Now, first of all, let me say this. I did mention the other evening that my wife stayed with me in spite of everything in our life being an absolute shipwreck. And when I called her on the telephone and told her that God had saved me, she broke down crying. And in fact, she was crying when I got home. And she said, thank God. And she wasn't saved herself. When I came into the home, she was thrilled. You might find that. very interesting or even amazing for a person that wasn't saved. But for all that Maxine had heard of the gospel, and she had heard some because the sister that brought the word of God to me, that same sister had worked and taken my wife to different meetings, and I used to even ridicule her when she went. Maxine had heard far more gospel than I had. When I came home After being saved, I had Mr. Albert Ramsey with me and I said to him, coming to the door, I said, don't worry, I'll explain it to Maxine and she'll see it. It's so simple. And he said to me, you just go somewhere and rejoice and I'll talk to Maxine. He came into the house and talked to her for a short time. And that evening we got down and we prayed. I prayed and Mr. Ramsey prayed and we went to bed. I kept sitting up in the middle of the night. As a matter of fact, I couldn't sleep all night. And every once in a while I'd turn around to her and nudge her and say, and she was awake. I should have caught on that she was bothered, but she was awake. And I would say, Maxine, I'm really going to heaven. I'm really saved. I said, can you take this in? And she would just say, mm-hmm. It never really gripped me that my wife was lost. She was such a sweet girl that somewhere tucked in my thinking was, well, perhaps she has gotten saved and she just never really told me about it. Because she was such a splendid person and so kind and so understanding and so patient. And there were people just like that on the way to hell. The next morning when I got up, I should have flewed in too because my wife is very prompt. She's not like me. She's normally up about six o'clock, wakes me up with the vacuum going, cleans up. At that time, before she was saved, she used to get her makeup on, and by the time I'd see her, about seven or something after seven, she looks really good, you know, she was all prepared. But this particular morning, she was up with a cup of coffee when I get up, and she just had her dressing gown on, and she hadn't put anything else on, and she was just sitting at the table, reading over the Bible. That day we were not bombarded, because that's a negative term. But we were visited by believers from the Charlottetown Assembly that had heard I'd gotten saved. They didn't even know us. And they came to our home, different ones, and they all brought little things, like little cakes and that, and they actually left them with us. And just different things that they did for us. Listen, there were people that hugged me that I didn't even know. And there were people there, and I tell how I got saved, and they were telling me how they got saved. In the run of the, I would say the run of the day, there must have been 30 people came to that house. all safe, all rejoicing, all excited, and different ones would stop and pray with us. And my wife made the tea dutifully, and coffee, more coffee than tea, and she just got lower and lower and lower. She told me afterwards that what she was thinking was this, as she saw all these people together, and saw what they were enjoying, And for all she had been through with me, that she was cut off from me. That these people were enjoying something with me and they were closer to me than I was to her. And she said it was just something came between us that she couldn't get around. It was Christ. It was Christ. It's hard to talk about this when you're not home with her and kind of miss her. And anyway, different people came and went. And finally, the man who was so instrumental in speaking to me and spoke to me the night I was saved in my basement steps and wept for me, he came with another man. And at the end of us having a cup of tea, by the time this time was about 11 o'clock. So our place had been like a terminal all day. He turned around and he had tears in his eyes again. Listen, I thank God for men that have a love for souls. This man had a tremendous love for souls. And he said, here we are, enjoying all this, and your wife is outside. When he said that, she finally broke. She started to cry. He got down on his knees. We all got down. And he just prayed that God would come in as Savior. And during the course of his praying, he quoted Romans 5 and 6, and you all know what that is. For when we're yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. And while he prayed and then he got up and they got in their car and they left, they actually went to another man's home and sat out in the car for two hours praying. I then got real bothered about my life, real burdened. I couldn't go to bed. I came out. I said, Mac, I'm going to read to you from the Bible. I didn't know where to look. I read passages from Ezekiel, the poor thing, sitting down listening to me. I tried to explain salvation out of him. And I'll tell you, there was a little bit of bending and distortion, but I was