Let's turn with me to the book of Malachi. That's the last book of the Old Testament, and actually it introduces 400 years of darkness without a witness, without a prophet, without a light in the spiritual sky, until Jesus was born in Bethlehem's manger. As I said this morning, some poor lady, and I do mean poor lady, wrote a letter to the caller, to the editor, and said, Like soap operas, you can barely wait for the next episode. Will Lester lose his children? Will Lester sue the United States Supreme Court? Where will his fanaticism lead him? And then a byword that I'll not repeat. I can hardly wait for the next chapter. And so Brother Olaf is now the head of a soapbox opera. But I'm glad tonight that I found the right soap of the Old Testament, and actually it introduces 400 years. of darkness without a witness, without a prophet, without a light in the spiritual sky, until Jesus was born in Bethlehem's manger. As I said this morning, some poor lady—and I do mean poor lady—wrote the letter to the caller, to the editor, and said, Roloff versus the courts. Like soap operas, you can barely wait for the next episode. Will Lester lose his children? Will Lester sue the United States Supreme Court? Where will his fanaticism lead him? And then a byword that I'll not repeat. I can hardly wait for the next chapter. And so Brother Olaf is now the head of a soapbox opera. But I'm glad tonight that I found the right soap. You say, is that in the Bible? Yes, sir, it's in the Bible. In Malachi chapter 3, verse 2, "...who may abide the day of his coming." And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's salt. He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, And he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." Now, in chapter 2 and verse 6, the law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found. in his lips. He walked with me in peace and equity, and it turned many away from iniquity. Now back to the third chapter, and it will be verse 6. For I am the Lord, I change not that The sons of Jacob are not consumed. We may attend and rest assuredly and with great certainty on the unchangeableness of our Savior. If He has seen His people through in days gone by, He'll see us through now. And though it's been reported far and near from the Attorney General's office that all roads are now closed, and you may be interested to know that this week we finished the film Back to Bedford with Bunyan. I believe it will be used of the Lord more than any film we've ever made. Life Sunday night's sacred service. The last scene we shot was out close to Cal Alley. There were crossroads. And one of our friends, the Blinking Sign Company, were kind enough to say, we'll be glad to bring road closed signs and put it at every crossing of the four crossings. They came and we helped them set up the signs, and John took his camera, and we went to four different corners to face the same disappointing road closed. And when we came, To the fourth one, of course, we had our faithful guide, the book. And when I knelt down, I realized there's only one way to look. I'd gone in four directions, that's all admitted. But those were horizontal, but they forgot the perpendicular rule. That's always been the road God's people travel to get out. The thing that was interesting, John came behind me and he said, I'd like to take a picture of you facing the sign and looking up. My Bible fell open to John chapter 14 and verse 6. I am the way. I said, John, take a look. He said, I see it. And he put his—and he said, I can—brother, that's our only hope. The color tides called this afternoon, and for forty solid minutes, they begged for the privilege of coming out here tonight. And I said, it's all over. You were here last Sunday night in the most sacred night we've ever had. I said, Martha, you came to what you recognize as our funeral, because you said we're dead. But I said, I didn't see the flowers that you brought. There was no sympathy, no compassion, and no love, but a sarcastic making fun. of the tears we shed, and they were not glycerin drops. They were real. You stood where people knelt all around you, and you heard them praying and weeping. You poked fun at the cross, the tears, the hard times through which we've gone, and the caller times until they apologize will never come through that gate again. I said, doesn't it seem strange to you that the Washington Post, so many miles away, would come out with a full page this week, far kinder than you've ever been? Doesn't it seem strange to you that the Fort Worth Star-Telegram would give a whole page and be kind? No kindness has been shown by my local people. I've got an announcement to make. God is moving in this city. There will be an awakening to this cause. Now I want you to turn with me to the book of Ephesians, And I want to share something with you. It will be chapter 2. It talks about a lost man, his condition, and then it tells about salvation by grace that we have been preaching on, at least on Sunday mornings. Verse 1, you had to quicken, you were dead. Your course was the course of the world. Your prince was the prince of the power of the air, the devil. Your spirit was one of disobedience. Your conversation and life was in the lusts of your flesh. By nature, You are the children of wrath, even as others. That's the condition of a man without Christ. Therefore, as I said to Martha, I said, honey, we'll pray for you, and we love all