection. Anybody. But you don't want that other. I mean, I never thought about that. I never thought about that, Billy. I want to know Him. I want to know the power of His resurrection, but I never thought about the fellowship He suffered and being conformed to His death. If by some way in this process I can attain unto this resurrection thing, And so the only way, I saved when I was 13 years old, but I didn't know him like that right there is talking about. I know that lady back there, I called her from boot camp in 1960 and said, we're getting married as soon as I get home and we can get married, we're getting married. I didn't propose to her, I told her what we was going to do. She already told me what she's going to do, so why didn't I want to tell her what I was going to do? and I said that we're gonna get married and I came home and I went through everything I had to do and was married to her on the 24th of December 1960 and we went to a motel and we consummated our marriage as far as we know how to do it. But I never knew her like I know her now. No sir, buddy, I didn't know who I married and there's a lot of us in here that got married and did not know who we were marrying. We were marrying what was told or showed to us, and that's the best it could be. But the real you will stand up down the road. It's right. So we take this time to know each other. When my daughter, my granddaughter was going with the boy, I said, spend time with Him and find out what He likes and what He don't like. I'm not talking about intimate wickedness. I'm talking about get to know each other. So when you say, I do, you know what you're saying it to or who you're saying it to. Ain't that right? I'm right about this. So you've got to spend time to know anybody. And particularly, if you're going to know Him, You ain't never gonna know him. I just read Brother Jones a quote from a great preacher. Spurgeon put it in his Introduction to the 119th Psalm. He told about an old woman in England, that's where he was a pastor. He wasn't a pastor, it's another man told him. He was one of them brothers that McShane loved so much. I told you about an old woman in his church that had meditated through the Bible three times. I bet you ain't meditated through one book one time. But she went through the whole Bible. In the beginning God, even so come Lord Jesus. Every bit of it. How did she do that, Dean? I'll tell you one thing. She knew who y'all were talking to. She told me the rest of it. I'll tell you, it goes further than reading. You have to spend time with him. You have to meditate and see what he's really saying. Is he talking about a wrench? Or is he talking about a fix your eyes on like you stare at the road and you're driving? No, what's he talking about in this word, fix? That my heart is fixed. And so you've got to spend time. To know Him. And for me to stand here and tell you tonight, today, this morning, try to teach you something. You've heard this Bible preached and taught from this pulpit. If there's a better church, I don't know where it's at. You heard the book. You haven't heard a foreign translation? You haven't heard one question ever put on it? I can tell you a church that you'd bet your money on, if you was a betting person, and a man that teaches Sunday school in that church said there's a... that's an unfortunate translation right there. If I had a man in my church said that, he'd never teach another word. I'm not talking about, I don't care how much money he gave, he wouldn't teach another word in my church. This book, buddy, has took all the burden off my heart. I was taught against this book. Man, you forfeit your life when you quit believing that book. You forfeit the happiness of your life. This book tells about him. And it's one thing to know about Him. It's a whole other thing to know Him. Y'all know about me. I mean, you know about me, but you don't know me. But you're closer than anybody else to know me. We've been together lots of times. Stayed in the same place. Preached the Revival together. Yeah. We know each other better than y'all know me. But there's always that staying together. Knowing each other. Knowing each other. Spending time to know each other. And I want to preach on that this morning. Up from the grave, He arose. I was praying about Easter. I was praying about it. Easter ain't nothing but an Easter egg to a bunch of kids. And you know, you don't want to be mean to them. I mean, they've got the kid down the street hunting them. And the kid up the road hunting them. And you're taking all the joy of hunting them out? Just fix it somehow, in other words, they can have fun and find Jesus too. Something's got to be done. You take everything off the shelf, put something back on there that's good. It's right for a grown-up as well as it is a six-year-old kid. So I want to preach to you a little while. If I can, the Lord will help me. I want to tell you what got out of that grave. What got out of that grave? I can tell you the first thing I know got out of that grave. God got out of that grave. God got out of that grave. And I ain't going to take all the time to pray the words, but he was equal with God. That's what I just read you. He was equal to God and thought not robbery. Up from the grave, God arose. And that's fine, if that's all there is to it. In