doing it OK. And during the course of my preaching to her and reading to her, she said to me, she said something. Peter, I can see it. And I didn't hear her, really. I didn't catch on, so I kept reading. And she said, Peter, I can see it, I'm saved. And I said, what was it that I read? And she said, I'm sorry, I haven't been listening to you. She said, all I can think about is a verse that somebody said in this house tonight. Christ died for the ungodly. Here's a good living girl that bent over backwards with faithful consistent, and that's the truth that got to her. Christ died for the ungodly, and she said this, I have been shut out of this whole thing because I have nothing of God, nothing to do with God thing, I'm an outsider, I'm a stranger, I'm an alien, I'm ungodly. And she said, when I sat there and I just thought as those men were praying, that I'm outside of all this and I'm going to be outside forever. The thought came to me, she said, just that verse that that man read, Christ died for the ungodly. She said, you know, it just came to me like this, Christ died for me. And she said, other verses I've been looking at, she wasn't listening to me preach. My first preach was for nothing. And she said, the verses I've been looking at, she found another verse, John 3 and 36. She said, they're all telling me the same thing. They're all telling me the same thing, that I'm going to heaven because of what Christ did. I remember that night, the two of us, we, well, I could hardly work the next day because I was just devastated. I was thrilled about her, but she kept sitting up through the night and she'd say this, Peter, it's just like a spring. And every once in a while, it just comes to me like this. Christ died for the ungodly. Christ died for me. That's how God saved my wife exactly 24 hours after God saved me. Let me say something else to the next day, and this will proceed where I started preaching, although I'm going to go back to that subject. I went to work that day after my wife was saved. And when I was a day before Christmas, our day at rather before New Year's, and I get up on I worked at a sheet metal shop where you bang 10 together and putting all that stuff together. I just thought to myself, I'm going to tell these boys that I'm saved. There was about 28 of them in that sheet metal shop. We didn't have no pulpit like this, so I climbed up on top of the sheet metal table. And I just said, hold it, fellas. Hold it a minute. Just stop. I want to tell you what happened to me. And by this time, I had started to read Isaiah, and I loved Isaiah chapter 53. So I pulled out of my pocket a little New Testament that had been given to me and started reading Isaiah 53, just two or three verses. And I started to tell them how I got saved. Some of them just stood there kind of in amazement. Some of them just kind of stood there and smirked and ridiculed a little bit, but not out loud. Those boys were scared of me. Until big John Peters came in. He was the shop foreman. I can still see him yet with that big 18-ounce hammer and just banged it right between my feet and said, Orazuc, if I had wanted to hear a sermon this morning, I would have gone to church. I came to work. Now, let's beat 10. So I got down. That was it. That was my first sermon. After we were saved, the Lord's people were very kind to me. Now, we didn't have anything, and I mean nothing. I owed lawyers that I never intended to pay. I had more people for things. I had lived off scamming and pulling cons, and I owed a lot of kind and people that were considering kind to us that I had taken for a lot of money. And right after God saved me, I became conscious of the fact that I had to pay him back. And so we had, I started, listen, I started to go to this little job where I got paid the equivalent of about a pound an hour. I could go out and do a deal on the streets and make $2,000 in 10 minutes. But you know something? There was something so nice about coming home with a paycheck that I earned every bit of it and giving it to my wife. And we cashed it and put it for our groceries. And we put money aside in what we used to call the patch up fund to pay people that we owed. Within three years of God saving me, I didn't know I sent to anybody. Um, I want to say something else too. We, we used to go to the meeting. The Christians were very kind. It was like I said, they would come to the house and bring us things. They brought us groceries by times. They were like a family to me. I can say this as a truth. I'm here. I'm very happy to be here, but I not only miss my wife and family. I miss the Christians of our assembly because they're just like my own kin. They're like my own family. And the fact that they would trust me, hey, months before that, I would have been stealing their hubcaps and they would trust me. And I used to go to meet, I mentioned to someone, I was going to tell them they asked this. I used to go to meeting the first gospel meeting I went to. I dressed up for it. I want to tell you what I had. These were my clothes. Please don't laugh. I had a pair of bell bottom, what we call seersucker pants. They were beige. I had a yellow shirt with a long, long collar. I had a blue and white striped sports jacket that