of you. And we thought we were being very courteous and nice. There'll never be any bitterness. Her heart began to melt, and she said, what can we do to make things right? I'm sorry. that I did slant or say some things that may be, but dear friend, there's one man in this congregation that's worse than any other man. It's not the man that will not ask forgiveness, it's the man that will not grant forgiveness. But, let me go on, you cannot grant forgiveness until somebody wants forgiveness. Ted with me now, and I felt before I came over here that this is the need of this hour. Psalm 51. Psalm 51. There's a verse in this chapter that I want to read. Beginning at verse seven, we come to the soap verse. Purge me with hyssop. I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore in me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God. Thou God of my salvation and my conscience, sing aloud of thy righteousness, O Lord. Open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For, notice, thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. O God, thou wilt not despise it. We never become soul winners until we have the joy of God's salvation. Not hard to tell somebody about something you're enjoying. The newlyweds are saying, we just got married. And we're so happy. We're on our honeymoon. Christians ought to be quick to talk about their love life with Jesus. He said, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, uphold me with thy free spirit, Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners will be converted unto thee." There must be a cleansing and a purifying, as we read in Malachi, before there can be a real usable vessel. God doesn't have to have a very expensive vessel, but he does have to have a clean vessel. I never have cleansed myself. God has to do the cleansing. And now then, after we're cleansed, the Lord does one thing to us, or permits it, and that's for us to be broken, that he uses us. I want to show you tonight, in the scripture, after fuller soap, after our cleansing, and of course you know the soap is the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all sin. God uses people that are broken before they can be of real service to Him. What about Jacob? Jacob's natural strength was broken. Jacob had lied, and cheated, and prospered, and gained much wealth, and yet, till he came to Jabbok that night, wrestled, and I believe it was Jesus there, Turned him into a prince after what? After a leg was bent or broken and he was made crippled. And when he came out the next morning, he wasn't the rapid runner that he'd always been. God said, Jacob, I'm going to fix you, for you won't be able to outrun your brother. And he limped out the next morning. He said, that heavenly visitor, wonderful Savior said, it's breaking day. And I must leave. Jacob said, I will not let thee go until you bless me. He blessed him, but the blessing was a crippled leg. Parker sings more in a wheelchair than most of you sing in the new car. Oh, I know what he probably had his accident. strong like Orville and Oliver, handsome physique, strong muscles and good legs, and yet, to hear the verdict, crippled, wheelchair victim, but he didn't quit. As I said this morning, he got on the plane, had a little old suitcase, a wheelchair, and a pair of hand controls for a car, but he didn't have a car. And yet he came back riding in the lovely Oldsmobile. That's faith, isn't it? God honors the faith. God's not going to use us till we're broken. As long as we're strong in ourselves, have needed nothing, we'll get nothing, and be worth exactly nothing in this old world. Broken. was broken. Until he was broken, he never was the Prince of God. You know, Moses was out in the wilderness, and they were starving for water. And the people came and said, Moses, we can't live without water. And the Lord said, Moses, why don't you use what you've got in your And he took that rod and struck the rock and broke the rock. And out of the rock, out of the brokenness of the rock, there came water. Oh, today, you girls and you men and women, you're afraid of being broken. You're afraid to lose your pride. You're afraid to be made humble. And you want some shortcut. They don't. God could have fixed it. Why, I didn't have to take my milk cow to Valor to milk my way through school. He could have fixed it. But he didn't. I could have been embarrassed leading that little old Jersey cow down the street and all the school classmates seeing me. Brother, it didn't bother me. I wanted my room and board. I knew God had called me to preach and that's the only thing I knew to do. And my cow, became my mascot. And people, my brothers, the boys that played basketball and handball and softball, they said to me, Lester, let me go wash your milk. Well, we had tow-tim fellowship. Oh, I could have stuck my little chest out and said, now, Lord, You know I won't take a cow to baler. Listen, I'd have taken a nanny goat to baler and been glad to do it if she'd have paid my way through school. Broken. You wonder why the Lord hasn't used you. Maybe you haven't been broken. You remember one time there was an old country boy out behind the barn, and he was out there with his hands, and he was really getting the barley and the wheat, and he's getting a little grain ready, you know, and he said, we're going to make us some wheat and some bread, and we're going to live, and about that time, here come the midnight. Brother, they