the Middle East, about 7,000 miles away from here, there's a hole in the ground in which God laid dead, or His body, the physical body was dead. He pushed the stone away, got out of the hole, and you could say that is a fact. He was seen of 500 brethren and so forth, all of that. It's a proven fact that he rose from the dead, and it may not have one bit of effect on Turkey Ridge Baptist Church this morning, if that's all there is to it. There ain't all there is to it. It's right, but it's the truth. What else got out of that grave? If that's all that got out of the grave, I'm proud about it, but I've got to have more than that got out of that grave. I can tell you what else got out of that grave. Life got out of that grave. L-I-F-E, life, buddy. Death was in that grave, and death stayed in that grave, and life got out of it. And because He lives, I can live. In Him was life and the life was the light of man. Life got out of that grave. And we ain't got nothing to preach if life didn't get out of that grave. You're here wasting your time if life didn't get out of that grave. And if you get saved, that life will get inside of you and it won't be in a grave. It'll be in a garden. Every time you plow it, there'll be an arrowhead come up somewhere. Amen. I ain't talking about plowing the Bible, I'm talking about plowing you. Ain't that right? Heard a guy say, you may run a goat off, but you ain't going to run no sheep off. I don't know if that's right or not, but I like the way he said it. He didn't run me off. I don't know who I am. I don't think I have much of an IQ, and I don't think I'm the biggest dude to ever run the road. But I'm going to tell you, somebody plowed me, I just got my Bible to see if they was right about it. If they was right, I just jerked the junk out of my life trying to do it. Amen. Amen. Amen. I had done bought me some cummerbunds. And I was getting pretty boy. Somebody cut out on me. And I thought in a trash can. Got my hair cut. I ain't got my beard. If I wasn't at home, I wouldn't say that. Amen, buddy. I don't know how you take preaching, but I'm going to tell you something. If he plows me, I'm going to do something about it. And I'm not going to call him checkmate either. I'm going to go get me a mirror and see what's going on. Get that Bible and see if the guy's rightly divided the Word. If he has rightly divided the Word, then I'm going to correct me. That's exactly right. So when you get plowed, if you're real, arrowheads will come up. or whatever you want to call them, diamonds or treasures. So what got out of that grave? Life. Praise God, I'm glad life got out of that grave. Oh, I've tasted Him. I've tasted Him. I sat up on the side of that mountain up there. Listen, I pulled that shotgun that Cleve's boy give me. I pulled a hammer on that shotgun, that turkey was from here to you, and I snapped down that big gobbler, had about six or seven inch beard. I snapped on him. Any other time, I'd probably throw that gun. But that little boy said, it might have been my will for you not to do that. And I said, thank you, Lord. I'm proud of you. Thank you, Lord. You're still working on me. He plowed and the arrowhead come up. Amen. I'm alive this morning. I ain't dead. I ain't a dead person. You can be dead if you want to be. But buddy, when you plow me, I want the arrowhead to come up. I want some treasure to come up. Life came out of that grave. Hallelujah. I don't want to wear us out this morning, but I want to tell you I know Him. I don't know Him as good maybe as you do. I don't know about that. But I'm just telling you, buddy, you go spend time with Him. You'll get to know who He is. And listen, I never did learn to live until I had to die. And I wouldn't have died on my own. I wouldn't have never done it. I've got to head it this way and I've got to head it that way, buddy. When I couldn't get it my way, they were no place to go, Nolan, but die. And then when I died, the buds popped out on the rims. And I began to see what life's all about. That's right, buddy. You don't have to win nothing. I'm telling you, if you win everything over at that school thing, and end up, and that's the end of your winnings, you ain't won nothing. Oh, yeah, buddy. That old black woman told her kids, you missed God. You missed it all. Missed it all. I don't care if it's Rockefeller or whoever else it is, buddy. You missed it all. You missed that right there, you missed it all. If you're sitting in this building this morning and you ain't sure you're saved, I'll tell you what you do. You better follow that young man down the aisle and see what you ain't got. Tell him to open your eyes that you can behold your own self. I pray that all the time. You know, that's 119 verse 18. It said, open down my eyes, I have a whole wondrous thing out of the law. Well, it's not always in the law. There's wondrous things everywhere. It's in nature. I got so right with God one time, when I first got getting right with God, every time as I drove down the road, every electric pole looked like the cross, and I just cried all the way down the road. Every electric pole. And when I got right, the whole earth was full of His glory. Everywhere. I remember so many testimonies. When I got saved, the birds started singing. They've been singing all the time. that your ear's been messed