I bought for a funeral. I could never figure that one. I had one of those big, wide ties. You know, real big, wide ones that were old-fashioned. Maybe they're coming back. I should have hung on to them, but they were real big and wide. I had a pair of two-tone, apart from, I had bike boots and I had jeans and a leather jacket, but apart from that, I had a pair of two-tone shoes. They were beige, like we call them saddle shoes or buck shoes, beige and brown. And when I went to meeting, I went, I wore my best. That was my best. And I want to speak something to some of you that might think, they think to themselves, Well, surely people that get saved in the outside circumstances and they get saved out of a rough background, they don't understand that principle. I understood it. I understood it. I understood that what those individuals were doing required their best and they weren't putting on the dog, they weren't showing off. They were showing respect for what was taking place when that company came together. Now, I understood that before I was even saved. When you came there, you wore your best. Not to show off, not to show that you're the most stylish individual. Often styles get very distant from the purpose of God for our dress and department. And there's always that which is a conservative, proper dress that shows respect and reverence for the things of God. And so I can say that it might have looked ridiculous, but you know something? Not one of those Christians ever said a word to me. Not one of them. Not one of them ever turned around. I never heard one of them laugh. And I actually came into the assembly. That's what I wore for the first two months when I was in the assembly fellowship. And I had no more than that. The first time this person said to me something about my appearance, she said it with $50 in her hand. And she slipped $50 into my hand and she said, Peter, there's a blue suit. a pinstripe suit down at Kmart. Y'all haven't got a Kmart, but probably will one day. And it's down at Kmart, and it costs $49.95. And I saw it the other day, and I told them to put it aside for you. And she said, I'm sure it will fit you. And you go down and get it. That was Eva Ramsey. That was Albert Ramsey's sister, who went to be with the Lord just two years later. I want to say something. She looks like a mother to me. I could spend the night here telling you things that she did for me. She's a mother in Israel. I didn't know that Robert McElwain had given my wife $20 to buy just something that was a better pair of shoes. And Maxine had gone down and bought a pair of black vinyl shoes. Now, I know the fellows who sell shoes here will be horrified by this, but they look like leather. And they were black, and they were vinyl, and they were on sale. And she bought a pair of those. My father-in-law gave me two white shirts that week. They were a size and a half too big, but they were white. And I went down to the cleaners, and they sell ties there that people didn't pick up. And for 75 cents, I got at least a normal-looking tie. That morning, That Sunday morning when I stepped out of the car with a blue three-piece pinstripe suit and a pair of leather-looking black vinyl shoes and a tie that was enhanced by a white shirt, I felt a little embarrassed. I thought people might think I was putting on the dog. And when I got out, I remember going to the steps And our sister, Eva Ramsey, came up again. She put her hand in mine. Maybe y'all don't agree with this, but she kissed me on the cheek, but she's an older lady. And she said, Peter, I'm so proud of you. She said, you just look like a little preacher. Two sisters that day, Saturday, the same Saturday, had gone to my wife. who had worn, for 10 months, a straw hat. Looked like one of them ones that if you cut the holes in it, you could put it on a horse's head. And they took hats that they weren't wearing anymore, and I gave them to my wife. We were a fine-looking couple that Sunday. We really were. We came into the meeting. See what I'm saying? What I'm really saying is this. Nobody said anything to us because we couldn't do any better. And when they finally did, they helped us do better. Can I give you that? Maybe that's a good word to administrate. That before you speak to a person about doing something, you make sure that they're not doing their best. And maybe it would help them if you were willing to respond to what they need. Baptism. My wife and I got baptized the same day and I wanted to get baptized right after I saved. I saw it right away. My wife didn't see it right away, but they wouldn't baptize me right away because there was still ice on the ocean. So I even said, well, y'all can cut a hole into it because I won't be in the water that long. But they said, no, we'll do it in the spring. I understand why. You know what they wanted to do? The most obvious thing, they wanted to watch me. They wanted to watch me. They wanted to make sure that this wasn't just a flash in the pan of some individual saying, I got saved, and then eventually their life would prove otherwise. And baptism would have been a stumbling block to me if that were the case, and an embarrassment to them. But finally in June, when the water was a little warmer, we