I want you to turn, please, to Matthew chapter 12 and verse 22. I just want to say this. God gave me this message when I was 25 years old, 57 years ago. After I'd preached it for three times, and we had had over 500 people saved in those three meetings, I asked the Lord, to never let me memorize this message. Never let it become rote. My wife has heard me preach it over a thousand times, and she says she's never heard me preach it the same way. How many of you in this house have ever heard me preach this sermon in person? Raise your hand. I'll venture that 90% of you will go out of this room saying it was different. The three main points are the same, but God gave me this message And I want to tell you something. There's not a sermon that I want to preach that I would have studied more before I came tonight than I had to study this message. I'll refer to my notes because I have to. You say, Preacher, you mean to tell me after preaching of this sermon over 3,000 times you haven't got it memorized? No! God answered my prayer. And I want this to be as fresh from my own heart as it was the first time I preached it when I was twenty-five years of age. Matthew chapter twelve, verse twenty-two. Then was one unto him one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb. And he healed him in so much that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. And all the people were amazed and said, Is not this the son of David? But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. And Jesus knew their thoughts and said unto them, every kingdom divided against itself. is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself. How shall then his kingdom stand? And if I, by Beelzebub, cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? And then he will spoil his house. He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. Wherefore, I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him. But whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. I bereave with all of my heart that there are three deadlines plainly drawn in the Word of God. These deadlines are blaspheming against the Holy Ghost, the committing of the unpardonable sin, deadline number two, sending away your day of grace, and deadline number three, the sin under death. I trust that tonight, as we look at these three deadlines, prayerfully, carefully, and scripturally, that there will not be a young person that will walk out of this great church tonight and not understand what these three deadlines really are. Deadline number one, blaspheming against the Holy Ghost or committing the unpardonable sin. What is that sin? Which member of the body do you use in committing that sin? And how long may you expect to live if you commit that sin? I believe that all of you will agree with me, especially all of you ministers, will agree with me that before you can understand any portion of the Word of God, we have to review that Scripture in the light of its proper context. For example, we can pull this Scripture, or that Scripture, or the other Scripture, Brother Robinson, out of its proper context and prove almost anything we want to prove by Scriptures that are in the Bible. Let me use one illustration. In Matthew chapter 27 in verse 5, talking about Judas, it says, and went out and hanged himself. The Bible says in Luke chapter 10 in verse 32, go and do thou likewise. And then we read over in John chapter 13 in verse 27, what thou doest do quickly. So if I were to pull all three of those scriptures out and bind them together, we could justify this great congregation that's here tonight at Gospel Light going out and committing mass suicide like Jim Jones and the People's Church did. And you know and I know that the Bible does not teach any such doctrine. What was the occasion when the Lord gave the doctrine of the unpardonable sin? You'll remember that there was always a class of people that went to all of the public meetings of our Lord. They did not go in order that they might hear Him and be blessed. They went there in order that they might nitpick, find some fault with our Lord, whereby they could bring an accusation against Him and kill Him. They were the Pharisees. And Mother Bebe, they always sat on the front row. Always sat on the front row. She said, if you don't believe I'm going to keep my own new version sitting on that front row tonight, you've got another thought coming. And immediately they realized that a great miracle had been performed. They had brought unto Jesus a man. Possessed with a dual devil, a devil of blindness and a devil of dumbness, and our Lord had healed that man in so much that he both spake and saw. And the people began to say, Hosea! Hallelujah! This is the Christ! And the Pharisees, realizing that they were about to lose faith, had to come up with some answer. And they said, the thing that you poor ignorant people don't understand is that this man has indeed performed a tremendous miracle, but he did it by the power of Beelzebub. And when they said that, Our Lord turned and looked him in the face, and he said, You may speak a word against me, but whosoever speaketh a word against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. That brings to my mind the word unpardonable. The word unpardonable is a very harsh, hard, and oftentimes a misunderstood word. Why? Brother Beebe, I believe it's because we examine a thing in the light and the scope of our ability, our human ability, to forgive. But when a sin or a crime is reviewed in the light of God's grace, His power through His blood to cleanse from sin, it becomes pardonable. For example, a few months ago, when that crazy man out in Killeen, Texas, in our parish in Killeen, and all around there, when that crazy man drove his pickup truck through the window of Ruby's cafeteria, and