just took everything away from these dear people, and they'd come out once a year during the harvest time, take everything, and one day this man was out there, and he said, I'm going to hide behind, I'm going to figure he's out there, and he's getting his grain ready for his wheat, and Somebody else came. Angel of the Lord came and said, Hello! How about a man of valor? That old country boy looked up and said, Might a man of valor? Huh? Little old country tadpole? I mean, just a little piece of mud out there trying to get enough wheat for some bread for a little old... He said, Might a man of valor? Yeah, he said, That's what I said. He said, Whereabouts are the mirror? For the miracle! Brother, there's nothing wrong with God's people if you don't want God to expect them to perform some miracles. I'm going to see in 1978 some of the greatest miracles I've ever seen since I've already seen some. You couldn't take lightly baptizing a hundred people who got that last night. That was a miracle. Mothers and dads came in here from distant states and said, thank you for the miracle. I saw a miracle! I said, I saw 96. Oh, listen. God wants to use us. But this old country boy, he said, Lord, he said, are you going to use me? He said, sure will. He said, now get y'all together, and we got to whip out what's been tonight. And he said, all right, so he went outside and, I don't know, beat up against the poltergeist, come on, or something, and here they come. You know how many they had? 32,000. He was the commander-in-chief of 32,000. The Lord said, get in. You got too many. You got a bunch of fishies and cowards, and they won't do. And he said, you better send them out. He said, make an announcement. And this still works. He said, now, any of you that's afraid, Head for home, but brother, they took off. And Gideon said, wait a minute. All of you doing? Well, 22,000 I'm with. Gideon said, Lord, you're just about to ruin my army. I mean, don't you know I haven't been made in nine short of time? Well, he said, yeah, but you still got too many. He said, too many? Well, he said, yeah, but I'm not through testing them. We've got to test them. And so, he said, now take a bladder out of the water hole. And brother, there was trouble at the waterhole. Because most of them just got out, you know, and laughed. And there was 300 of them that got out and looked all around and said, them Midodites may be coming. If we're getting ready to fight them, I'm going to be ready. I don't want to be down on my belly drinking water. The rest of them laying there, you know, just come drinking water and heat. They got down there and they took a look around. The Lord said, Those folks that's really watching, you better tell them what it'll be. He wound up with a Gideon band of 300, isn't it? That's all of them. Gideon could have said, Lord, I love when I see a miracle now. So he got them all together, and they all got a picture, a lamp, and a trumpet, And now, isn't that some ammunition? But I want you to notice something, and folks, you might as well get this. If it worked for Gideon at the command of God, it'll work now. And this may be the last Sunday that I'm going to challenge you to get ready to take care of Samson. So he got outside and he said, Lord, how do you want me to arrange it? Get them out there and encircle the Midianites, but leave a getting-out place for them. Leave a good side hole, because they're going to get on the run. And he said, I'm going to try to get everything set, and I want you to say to your men, look on me and do likewise. If we can't stand the Spartaclic, a glory-stealer, brother, We're going to have to move together. We've got to break our pictures. We've got to hold up our lamps. We've got to blow our trumpets. And we've got to do it at the same time. You say that's the silliest strategy you've ever heard of. Not if God told you to do it. Not any sillier than Joshua and Jericho. There wasn't a shot fired, a sword raised, and yet the walls come tumbling down. And so, they got set, and they blew the trumpets, broke the pitchers, the lice. Have you ever thought about what the lice... You see the light, we're blind, the people who walk in darkness. The people who walk in darkness, they're afraid of the light. And the lights all came on, and the Midianites bailed out. And then you know what happened? Same thing that's going to happen here. When the Midianites started running, here came all that bunch of sissies and said, man, let's pursue them. And they took off after them. But it took three hundred that would cooperate. Broken. They broke the pictures. Dear friends, until we're willing to be broken, the Lord's not going to use us. You remember the little old widow? Had a little old pot of oil, I guess, all sealed up. And she, I think, broke the seal, poured it forth, and paid her debts. But it was a broken picture. that poured out the pot of oil. Esther risked her life and broke through the rigid etiquette of a heathen court. She wasn't supposed to be in to see the king. Our case is a good deal like that. There was a haven, and today we're facing a haven. Back yonder, there was a Jezebel. We're facing a Jezebel today. There's nothing new under the sun. Can you imagine the wealth or the human resources with as much power as they've got today in this country? I think I heard somewhere this week where they're whacking the budget over $18 billion. Oh, there'll be some