went down. My wife by this time had asked to be baptized, and we were both baptized in the Atlantic Ocean. And I was baptized by Mr. Albert. Ramsey, that's what was my wife. You know, maybe this will just help you. One thing he did when he got out there, I was the very first one to be baptized. I worked 12 that day. When I went out to be baptized, he said, put your hand in the casket grip. Now, in case you don't know, that's what people do who are laying in casket. Well, they don't do it. Somebody does it to them. But they put their hands like this. And he said, put your hands like that, and I'll put my hand under yours, and I'll put you down. And I'll bring you up and don't you do anything. He says, just kind of like salvation, Peter, let me do it all. I can still remember it. He just leaned me back, putting me right under. I think he deliberately held me a little longer than the rest. He brought me up and then they brought me in and took out my wife and, uh, We didn't know about what was probably the right thing to do or etiquette. But that night, as we both came to the beach, I just got down on my knees in the water and thanked God for saving me. We had some rare proofs that day, I'm sure. Coming into the assembly, you know what my holdup was? Now, I was baptized six months before I came into the assembly. Can I say something, brethren? What a person needs to know to be baptized is a lot different than what they need to know to come into the assembly. I would make it definitely two distinct and different interviews. And when I came to those brethren, as a matter of fact, I wouldn't say this if he's here because it might go to his head, and we won't undo that, but Mr. Paisley was having meetings in Charletown, actually in a tent. Well, it can go to anybody's head. You know what I mean? In a big tent and he was preaching the gospel and him and Mr. Ramsey were having meetings and he preached one night on the first Adam and the last Adam and he preached how that Adam had brought us into condemnation and all the suffering and misery and How we've been linked with Adam by nature And then he spoke on the last Adam the man that came from heaven And he spoke on how that the Lord Jesus had identified with us at the cross and bear our sins in his own body on the tree. And during the course of a gospel meeting, I got so taken with the truth that I just wanted to be identified with Christ. I just wanted to be linked with him as long as I was living in this world. And I'd already been baptized according to his will, but I just wanted to be linked with him. I wanted to be the people that whenever I would be with Christ, I would be linked with Christ. And you know what came to me, the verse that came to me? It's outside the gospel hall in Charlottetown. Christians gathered unto the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it just came as clear as this. I've got to gather unto him. I've got to gather unto his name. I was scared. I thought they'd say no. As kind as they were to me, I thought that all the Christians were perfect angels. Brethren, I wish I still felt the same way. And there's a sad day, the day someone told me for the first time something otherwise they didn't do me any good. Sad thing when older believers start pouring into the ears of younger believers the problems and the inhibitions and the problems they have with one another and literally destroy the first impressions that young believers have of God's people. It's a sad day. Sad day. We need to put our garbage in garbage cans, not in young believers' minds. I thought they would say no because I was too bad. And I was trying, but I could just see all the faults in myself, and I could just see everything. They seemed so faultless. And finally I asked them, I said, I would like to come into the assembly, but I don't know how to go about it. This is right after the gospel meeting, and they said, we got a car parked over here. We'll meet you right after the meeting. It was a great big old Impala, great big Chevrolet, old big gas user, but lost her room to sit back and talk about the things in the scriptures. And there were four elders in that car and me, and actually another sister came in afterwards who was going to be interviewed too. She'd asked for assembly reception. It was a good meeting. And they asked me one question. I thought they were going to ask all these questions. I was terrified. The question they asked me was this, Peter, why do you want to be in the assembly? Why are you in the assembly? Why do you want to be in the assembly? And all I said was this, that's just where he is. And I want to be with him. That's all I understood. And I said, my language wasn't very good, my grammar, and it's still not great. But I said, whatever you men learn me, I'll do it. Because you never told me nothing wrong yet. And I trust you. And Donald Ramsey looked over at Doug McLeod. Mr. Gordon Goode sat there, and I could see them, yeah, very quiet. Albert never said a word. He just sat back in the corner looking over at me. And Donald Ramsey simply said this, you'll do. We'll announce you next week. My wife came into the assembly four months after I did. Can I go just for a minute, someone has asked the question, I'm trying