up. That's right. So life got out of the grave. Love got out of the grave. There wasn't no love until he came out of there. Love is of God. Some men spend their love loving the world. But it didn't come from the world. It came from God. You perverted it. You sent it off in the wrong direction if you love the world. So the love that I gave you It was supposed to be love in Him. Perfected love. Listen a minute. Love got out of the grave and hate stayed in there. Huh? Death. Death stayed in there. Life came out. Love came out. Death stayed in the grave. Hatred stayed in the grave. Murdered. All that filth stayed in the grave. It's all dead. It's all deadly. You know, Carroll, I thought about this. I read, I taught out of Carroll's book because I like B.H. Carroll real good. He don't believe like me. He's Calvinist. I ain't no Calvinist. And he didn't believe it was a thousand year reign of Christ or something like that. Well, he ain't right. Just spit it out and take the good. He said those first chapters when Saul was king, well, King and David King played his little lyre for him or whatever, harp, and calmed his nerve. He started a war and went out and killed Goliath, 10,000, his thousands, his 10,000. started a little jealousy, we're strifing. Who taught that? You did. Comes jealousy. Or jealousy, comes pride, comes. And started that strife, and here's what Carroll said. He said those three chapters, it's three chapters right there. It's called the war between love and hate. That's what's going on in your life. It's a war between love and hate. And Gene Edwards wrote the book, Tale of Three Kings. Some of y'all read it. Surely you have. Some of you have. That's three kings. That's Saul, Absalom, and David. Only one of them was not throwing spears at the other. David. You know what guy that great? David. The other two guys stayed in there. Y'all see where I'm going with my radio putting out? You don't have to win. No, you don't have to win. But when you get up with them, they'll say, I know one thing, that fella loves me. He cares. There's an old man goes to parties on Sunday morning. I'm not necessarily for going out on Sunday, but we do. I don't know, maybe you've got to work me over one of these days. But there's three or four men sit there and eat. There's an old man there. It looked like somebody has just took a cat of nine tails and whipped him in the face with it. His nose is broke and he's got scars all over his face and he talks bad. And I remember we went in there a couple, three times and he was there. His name's Herschel, but I didn't know what his name was. And he talked bad and I said, we're gonna get up and leave. That devil ain't gonna cuss in front of you. I'll get up and leave or call him down or something. I mean, just, you know. And old Herschel got lung cancer and liver cancer. He's eat up all in the inside. He fell backward. He was using the bathroom, fell backward, passed out, woke up. It took him eight hours to get to the cell phone and call his boy. When his boy got there, the chain was on the door. He couldn't. He had to get out of the way and knock the chain, break the chain, take him in. Took him in the hospital. All of his chemistries was real bad. And then they come back in and they said, we got bad news for you, sir. I don't even know his last name. Said you're eat up with cancer. I went to see him the other day. Got a bird before him. The war between love and hate. You understand me? I'm going to straighten that old bird out. Now I want to straighten him out a different way. I'm glad that love got out of that grave. And I'm going to tell you all something. I'll never be able to execute the whole pattern of love. But I can tell you this. You do not have love. Love has you and it knows no boundary. It will take you to the complete end of your life. It will never let you go. It never fails. It lays its hand on you. Buddy, you will do your best to stop it. You cannot stop love. It will not shut up. It will not go to rest. You do not have love. Love has you. If you never hear that from anybody that knows besides me, you can put her down and we'll meet before the judgment seat of Christ. I know what I'm saying is dead right. Love came out of that grave and it got a hold of me. That's the day I died. The day I died, love took hold of me like I'm talking about. Amen. And so love came out. Love rose over hatred and evil and all that. Number four, I've got to quit, don't I? Hope came out of the grave. There was no hope. I don't remember the writer. I wish I'd write all them references down. I read everything. But one writer, and I think it was Carol, but I don't know who it was, but before Jesus came, before the strong man came, the other strong man ruled the world. And they said women would take a candle or a little lamp and set it by their babies, and set all night by their babies to keep the demons from taking their babies' souls away from them. You could hear them in the desert howling. You don't hear them, do you? I never heard them howling in a desert. But they went a desert howl. They groped around little babies. That little baby on your shoulder right there. They groped around. You didn't have to fight a devil over that. Why? Because that hole in the ground where he came out. The demon had to shut up because the Master of all came. And