howling. They cut them off at the salary pass or begin to whack those salaries. You watch the hirelings begin to run. They'll be looking for cover. Yes. Esther, you're the queen? Yes, indeed. Mordecai, who are you? Well, he said, I'm the one that took care of Esther. He said a word to Esther and said, Do you realize that every Jew and every child is to be killed? The day is already set. Execution morning is rolling around. Esther said, You know that I'm not supposed to go in to see the king. It's against etiquette. It's against tradition. In fact, it's against the law. Amen. Oh, yes, it was. If the king doesn't call for you, Esther, and he does not approve your coming in, he'll kill you." She had to be broken, willing to be broken. They fasted and prayed, Mordecai, Esther, and then on that day when she walked in, this is what she said. This is what we're going to have to learn to say. If I perish, I perish, but I'll perish doing right. I'll perish, take him up for the little Jewish boys and girls, the homes and freedom and liberty." And she walked in, stood before the king, and the king reached over and took his golden scepter and said, Esther, my queen, here's the scepter. That's the scepter of approval, dear friends. We've got to be willing to risk our lives. if we want God's golden scepter of approval. Don't worry about the price or the cost. There must be a brokenness. Back in the old county jail this week, I remembered those days and nights. I was in there. But you know, there's one thing I can truthfully say. I was never one bit afraid, none. There wasn't one man in that jail in those tanks, not one, that disrespected this butcher. There wasn't one criminal in that jail, and there were murderers in it, that ever used one lick of profanity in my presence. And I had no reason to be afraid. Yes, Mary had a beautiful alabaster box of ointment. And she brought it and faced criticism, but she broke her box of alabaster ointment, and the perfume filled the room. Criticism came, quietest waste, and Jesus said, this is a gift of faith. She sees me dying for her sins, and she's brought me. Something sweet before I go to Calvary. Folks, have you ever been really broken? A little grain of corn, so beautiful, bright, golden, yellowed in, so nice, so well formed, and there it is. What's it good for? One little lonely grain of corn. The call for sacrifice comes. The old farmer said to the grain of corn, Are you willing to die? Would you forget your beauty, your brightness? Would you go in the soil and let me cover you up? The grain of corn said, I volunteer. In a little while, in the planter box, round and round, and Victor, she went through the hole, fell into the rich soil. In a moment, the plow covered her up, never to be seen again as a grain of corn. But, oh, wait a little while, she began to swell up, and Victor, she burst all the pieces Her golden outside is gone. Out of that little grain of corn, there came a little shoot. And after a while, it worked its way through the soil and stuck its little head up and said, Good morning, world. Aye, the sun began to shine. The rain fell. It began to grow, and after a while, there was a beautiful tassel That was a head, and that was a little ear of corn, and then another, and two big ears of corn. Ah, listen, that little yellow-dent corn grain became hundreds and hundreds of grains of corn. You know why? It died and broke all the pieces. It was broken. It was broken. God never will use us until we're broken. The sacrifices of God are broken spirit, broken on the conflict part. O Lord, thou wilt not despise. Son, where are you going? I'm going to hear Jesus. You really are? He said, yep. What you got in your box, sonny boy? He said, I got five loaves, two fishes, Got lunch. He said, all right, go on. I met him, the little boy said, oh, what a crowd. There's a lot of people here. He must be a great speaker. Thousands and thousands, almost 20,000. If there were just 5,000 men, there'd have to be a lot of others there. It wasn't just a brotherhood meeting. The little boy took his seat down on the grass and he said, well, I'm ready. And the speaker happened to be Jesus that day. So the words began to drop like drops of honey. And the little boy's heart began to get warm. And he held on to his words and listened. And before he knew it, somebody came and said, son, the master, the great speaker, he wants your lunch. The little boy said, I give it all, basket it all. That man took it up to Jesus, and he said, here it is. I have loaves and two fishes, but what are they? Among so little. Oh, if Jesus had sung a song, he would have said, little is best when God is in it. Labor not for wealth nor fame. There's a crown and you can win it if you go in Jesus' name. Five loaves and two fishes. And Jesus looked at him and said, those are beautiful loaves, lovely little fish. What are you going to do with them? I'll have to break them. And he took the loaves and began to break and to break. No, the people began to, and he broke the fish, and the fish were broken, and he served and served, and I imagine the little boy, I don't blame him, he probably got up from where he was and said, get up a little closer. And he peeked and said, where's it all coming from? Ah, they said it's in the hands of the Master. He's breaking your loaves and fishes, folks. Forty-six years ago, the Lord said to a preckled-faced, sickly, country boy, tenant, unlearned, and had never