to think of some questions I was asked, has asked the question, what about your drug connections? What about your past? I was a chronic addict. By all natural rights, I should have gone through a tremendous withdrawal and possibly needed the help of a drug called methadone. When God saved me, I never had one withdrawal effect. Not one. I did have a couple of hard days giving up smoking. And I had to put that little New Testament in my pocket. And I get down before God and ask the Lord to help me. And I want to tell you something. Like some people say when they wanted to quit smoking, they just prayed about it and it fell away. Well, it didn't work that way for me. I went through fingernails and peppermints and gum. But God helped me. And two days after I was saved, I quit smoking. I haven't smoked by the grace of God and with the help of God since. But I felt I was in a battle. But God helped me. When it came to the drugs, there was no battle. None. There was no craving. There was no desire. I was enjoying things so much, I never even thought about it. Until three years later, working on a construction site, a young man that was on that site that I'd used, done drugs with me different times, hadn't heard that I'd gotten saved, came to me and he said, Peter, there's some stuff in town. He said, I can go down and get us a couple of spoons. That's just a figure for buying it. He said I'd get it at 20 bucks each, $20 each. And without thinking, I started to put my hand in my back pocket to get my wallet. You know, that was the first time I ever stopped and realized that I hadn't wanted to do it, but I was still vulnerable to it. Let me say this, that possibly there are drug addicts here tonight who got us saved, or alcoholics, The very things that we have been delivered from are the things we will drift back into if we get away from God. And we should never take for granted that we had deliverance from those things by virtue of any strength of our own. You know what that did? I shoved my wallet back down and got by myself on that construction site by myself into a room. And I got down and I thanked God for the first time. What an ungrateful wretch. For the first time, not only saving me from hell, but for saving me from this vice that I'd taken for granted. I'd actually thought that I'd just lost interest in it, didn't want it anymore. The people I used to spend time with... Time is flying. The people I used to spend time with... My wife was terrified. We would get calls different times from some of the other dealers. And she was always afraid that something would happen to me. I'm going to tell you of one experience. My best friend, he was my sidekick. He wasn't my partner. He just traveled with me. He was a hype. That means he was a needle user. His name was Smitty. I preached the gospel to him. He's come to meetings I had in Halifax on different occasions. Just got to save him. He called one time on the phone, and my wife picked up the phone first, recognized his voice when he asked for me, and she didn't put the phone down. She eavesdropped. He simply said to me, Pete, we need you for something. There's a kid in trouble. We want you to talk to him. And don't tell anybody we made this call, but we want to pick you up at a certain place. Don't tell anybody. Come by yourself. Someone will pick you up there, and then we'll take you in another car and bring you where we don't want anyone to know where this is. Tell nobody, not even your wife. My wife heard it on the other side. I must admit, I was paranoid. I was afraid. I thought they were going to hit me. That's a term that simply means they were going to do away with me because I was a potential leak in their organization. I had tried to talk to some of them at different times, and they would smile, and they were very friendly to me, so they knew what happened to me. They used to say, Pete's got religion. That's what they used to call it. They didn't know any better. Pete's got religion. My wife, Maxine, did a little crying at that point and said, you're not going. Well, you might not understand this, but if those men were ever going to trust me and let me talk to them and get near them, I had to do that. And I was scared. It wasn't a brave thing to do. It was the only thing to do. More than that, my wife wanted to call a brother who was in the RCMP and tell him about it. And I said, no, don't do it. Don't do it. She did, however, call another brother who said, I'll follow him. But I preempted that move. I figured she'd be up to something, so I left an hour before. And they couldn't follow me. They couldn't find me. As planned, I drove to a place where Smitty's A girl picked me up in a car, looked around, drove around the city a little bit, and then headed to another spot where I was taken in a car with two others, finally up to a cottage quite far out towards an area called Cavendish on the island. A little cottage, a house. Around that house there was actually only one car there. I thought there would only be two or three people there. There turned out to be about 19. The cars were placed in different places so they wouldn't be seen. I knew most of them. Some of them were collectors that I knew. There was a couple of new faces that I