Hello again and welcome to the program. We've been talking about moving from the land of Egypt to a land of hills and valleys. It says in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. On October the 7th, 1955, everything changed. I was 12 years old. I was very excited when I woke up that Friday morning. My family was going on a bus trip to the big city of Toronto. I had never been on a bus before, neither had I been to a big city. A trip to Toronto sounded exciting to me. To add to the excitement, most of my school friends were going as well. However, the most exciting thing to me was the fact that my dad was going to go with us. Our home was anything but a happy home. It was a mess. But, before leaving for school that morning, I noticed my mother had placed a suit on their bed that my dad would wear on our special trip to Toronto. I was so happy. I could only remember one other time when we went out together as a family, and that was to a restaurant for supper. Before the meal came, Dad got in an argument with Mom and we left without eating. As I left for school on that October morning, I removed the handlebar grips from my bike to be sure the two cigarettes that I had stolen from my dad's pack were safely hidden in the handlebars where they would not be found, and then I went on my way hoping that day would pass quickly so we could go on our family adventure. At school, I would anxiously wait for recess when I could hide with the other school kids and smoke those cigarettes with my friends. Some kids brought in beer to drink, however, I determined never to touch that stuff because of what it was doing to our family. Well, Dad missed the bus. To my disappointment, he purposely stayed away until the bus was gone. He then came home, put on his suit, and went out to a drunken party. There was one empty seat on that bus. It was the one where my dad was supposed to be sitting. As a 12-year-old boy, I stared at that seat and came to the conclusion that dad would rather be drinking with his friends than spending time with me. While Dad was getting drunk again, my brother, my mother, and myself, and most of my school friends, were at the Coliseum at the Exhibition Place in Toronto, listening to Dr. Billy Graham preach the Gospel. Billy Graham went on to be one of the most influential apostates that ever lived. The fact that I mentioned that I was saved in one of his crusades should not be taken as an endorsement for the apostasy that he promoted. We were sitting in the very back row, as far away as one could get from the speaker. The Coliseum can seat over 9,000 people, so you can imagine the trip from the back to the front was a long walk down the aisle. I do not remember anything the preacher said in his message. However, I do remember all the singing. I remember George Beverly Shea and the choir singing, How Great Thou Art. I remember Cliff Barrows introducing us to sing together the song that says, Jesus Saved. There was a lady in our little village that had a plaque on her front door that said, Jesus Saved. She also had Jesus Saved on the rear license plate of her car. Now we were singing about it. I wondered, could Jesus save our family? At the end of Graham's message, the choir sang another hymn entitled, Just As I Am, and an invitation was given to receive Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. I remember how the conviction of the Holy Spirit gripped my soul. I wrestled with God through that whole song. I would not walk down that long aisle with all my school friends watching. What would they think? I remember just a few weeks before this, at our school, they were making fun of a girl in our class because she was a Christian. Finally, they were singing the last verse of the hymn, and I hoped when it was over, the pressure to respond to the invitation would stop. For six long verses they sang, with each one ending, O Lamb of God, I come. However, the preacher said at the end of those six long verses, if someone still hasn't come, we will sing one more verse. It was as if he said, we're going to sing one more verse because there's a 12-year-old kid back there, his name's Bob, and he needs to get saved. I remember thinking that God, the creator of the universe, was talking to me and I was concerned about my school friends and what they were thinking. How stupid is that? My brother whispered to me, do you want to go? And that's all I needed. I said yes. On Friday, October 7, 1955, at about 8.30 in the evening, I walked down that long aisle with my brother and my mother, and we received Christ as our personal Savior. The Crusade report said that more than 7,000 men and women had left their seats to stand for Christ. I don't know how many of those men and women were sincere, but both God and I know that at least one 12-year-old boy was. I trusted Christ as my personal Savior, and my adventure in Christian living was underway. A few weeks earlier at our school, the Gideons had come and presented students that were in grade 5 with a New Testament. In the back was a place to sign your name if you wanted to receive Christ as your Savior. I read it carefully, and not being sure what it meant, I asked my mom to explain it to me. It was obvious that she did not know what it meant either, so I put the New Testament back on the shelf in my room without signing it. I somehow understood whatever salvation was, it was too important to sign that page if I did not understand it. I did two things the night I was saved before I went to bed. First, on the bus ride home, I memorized the verses they told me to memorize. And second, as soon as I got home, I went to my room, got the New Testament down from the shelf, and signed it. I took it out and showed it to my mom and said, Now we know what it means. Well, my dad came home drunk in the middle of the night. It wasn't a good thing. We'll look at it in our next program. Remember, the Bible says, for the land whither ye go to possess is not as the land of Egypt from whence ye came out, but the land whither ye go to possess is a land of hills and valleys. I've been traveling those hills and valleys for the last 69 years and it has been an adventure in Christian living. Be sure to be with us for our next program.