stood on his feet to tell anything good about Jesus. Never one time. I used to sit in the pew. Those old bitches that you saw brought down here, one of them, I'd sit there and my brother Melvin would get up and be the leader. teach a class, lead the young people. And they'd get up and give a verse and testify our praise. I never opened my mouth one time. Never did. Oh, my brother would get me home. I was the youngest boy and say, Lester, why didn't you quote a verse? I said, I didn't know any. I didn't want to. Why didn't you lead in a sentence of prayer? I said, I can't. Melvin would say to me, sometimes trying to inspire me, Lester, I killed Oban, can't whip Oban, couldn't till he could. I didn't register with me. I said, I can't. And I didn't. Oh, there came a day when God said to this little dwayne of corn, if you want me to use it, I've got to break it. And He said to my little old loaves and fishes, give it to me. You can't do anything with it anyhow. And for 46 years, the Lord has been at least using these little loaves and fishes a little bit. Oh, tonight, young people, boys, from the lighthouse, you don't know what to do with your loaves and fishes! Take your dinner basket to Him! The world died in hunger and thirst tonight. And then one morning I'm through. The supreme example and the place where I always have to wind up is with Jesus. I see Him born in a manger, lived a lonely life, isolated because of His righteousness, misunderstood because of His purity, didn't fit anywhere, waited a long time Until one day, blessed old John came along and said, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins! I think Jesus sighed a sigh of relief and said, I'm glad to get started. Oh, I've waited, think of it, thirty years almost. Never performed a miracle, never preached a sermon. Soon as he walked off in the Baptist street and came out, and you girls and boys better remember this, the devil was standing in the edge of the Jordan waiting on him, patting his foot on that. He said, just come on out. Come on. You got to face me right in there before your robes get dry. Come on. The devil, oh, old, bold, smutty face, old, slew foot, He said, come on home. And Jesus said in all of His purity, all of His love and compassion, and said to the devil, what do you want? He said, I want to challenge you to a real fight. And I want to do it in the wilderness. And Jesus said, just name the tree where you want to meet, and I'll be present. And out there in the wilderness, the devil began to strike Jesus. And the mistake he made, he tried to hurt Jesus with Jesus' sword, and it just don't work. Oh, he thought he'd be a smart eddy. That's what the world's doing today. The world is trying to save, like the devil said in the garden. Let's have a Bible conference. I think we need to have a deeper study of the world. And yet he came right out there and he raised Bible questions with Jesus, and Jesus took the sword out of the devil's hand and hit him three times with it. And the devil said, I believe I'm going to have it. But oh, that's not all of it. For three long years. And then Gethsemane came. He took Peter, James, and John, and they went sound asleep. And Jesus prayed alone, bled alone, suffered alone in the garden that we sang about a while ago. In a little while, Judas came and said, and put a kiss on his cheek. And Jesus said, friend, wherefore art thou coming? And he said, as they looked for Jesus, he said, I'm the one you look for. When he said that, they fell back. Looks like they tore out a running, doesn't it? But they got up and came again. And they took Jesus and crowned him. And they took him down to the tribe. I hear Judas say three times, I don't see anything wrong with him. I find no fault in him. And yet, if you think we've had injustice, we've had nothing compared to what he had. A man called and the phone rang solid after 6 o'clock because 60 Minutes didn't come on. But our friend said, we'll never compete. with the World Series and said, if it's not off ten minutes before six o'clock, we'll never roll tonight, it'll be next Sunday night, they said. We want forty million people to see what we've done in Corpus Christi. It is sad that the networks on the radio and the television, does it seem strange to you that football and baseball is the tail that wags the dog? On the Lord's Day afternoon, I switched across the dial to see maybe what inning it might be, and there was nothing but football. World Series. I said, why, this is the Lord's day. You know why they have it? It's because people look and listen. They're after money. And the dollar that's worth maybe thirty-some-odd cents now, that's the tail that wags the dog. But we're going to soon lose the tail and we'll have a bobtailed dog. And Jesus, after he was tried and freed three times, Pilate said, it's customary, it's a tradition, that at this particular season, we release a prisoner, I have here Jesus, and then we have a man by the name of Barabbas, a noted criminal, a killer, a murderer. You listen to this. And the religious people said, not this man. That's Jesus. Don't release him. Release Barabbas. And then Pilate said, what then shall I do with Jesus? Isn't that strange for a judge, a ruler, to ask what to do with a prisoner? Talk about the miscarriage of justice. There it is. They said crucify. Get him out of the way! And here we come to the supreme example of what I'm preaching about, and I close. They