didn't know. One of them was my partner. And I went into the house and I just said, well, and they just said, does anyone know you're here? And I said, nobody knows where I am. I said, good. They offered me a cup of coffee, and I didn't want to take it, but I figured it looked like I was suspicious if it didn't, so I took it. But I tell you, the first sip, I was real careful. I can taste chemicals. They took me to a room. In that room was a young man, 16 years old, with both wrists bound up. They had stopped him from slashing his wrists. One of the head men of our organization, it was his nephew, This boy from using drugs and his girlfriend had left him, was trying to kill himself. They were afraid he would fall into the hands of the police. And if he did, he was a weak link. He knew things he shouldn't have known. And so the man told me, he said, Peter, we either got to straighten him out or do him. He's my own nephew. So he said, wait, can you do something for him? These guys were all sitting around. So I told them how God saved me. I spent 40 minutes talking about how God saved me. I want to tell you one thing about druggies. As hard as they are, you can tell when something's getting to them, because they drop their guards, especially when it's one of their own. And they all softened, and some of them were visibly taken. As a matter of fact, Smitty's girl began to break down in tears at one point, because she knew Maxine. She knew me. They knew me. I want to tell you something. I have had help to preach the gospel. I thank God when God helps me. But I had help that night. I'm not saying it was a great message, but there was God working in it. To the point that that boy turned around and literally wept and said, do you mean if I die, it will be worse for me? And he turned around horrified. He said, I could have taken my life and been in hell right now, couldn't I? And I explained that to him. I don't know if that young man got saved, but I know one of those men sitting on that countertop that day got saved, a Steve Gelder. It was since died of a drug-related problem and illness that he picked up from using drugs. But Steve had gotten saved. There was no doubt about it. I then went to the telephone. I said, can I call my wife? He said, don't say where you are. I said, no, I won't. Can I just call her? She's worried, Smitty. He said, go ahead. I picked up the phone. It's kind of cute, because I said, Maxine, it's OK. She said, they're standing right there, aren't they? I said, yeah. And they're telling you to say that, aren't they? I said, no, no, they're not. And it's OK. She said, say it's OK if it isn't. I said, Maxine, I'm saying it's OK because it is. This got real confusing. I said, it's OK. It's OK. Anyway, I finally got home. We had different occasions. I'm going to say that God oversaw this. If during the time I had gotten saved in the first maybe nine or ten months, there had been a lot of busts, or by that I mean a lot of arrests by the police, a lot of dealers arrested. They would have likely thought that I was a leak. But during that time, for nearly a year after, there wasn't one. And the most dangerous man to me, which was my own partner, who was the most dangerous man to me, finally went to prison for five years. And another organization moved in on his property or on his holdings, and so that was taken away. And apart from some of them calling sometimes, I've had them at gospel meetings and sometimes they call when they're down and out. I've gone to their homes, I've preached to them, and I love them. But apart from that, God has kept me from all of that. The gospel, how did I ever get active in the gospel? Like I said, my first preach on a bench at work. Can I say something for the young men here? If you haven't been exercised about the gospel in your own locality, Nothing magical is going to happen the day you step onto the shores of Brazil or Venezuela. You are not going to turn into something you haven't been. And for younger brethren, with an exercise for the gospel, I thank God, there's nothing greater you could do with your lives if that's what God has purposed for your life. But let me say this, men aren't commended to the work, they are commended in it And I found myself doing it, not because I was good at it. I was drawn to it. I couldn't keep away from it. As a matter of fact, and I'll relate this to and Mr. Albert Ramsey was a great help to me. He was the hardest man on me that I know. And the greatest help to me that I know. He could really swatch it. He was like a bear. He had a real paw on him. But no man could lift me up like him. And I don't want you to take the wrong impression away from this. I love that man. And Albert Ramsey, see, when I first came into the assembly and I started preaching, I don't know what was the nature and urge. Some of those terms are very confusing. How do you decide the difference? Anyway, I knew this, that if I get something that would be in my own soul, I'd be excited about it. And I just wanted to see somebody saved. So if I got a chance to preach in Charlton, I was there. There were five assemblies. So I would disappear the next Sunday to another assembly, and the next Sunday to another. And it wasn't apparent to me at