He'd give us hope. It's hope that does overwhelm your heart. But I tell you, when you get to know Him, that hope ain't never really deferred. I mean, it ain't put off forever. It's just put off for a little while. And I found out that this is my life. I mean, I walked with him. You don't know him unless you go with him. Sometimes he'll take a little bitty chip of red pepper and throw it right in your makeup and burn you up, buddy. But when it's over, you're a whole lot better person than you were. Them hard times are the good times. Oh, they are. I'm telling you. I'm telling you, this is what I know. I watched one of my kids come to altar. Holy Ghost said to me, He said, when I see that right there, He said, this is how I feel about it. He said, I hate to do this to you, but it's the only way I can get you where I want you. And He hates to do it to you because He loves you so much, but He can't get you where He wants you. He has to treat you rough. But He don't treat you rough by hatred. It's kind hands that work you over. It's kind hands. That's exactly right. It was that focus on the family fellow, Bill, what's his name? Anyway, I heard him tell a story. It might have been Bill Gaither. I thought it was Bill Gaither. Bill Gaither said when he was young, he'd done something wrong. His daddy said, come here, Bill. He said, what'd you do? He said, Daddy, I did it. I did it. I did it. He said, you know what the punishment is, don't you? Yes, sir. He said, go get the belt. Got the belt. He said, come here. He might have took it off his britches. Come here. Bend over. And he must have put his legs between his legs so he could lean over. That's the way he whipped it. He said, buddy, I heard that belt coming. Whomp! It hit. And it didn't hit me. He said, what? Daddy didn't miss me. I know that. Whomp! He hit him about four or five times. And then he raised him up. And his big tears run down his face. And he'd hit himself. He said, Bill, I'd rather take this licking than you. He said, who couldn't live for God after that? Ain't that right? God don't hurt you when He has to. He just has to do it to put you where He can help you. Cancer, surely. I don't care how you look at it. All things work together for good if they love God. It don't matter, buddy, what it is. I got a lot of heart hurt in my life, but you know what it's done, Johnny? It's just like taking tough meat and putting it through that tenderizer. It makes you tender. You can't change it. You can't change who you are, but he can tenderize who you are. I'm Wade Henson. That's Johnny Jones. That's Randall. Top. That's Sammy. That's my buddy. Huh? It don't change who we are. He just changes the tenderness. He fix you up so you get to have your bit home. Ain't that good? Hope, you can lock me up in a prison, throw away the key, but you can't lock me up. Ain't that right? You can't lock me up. I know it's right. Hope for forgiveness, hope for tomorrow, hope for hopelessness, hope for healing, hope for broken hearts, hope for broken promises, hope for broken homes, hope for broken relationships. I got one more. God gave it to me while I was preaching. This is the only second time I'm preaching. God gave it to me the other day while I was preaching at home. A friend rose up out of that grave. Whoo! That's high stuff right there. Loneliness ain't no way to live. And if it ain't a friend, I don't care how close they are to you, you're still lonely. A friend sticks closer than a brother. and loveth it all times. I was going over that mountain one day. I was reading Henry Drummond's book on the greatest thing in the world. The greatest thing in the world, I think it is. Henry Drummond's book on the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. I was reading that book and he said, a friend, you can tell him anything you want to tell him and a friend will take what he likes and leave what he don't like and you won't know which one he took and which one he left. Didn't I read that to you? I read another one in there that got me in here both. You remember what it was? You do remember? Why is your memory so good? I was hoping you'd forget something. He said, one fit of temper, didn't he? I was reading it. He's looking out the window trying to find the white line. And I'm reading it. We're both crying, so that made it worse. I thought it was going off a mountain. Here's what Henry Drummond said about one fit of temper. I'm high tempered. He's not high tempered at all. Y'all are so smooth up here in the mountains. He said, one fit of tempers like a bubble of gas floating from the floor of the ocean to the surface. It depicts something rotten underneath, and the only way to stop it is to fix the rotten. And I turned to Johnny, he was looking out the window, Brother Johnny, and I said, Johnny, he says I'm lost. And we wept our way across Copperstone Mountain. Now let me tell y'all something. A friend come out of that grave. And he's in here this morning. You could never tell me, convince me, no day of your life could you convince me that a deaf person cannot feel when another person is in the room where they are if they can't see. If they're in a room by theirself, they're back to the door and somebody comes in that door, they'll know it. And you'll never convince me that a blind person does not feel the presence of another