came and took Jesus, put on some mock clothes. The man who left his redemption robes and beautiful robes of glory, and all their beauty, purity, to the hails of angels and now the nails of earth and Jesus. They said, we better crown him, he claims to be a king. And so, they reached and got a crown. They said, that'll be it. And they pushed those jagged thorns down into that lovely brow. I guess all those reaching the brain that had thought nothing good, never had an impure thought. Jesus stood there. What am I talking about? He's been broken. After a while, they said, go to whipping. Go to whipping. They took whips and scourged him back. Pure blood spurted. He's been broken. My Bible says that they couldn't tell whether he was a man or not. He was so mangled, and so whipped, and so beaten, and so dehydrated, and lips were so swollen, and eyes, when they finally went to cheekbones, stick it out, and they said, he's not really a man. He doesn't even look like a man. Ah, you'd say, brother-in-law, How many were out there of his friends? Very few. And dear friends, people will go anywhere but the cross. So few stood there. No lawyers that were his friends. Nobody to ask for another trial. Nobody that was a nurse or a doctor. Nobody! with anything to ease his pain, but just a living, broken, hearted mother that stood there and said, That's my son. But not only my son, he's my Savior. Oh, there stood by the cross the mother of Jesus. And I think down in her heart, her faith led her to say, Stay with it, hon. Oh, stay with it, my darling. You've never done wrong. I know it. But I want to thank you for saving your mother from her sin. I'm here. I'll watch you as long as I can stand it." John, blessed old John, said to the mother of Jesus on that lean, normal shoulder. And John stood. And their tears rolled down their loving cheeks. Jesus was being broken. Oh, you'd say, but He's through. Is that right? After a while, about seventy-two hours later, oh, when that glorious Sunday morning rolled around, I think the sun was glad to rise that day. The sun rose on the resurrection of the Son of God. Jesus said to the Roman shield, you can't hold any longer. You'll be broken." And that old seal broke open because of the blood of the everlasting covenant. And a broken male scarred Jesus, pierced inside, but he didn't have a broken leg or a broken arm. Those legs were straight. Ah, with the resurrection power, Jesus walked out of the grave, and the men fell back like dead men. And Jesus kept his appointment. And the one thing the world gave Jesus was scars. Sent him home with a broken body. But for two thousand years, that broken body. Younger at his PBX board, answering four billion telephones at one time. and talking to every saint and every sinner that would call, I said, God will use that which is broken. Never has been a man changed history into before and after. Every time you write a letter, be you an infidel, an atheist, or Madeline Murray O'Hare, and put the doubt on it, you're giving homage to Jesus. Broken, you say, yes. But oh, listen. talk about people loving Jesus, dying, look at the missionaries. I said, look at the missionaries. Dr. Truitt, whom I knew personally, pastored 46 years in the First Baptist Church. And I'm glad to announce that the pastor of the First Baptist Church has a vision of separation of church and state, and is praying and supporting and gave a breakfast for the man, I believe, that could help us. Thank God for that. I believe the bigger church we have, the more responsibility we're going to have to give and account to God for. Dr. Choate said, back in the train days, and you know, when I started preaching, I counted a real privilege to get to ride the train. I remember as a little old greenhorn country boy, They wanted me to go to Houston and supply in the Park Memorial Baptist Church in its infancy days, that later became one of the greatest churches in Houston. And Bill Suttlesworth, W.L. Suttlesworth, became about my ideal and example for a preacher, a little wiry sort of a preacher, and could preach and had great conviction. And, oh, I looked at him and I said, someday, oh, I hope to be able to preach and stand like that. Got down there to supply to the pulpit. I'd never been in a city that big. And they took me around and were kind to me, and the interesting thing, they took me to the train that night on the Santa Fe, and said, now, Brother Olock, we know you're tired. You'll have to go to classes tomorrow. We're going to get you a Pullman. Pullman? Man, I didn't know what a Pullman was. And they said, at the ticket, said, do you want an upper or a lower berth? Man, I didn't know what that meant. I knew I'd been born again. I knew I'd had the upper berth. Amen? And the lower berth had both of them. Really, I didn't know. And they took me to the train. Boy, that big old steam engine was set there, you know. And boy, the people was coming and going. As before airplane days and big airports. You go back 46 years ago and see what you find. And so they said, now, you talk to this colored man and he'll show you. Man, I didn't know where it was and how to get into it. Had to get up in it, you know, and take off your shoes and get ready to go. And, man, there wasn't no need for me to go in the bed. I couldn't sleep. A country boy and a thing going along the track. I was looking out the window. Folks, you've got to get broken. But for a gala, it's gonna use.