then got out with his automatic gun, and began to shoot those innocent people, mothers there with their daughters celebrating birthdays, little children shooting them at random. If that man, and when I heard that on television I said, unforgivable. But if that man, instead of going in that restroom and committing suicide, had gone and fallen on his knees, there would have been room at the cross and mercy enough and power enough in the blood of Jesus to forgive him of that sin. I don't know whether and how you felt about it, but Jeffrey Domer, up in Minneapolis, is on trial right now. I didn't listen today and I don't know how the trial came out. But it has been brought out in this trial that he would take those young men at least 19 of them, into his apartment, and after doping them up, getting drunk on beer or liquor, then he would assault them sexually in a perverted manner, and then kill them, and dissect their body, put pieces of their body in his refrigerator, and then cut their heart out and eat their heart. He is a 1992 cannibal. Cannibal! I do not know that in all of my life I have ever heard a more horrible crime than this man has committed. And yet, if that man in that Minneapolis prison right this very minute would get on his knees and say, Oh God, I'm a homosexual. I'm a mass murderer. I am a human cannibal. eating the flesh of human beings. There will be room at the cross and mercy enough and power enough in the blood to forgive him of all the crimes and sins that he's ever committed. Not far, for where I'm standing right this very minute in this pulpit, a young doctor, 38 years old, who had married three years before, a sweet girl, came home from the hospital one Saturday at noon under the influence of alcohol. God had given him a sweet little boy who was about six months old. His wife, not recognizing that he was under the influence of some sort of sedation, alcohol or some other drug, said to him when he came in the house, I'm going to step across the street. I'll be back in about 15 minutes. Lunch is almost ready. I've already fed little junior and he's asleep in the nursery. And once he was gone, that 20 minutes. That doctor went into their den, picked up a little iron poker, 18 inches long, went to the kitchen, turned on a gas jet, heated that little poker to a red-hot heat, then went into the nursery where his only little son, six months old, was fast asleep and inserted that red-hot poker through each eye opening until he touched the back of a skull. Then opening the mouth of his little son, he stood there and wedged that poker down the throat of his little son as far as he could wedge it and fell over the floor in a drunken stupor. When his wife returned, found their little son so horribly murdered, her husband lying in the floor in a drunken stupor, she ran out of the house screaming, the sheriff was called. That doctor was tried in a court of law, and they deemed him insane. Those that keep him in that mental institution, he stays in a little cell, about eight by ten feet, and they have to keep all of his clothing, No sheets, nothing that he could try to hang himself or kill himself, and naked, he walks up and down that little cell, and in his waking hours, he's screaming, What did I do? What did I do to my little son? What did I do to my little son? If that doctor, in that mental institution, right this very second, at 8, 11, on that clock up there, on the day of February 5th, would get on his knees and say, oh God, I brutally murdered my little son while I was under the influence of alcohol. There would be ruby to cross, and mercy enough, and power enough in the blood to cleanse him. There isn't an adult, and I doubt seriously if there's a teenager in this house, that couldn't walk up here on this platform right now and tell me a story as horrible as I've related to you, are newspapers to fill with them. You can't turn on radio or television and not hear it. Why? Did I relate this? Why did I bring up these? I want to dogmatically, emphatically lay upon the mind and upon the heart of every person present that the sin that I'm talking about is worse than all the combined sins Since Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden, and their son Cain killed Abel, and all of the combined sins of the prostitutes, and the whoremongers, and the liars, and the murderers, and the thieves, if we could be able to get all of the sins of the whole world and put them in one capsule, they wouldn't be as horrible as the sin that I'm talking about tonight. The unpardonable sin. Preacher, this Bible, if I understand it correctly, teaches that Jesus Christ is the only person in all of God's great universe that can forgive sin. No angel, no devil, all the popes that ever sat in the Vatican, all the evangelists, all the pastors, all of the denominational leaders, cannot forgive one little sin. But the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sin. That leaves nothing for water to wash away. That leaves nothing for works to accomplish. That leaves nothing for worship. Nothing for worship to accomplish. Only the blood. Don't ever stop singing. Power in the blood. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood. And our Lord looked into the faces of those Pharisees and said, you've committed a sin and you shall never be forgiven. I have read this Bible daily, will soon be 60 years. If this great congregation or some individual would say, Brother Smith, what do you consider to be the four of the most horrible words in the Bible. It would take me five seconds to tell you what I believe they are, and I've never had anybody argue this. They were the words of Jesus when he said, shall not be forgiven. There are no supreme courts, no courts of appeal. When you have committed a sin that our Lord identifies as the unpardonable sin, you can never be forgiven. Never. I have preached in all 50 of our beloved United States. And last year, I had the honor of preaching in my 60th foreign country. And I have almost a universal worldwide radio program that I preach seven days a week on. And I've never known a woman to commit this sin. Never met nor ever had in my meeting a woman to commit this sin. In all of the millions that I've preached to, I've never had but 21 men to commit this sin. Not a one of them lived 24 hours. When you commit this sin, God kills you almost instantly. Almost within the hour. And if you look in the Bible, He did that. Do you remember when they came accusing Moses of not being led by the Lord? Do you remember, my friends, what the Bible says? That Moses prayed, Lord, if these men die, the common death of all men, Then, Lord, you have not sent me." They are telling the truth. But, Lord, if a new thing happens, then, Lord, it is the fact that they have angered God. And no sooner they got to pray in that prayer, in the 16th chapter of the book of Numbers, here's what it says. If these men die, the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men, then the Lord hath not sent me. Numbers, chapter 16, verse 30. But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit, then shall ye understand that these men have provoked the Lord. And no sooner than that got out of his mouth, God split the earth open. He opened a great Grand Canyon right under and 250 not of the straight people and not of the mafia and not of the bums of that area but the Bible says there that 16 chapter number 2 verse 2 noble men famous in the congregation they were the deacons and the leaders Let me tell you something. Brother Beattie, we have known each other for a long, long time. I do not know that we ever had a cross word. Never. There's never been anything between you, your wife, and my wife, but just Christian love. I believe you are a man of God. Do you remember when I was with you in a revival meeting in Ruskin, First Baptist Church? Do you remember what you had hanging on the on the doorpost of your study going into your office. Do you remember a rattlesnake hide about that wide and his head up on the top of the lintel and his rattlers down on the ground, on the carpet? And I said, Brother B.B., where in the world did you kill such a rattlesnake? Do you remember what you said? You went over and pulled back the curtains in your office and said, see that Palmetto swamp down there? Do you remember what you said to me? You said, Brother Harold, there's at least five or six that big down there, and a lot of little ones. Do you remember that? And do you remember where my car was parked? My car was parked with a bumper out over that swamp. And I want to tell you, I preached that night. My wife didn't hear that, and I handed her the keys when we got ready to go and said, Honey, go down and drive up the car. I tell you, I am a coward when it comes, brother, to rattlesnakes. But I'd rather have one of those snakes, that big, wrapped around my neck as a necklace, than to speak a word against you, brother Robertson. You're God's man, and you better be careful what you say about Him. Or any other man of God. That leads me to identify the member of your body with which you commit this sin. He that speaketh a word. Which part of the body do you use to speak? Somebody tell me. The tongue. All right, here's a verse of scripture that many of you have read many times and never did understand. In James chapter 3 and verse 6, the Bible says, and the tongue is a what? Somebody tell me. It's a fire. That's the reason you have to keep it bathed in a wet solution. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, so is the tongue among our members, and it defiled it, the whole body, and set it on fire the course of nature. Now here's what I want you to put a circle around. And it is set on fire of what, somebody tell me? Of hell. God knowing that the tongue is the only member of your body which you can commit a sin whereby you can never be forgiven, in this world you're the one to come, has enclosed it behind a double prison wall. First of all, there are the ivory bars you teeth. Second, there is the fleshy mold of your lips. And you call it up back there. If you're a sinner in this house tonight, if you're not saved, before you leave this meeting tonight, you could commit this sin with that little member of your body. As I said a moment ago, every incident in the Bible, every single incident where they committed this sin, Belshazzar committed, and in that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain. Terran committed it. And brother, one second he was sitting on the royal regal throne of Rome, dressed in all of his regal robes, and the next moment he was nothing but a gob of maggots. As I said a moment ago, I have never known a woman to commit this sin. I've only known 21 men. I was holding a revival meeting in South Carolina in a little church by the name of Beaver Dam Baptist Church. On a Thursday night I preached. I do not remember what it was. It wasn't this sermon. And the church had three little sections in it, just like this right, these three sections here. And when I started giving the invitation, on the back row, on the back seat, I saw a young man stand up on the seat part, and that put his head and shoulders above everybody else. And we were giving the invitation. And he began to look around at that congregation and God impressed me to go back and speak to him. So I walked off the platform. We had had 20 or 25 people to come forward. And I walked off the platform and I was right in front of him before he ever knew that I was coming down the aisle. I looked up at his face and I said, young man, are you saved? Do you know Jesus? And before I