person. And yet you have a hard time believing because you've got eyes and ears. And yet here He is in this room and you don't really have eyes and ears that He's talking about your death to Him and blind to Him. But He's in here this morning and He's filled my heart with love. He's letting me preach one more time. You know how long it's been that He's been working on me? Sixty years almost. So I'd be able to say what I said this morning. Do you all believe that? I mean, I'm talking about he tweaked it down for this day. Twisted them little things. You adjust the carburetor. You know how you adjust them big carburetors. I've done it all my life. Had to do it. Pull her down, pull it back up, pull it down, pull it back up, pull it down, pull it back up. Keep doing that until that baby runs right on the money. That's what he does to you and me. He pulls that timing until it's just exact. I watched that guy at Indianapolis when they were having them motor trials. They let us in them pits. And that fellow was standing around there and he had them headsets on listening to that engine. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, like that. And I thought, my lord, that thing's running like a sewing machine. Shaking his head. Do another boom, boom, boom. Turn her again. I said, my goodness. He's tweaking that Indianapolis 500 engine to run that big race. Wouldn't God do more than that for you? Wouldn't God that loves you so much do more than that for you? Stand by you and rev you and rev you and rev you and twist it and rev you and rev you and rev you. Oh, buddy. What a friend we have in Jesus. I run Him off. If you can run Him off, I run Him off. When I come to church and got right with God, I had to make a choice. Hebrews chapter number five. Went for a time, y'all ought to be teachers. Y'all need one teacher again, what be the first principles, the oracles of God, and become such as have meat and milk and not strong, not strong meat, for they that drink, have milk or can't take strong meat, you know what I'm talking about. I said, well, that sounds good. I went on and jumped that next chapter there. Let's go on to perfection, not laying again foundation of repentance toward dead works and all that. Laying on hands, everybody. This we'll do if God permits. He said, for it's impossible. Here's what it says in the sixth chapter of Hebrews. You can look at it. It's impossible, Sammy, if you could lose it, to restore you unto it, because you'd have to die on a cross again. And I said, Mother, What do you think that means? And she said, I've never seen that before. And I had a choice to make, Johnny Jones. I said, I've sinned enough to send every man in America to hell. I've done enough to send everybody to hell. And I said, Lord, there ain't no hope for me. I'm throwing in a towel. I'm going to eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow I die. I read that chapter. And I said, either that means that for me to get saved, it's absurd, because he'd have to die again, for me to be lost after I got saved. Or it means that it's absurd for you to think you could lose it, because if you could lose it, he'd have to go to Calvary again. and he will never go to Calvary again. So what God's done, he's done it forever. For what's begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Every man's works are tried in the fire. If you lose it all, you're still saved, yet so is by fire. My spirit is with you, and you beg to vote, and that his spirit be saved in the day of the Lord. What a friend. So you sat here this morning taking him for granted. You really saved? You really saved? A lot of people got saved when they was 13 years old and had to get saved right. They didn't get saved. But I ain't one of them. I jumped in, buddy. I said, I am sinking. I have no hope. There is no chance for me. If you don't save me, I'm done. And he took the burden away. That's what he does to every human he saves. I don't care what you say about it all. It ain't speaking in tongues. It ain't running the aisle and not wanting to know what you may run all. And I don't care if you speak in some kind of foreign language. It don't matter to me. But I'll tell you one thing. That burden of your sin better roll away. And if it don't roll away, you better go back and lick that cash again. I never heard anybody got saved that didn't say that very thing. That burden went away. I asked a lady one day, I said, are you saved? Yes. I said, do you believe in having experience when you get saved? She said, no. I said, well, what happened to you when you got saved? She said, the only thing that happened to me is the burden rolled away. I said, how much more do you want to roll away? I never feared one time while I was in England, France, or North Africa going to hell. Not once. I wasn't right with God. And I figured I'd lost. Well, I wasn't afraid of going to hell. How are you going to figure that out? Because God's ways are so wonderful. He's our friend. I think I want to preach a sermon sometime on that Jeremiah chapter where he said, I know my thoughts that I have for you. Thoughts of good, mercy, mercy. As bad as they were in that book, they were awful. He said, I have thoughts for you that are good and merciful. He has them for you this morning. I'll preach too long, I'll probably preach too long.