that time, I couldn't see it, but I was hardly at my own assembly unless I was preaching. Mr. Albert Ramsey had picked this up, and on one occasion, the first time I knew he was upset with me was when one night they mentioned we were going to be preaching together after the prayer meeting, and I heard him say, is it Peter Orszag preaching with me? And they said, yeah. And he said, imagine that. I heard that. What I should have done is gone to him and said, why did you say that? But oftentimes when we get hurt, we don't do that. We dig a trench and start taking pot shots at people. That's what I did. I decided I was going to find things wrong with everything he did. And before long, I'd sit in a meeting and whatever he said, there'd be something wrong with that. That wasn't good doctrine. There'd be something wrong with that. There was something wrong with that. And I started picking holes in everything. And it got to the point that this man When you get bitter at people, you can't even really shake hands with them. You can't look them in the face and take their hands. And Mr. Ramsey demanded that of you, like I would go out the door and just touch his palm, his hand with mine, and just touch and say, yeah, nice to see you, out the door. I hope you don't do that. Hey, brother, we got to get things settled. We can't go on like that. Finally, that big hand closed on mine, and he pulled me over. We've done it many a time after. And he said, what's the matter with you, boy? And I said, nothing. He said, you're tripping over your lip. What's the matter with you? Well, I said, if you want to know what's the matter, you said this, that's not right. You said that, that's not right. You said this, and that's questionable doctrine. Listen to this. Save three years. I was howling like a slug dog, and I was only a pup. He turned around. He just laughed. He said, that's not the problem. He says, you know what the problem is? I don't encourage you, and I encourage others. That's the problem, isn't it? I even got a little tearful. I said, yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. And I said, why? Why? And he said, because forward men like you don't need to be encouraged. They need to be discouraged. And I wheeled around, went to the car, and told my wife, I'm going home. She got out of the car, she asked me what was wrong. I said, nothing, I'm going home. I got home, she asked me this question. She said, what is the matter? And I said, if you want to know, I'll tell you. And I told her exactly. I said, he said that the only time I'm out to meeting is when I'm preaching. And that I'm running around all over the place, preaching everywhere, making a nuisance of myself. And that my favorite preacher is myself. and that really there are men in our assembly can preach circles around me. How'd you like that? And she said, he's right. They'd have a good life, wouldn't they? She was right. And she did more than that. She took me over to the calendar on the wall. She pointed at that calendar, she said, see that? You're a crapple. Freetown. Springfield West. Yeah, you were in such a hurry the kids and I couldn't get to meeting that night We couldn't make it because you had to go and preach somewhere all of a sudden I said, well, yeah, but I was in Charlestown that night. I didn't preach Yeah, she said that's the night. We got there one minute before the prayer the gospel means started So you weren't in the prayer meeting? That's sad a man only going to the prayer meet when he's doing the preaching That's a sad thing and then more than that She said all the way home you complained about what the other two men said. I I said, well, I was there that night. She said, you were there early for the prayer meeting. You came home happy. You preached. Look, I went up to the bedroom and I just asked the Lord. You said I could have five minutes. I'm going to take him. I just asked the Lord. I said this, Lord, please, please help me. I can't see it. I'm up so close to this. I can't see it for what it is. I must admit, God helped me right at that time because it'd be just the more I thought about it, it became obvious. that I was virtually just going around. I wanted to preach myself. I didn't want to listen to anybody else preach. You be very careful of a man who's his own favorite preacher. And the only person he likes to preach is himself here. Listen, I appreciate Brother Albert Ramsey would sit in a gospel meeting if he wasn't preaching. He was the greatest help to preach the gospel. He loved the gospel. I saw for what it was, I called Mr. Ramsey up, and I just broke down and I said, I didn't know very much, so I said, do I have to be excommunicated? And he broke down too. That's what he said. He said, boy, I wouldn't hurt you for the world. I wouldn't hurt you for the world. But I care too much about you to let you destroy yourself, son. That's why I did it. I went for the next year. Next year. As a matter of fact, there were even times I turned down the opportunity to preach. You wouldn't think I'd do that, would you? I turned it down. You know something, brother? I started enjoying that meeting even more. When those men were up there preaching, I'd be praying for them. My heart was in it. I was at