could get any further, he said, no, I'm not saved. He said, for your information, J. Harold Smith, we did not come here to hear you preach tonight. We came here to pick up a couple of girls to go to a dance, and as soon as we can locate them, you can have our space. God is my witness, as kindly as I could say it. I said, son, I really believe the Holy Ghost impressed me to come back, and that's as far as I got. He said, I told you, sir, that I did not come here to hear you preach. I told you that I didn't want to be saved. I told you that we came here to get a couple of girls to go to a dance, and as soon as we could locate them, we could have our space. He said, and now, you and the Holy Ghost both go to hell. In all of my ministry, till this very night, when I just repeat that, cold chills run over my body. And I begin to back off from him like I would a rattlesnake. And I didn't say another word until I got back to the pulpit. I said, Polka, do not know who that young man is standing on that pew, but he just stepped over God's deadline. He just blasphemed against God's spirit and God signed his death warrant and God's going to kill him. He pulled up his hands and shoulders just like this and out loud said, Oh yeah. I made no response. He got those two girls, drove about five miles to that dance hall. He and his buddy, according to his buddy, about five minutes to twelve that night, stepped up on the little old porch of that dance hall to smoke a cigarette and to take a drink of liquor. His buddy said, we lit our cigarettes, I had the flask, I took a drink, and then after I'd taken a drink, I started to hand it over to him and he reached out to take it, but he never touched it. He folded up like a jackknife, fell on that little old dance hall porch and began to scream like a panther. The orchestra stopped playing, and the dancers stopped dancing, and they came out and picked him up and carried him and put him on the dance hall floor and sent for Dr. Mays. Dr. Mays said he got to that dance hall about 1.15 a.m. He said when he walked in and saw that boy lying on the floor, he was aware of two things simultaneously. Number one, there was a boy that was sitting or standing on that pew back of him in the service that night. And he said, before I ever touched him, I knew he was a corpse. He said, if I ever examined anybody with all of the skills that I had as a doctor, I examined him. And I finally wrote on their certificate, the cause of death unknown. He said, if I'd have put on there, preacher, what I know I'd have put on there, I'd have put on that God killed him. I was holding a revival meeting in Taylors at the Southern Bleachery Baptist Church. Dr. Ed Harrison was the pastor, one of the most godly men I've ever known. Two boys drove up riding piggyback on a motorcycle. The fine greeter, one of the deacons there was one of the greeters, and they had beautiful glass doors on the front of the church. And he saw these boys pull up and park right in front of the church. And he pushed open one of those doors and said, fellas, we're glad to have you. Just leave your motorcycle parked right there. I'll keep an eye on it. Come on in. The service has just started. We are glad to have you. And instead of coming in, they begin to curse that deacon. I will not repeat in this audience what they said about Dr. Ed Harris. To climax it, they said, while you poor sats are sitting there listening to that jackass referring to me, B-R-A-Y, Bray, we'll be in Spartanburg, South Carolina, watching a good leg show. And Cheeks on the Motorcycle. They did not go over the length of three football fields until they entered into a curve called a Cheek Springs Curve. It wound up slowly up a hill, turning gradually to the left at the inquest. The man that was going up the hill said, I was not aware that I was being followed by a motorcycle. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw it begin to pull along to the side of me. I thought it was a traffic officer. And I looked at my speedometer, and I was going about 60 miles an hour. The man that was coming down and around that curb, facing that oncoming car, said, I saw the approaching automobile, but I did not know it was being followed by a motorcycle with two boys only. And when I was about 100 feet from it, darting out suddenly from behind that car was this motorcycle. And before I could ever apply the brakes, they had crashed head on into the center of my car. The boy that was controlling, driving the motorcycle went up and over that oncoming car and struck the pavement on the right side of his head and scrubbed off all the right side of his head and his shoulder. The boy that was riding piggyback went head first into that oncoming car and from midway of his elbow, all of this part of his body, every internal organ of his body disintegrated and went through that grill and radiator. in less than three minutes, both of them were in hell. You say, preacher, just a freak accident. Never, never, never would you make me believe it. I was conducting a revival, a cessation wide revival sponsored by the 27 Baptist churches in that parish in Louisiana. You know, in Louisiana, they do not have counties like we have in North Carolina. They have parishes. And this was a parish-wide revival, and we'd come to the last night of the meeting, and I was preaching this sermon, and the meeting was being held in the rodeo arena. And as I preached, on the last chair of seats, over to my right, on the last row, top seats, were three men that I'd never seen before. And they'd laugh and make fun. Now, preacher, it has never bothered me When a little baby starts crying, the mother gets up and walks out, that don't bother me. But under God, I cannot preach. If I see two young people laughing, I cannot preach. If I see anybody