that prayer meeting. I realized that as much in this gospel meeting, at this prayer meeting, as those two men are preaching. I just appreciated it in a different way. It was good for me. Six months later, after that, we were putting up a tent. And I was helping him put up the tent, and him and I had taken the day off work. We were putting up. I was working a long ways away. By this time, I was the foreman of a company. That company I used to go to, and the fellow put the... He was working for me now. That's it. And in fact, I ended up owning it. God blessed me. I ended up owning my own before I went into the work. I not only was the foreman of the largest sheet metal company on the island doing the hospitals there, and I knew nothing about the trade before God saved me. But I had my own plumbing and heating company on the side. BTU Enterprise. Albert Ramsey came at the end and I said to him, well, he said, you be ready to open the meeting tonight. I said, well, isn't your partner coming? He said, he's here. Well, I said, is there something wrong? He said, Peter, it's you. He said, there's three things I want to tell you. He said, you'll be opening every night. Don't go over. And he said, comb your hair. I found myself preaching. I was just drawn to it. I would preach and come home and do a lot of sheet metal work. And then when I had spare time, I'd go and help again. I just wanted to help. I never wanted to be a preacher. I just wanted to help. And God started working and we started seeing some souls saved. And it finally came to the point, there were different brethren in the Maritimes that had spoken to me and different men who labor. Albert Hall was a great help to me. Marie McCandless, Robert McElwain. Albert never said anything to me about it, never said anything. Until after, and I'll tell you what he said. It finally got to the point I just couldn't do the two. I got an offer for the biggest job I would have ever had. It was a security that my wife longed for. And I said to her, well, should I take it? She said, well, Petey, you won't be able to have the weeks to preach the gospel. You won't be able to go down for meetings in the evening like you're having. You won't have the time off to work on the gospel. And she said, Petey, you won't be happy with that. And she said, I am terrified. to go out and just live off the gospel. But she said, Peter, if that's what God wants for us, there's nothing else, and I'm with you. I'm with you. When I went out into the work, I went out with my wife with me. Anyway, I... Finally, I was preaching with James McClellan, in fact, having meetings In Crapo, about 60 miles one side of my house, and I was a foreman of a job working 50 miles the other side, so I was traveling 110 miles. I'd get home, have a shower, and go and preach, and then have supper. And we mean supper like dinner, or whatever you call it, 5.30. That's the one I was eating at 10.30. And Brother James was staying with us. James was a great encouragement to me, too. He'd just been commended. The different brother, the brethren had taken me in different times and they'd asked me, what are your intentions? And I thought they were mad at me. So I said, I just want to help. I just want to help. And they never pushed me. They said, OK, that's fine. Finally, I called up Brother Donald Ramsey and I said, I don't know how to go about this. But I've come to the point that I can't do the two anymore. And I just want to give my life to the gospel. And he said, drop up to the house. I have something for you. I went up to the house. He had a letter written and signed by five assemblies in Prince Albert Island. The commendation of those brethren. He gave me the letter. My wife turned around to me and she said, three months later, she said, you know, Peter, that letter didn't change it. And we're still doing exactly what we're doing. See, we were doing it. They never had a get-together or anything. They don't believe in anything like that. It was a very low-key thing. I gave my notice to the job. All those guys came out and shook hands with me. All my crew came to gospel meetings. One of those fellows was actually in tears when I left that trade. When I said to Mr. Ramsey, finally I said to him, what do you think? just before I went down to get the letter, in fact. He said to me, does it matter what I think? I said, yeah, it does. It matters to me a lot what you think. He said, boy, I've been wondering what's keeping you. You go to it. One time, Eugene Higgins and I were having gossip meetings in Unionville. And they used to call us spit and polish. And he was polish. And I got a lot of rough corners. And there's people that can do a lot better job. But woe is me if I preach not the gospel of Christ. That's my life. Some might know I have a A disease that I contracted through drugs. I have hepatitis C. And I'm considered terminal. Five years ago, I nearly died with it. And God not only answered my prayer, I just didn't want to leave my wife and my family. But I asked him to let me preach the gospel. And he has. And today I am what I am by the grace of God. And I pray that as long as I live, no matter how long it is, that I have the privilege the rest of my life of preaching the gospel of Christ.