mocking, it just somehow or another takes it away from me. Three times, I stopped. And I said the last time, if you men don't want to hear me preach, a lot of these people have come from miles to be here tonight, and they do. Would you just get up and walk out of the arena? One of them said, if you think you're man enough to come up here and put us out, you just come up here. And I prayed a prayer. Never have prayed before, never have prayed since. I said, dear Jesus, let me backslide for 15 minutes. And I promise you, Lord, if you'll let me backslide for 15 minutes, I'll go up there and beat the devil out of all three of them. And God said, I didn't call you to fight, I called you to preach. He said, you turn them over to me. And I did. And they continued to mock all the way through the sermon. We had over 400 people to walk down that aisle that night and give their hearts to Jesus Christ. I fully intended to never show them enough attention to address them again. But just as I was ready to pronounce him an addiction, My arm came up. Preacher, did anything ever come out that you hadn't planned to say? That you couldn't help but say it? Has that ever happened to you? How many of you preachers here have ever had something just come out that you didn't have in your notes, and it just came out? Yes, every preacher, every God called preacher has. And my arm just came up, and I said, I don't know who you three gentlemen are, but all three of you stepped over God's deadline, God signed your death warrant, and God's going to kill all three of you. That was about 10, 15, Sunday night. At 8 o'clock the next morning, I didn't know who these men were. They were three businessmen. One of them put the key in the door of his office on Main Street, Ringo, Louisiana, and dropped dead. At 11.30, the second man started to cross the street to a little restaurant to have his lunch from his office, and a lady was driving up the street and almost ran over him. She said he was just walking along normal, flat on his face, and died. right there in the street. At 530 that afternoon, the third man was sitting in his office and he said to his secretary, my two friends are in hell and before the sun goes down, I'll join them. And pitched out of their feet a corpse. My wife was with me in the revival. We had closed the revival meeting on that Sunday night and we had driven about a hundred miles to a little country church to begin a revival meeting on Monday night. And there were no motels within 25 miles of that little country church. And we were staying in the home of the pastor. We had preached on Monday night. We'd come back to the parsonage, we had had some refreshments, and we had gone to the room that had been assigned to us for our bedroom. When I heard the telephone ring. And I heard the preacher, when he answered, he said, no, I'm not going to call him to this telephone. He is so weary and so tired, I'm not going to call him. Unless it's an emergency. The party on the other end of the line said it's an emergency. And when I got there, there was a pastor of the First Methodist Church. And he told me what I've told you. And he said, Brother Harold, our whole parish is in uproar. He said, we had a meeting tonight with a number of the preachers, and we tried to rent the rodeo arena for next Sunday night, but we can't have it. But my auditorium is the largest, and would you come back? next Sunday night and preach. I turned around to the pastor and he gave me the consent to close the meeting on Sunday morning. My wife and I drove back that 100 miles. We left in order that we might get there about 30 minutes before the service would begin that night. When we drove up, there were over 1,500 people in that yard. They couldn't get in that building. And they said, the people have been here for over an hour and a half, preacher. Not a person, not another person could get in that auditorium. I got down, started walking down, sliding down the aisle, sidewise, my wife and I. And the man that was in charge said, Preacher, don't sit down, just come on and preach. And before I could open my Bible and read one scripture, 17 men jumped up out of that audience and ran down that aisle just as fast as they could get down there, said, we want to get saved. I want to tell you this is the hour in which we can commit this sin. I've given you five out of my own life that committed this sin. I could give you 21. I could give you some of the others that I've heard preachers tell me about. But if this doesn't convince you, you can't be. How do we do it? Accreting. Assigning with our speech, our tongue, the work of the Holy Ghost and the work of the devil to be Elzebeth. And we are damned forever. Beelzebub means the prince of devils. The prince of flies. F-L-I-E-S. The prince of filth. The prince of a dunghill. And when you are signed, when you are signed, the work of the blessed Holy Ghost or the work of the devil, I want to tell you, you are damned and nobody but that can pray for you that will ever live that. But you won't have to worry about it because you won't live long enough. When God seals your destiny and signs your death warrant, and you have blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, you will be dead in 24 hours. Preacher, if you don't remember this, don't say so. But as I was coming down tonight, and you mentioned about praying, and by the way, have you ever ridden with Brother Robertson? It's not hard to pray. No, Preacher, no, God bless you. Do you remember in that prayer, when I said, Lord, don't let anybody come on the church grounds, and don't let anybody come in that auditorium, has already stepped over one of these three deadlines. I said, Lord, when I get up there to preach tonight, and I look at all those folks there, let me know that not a one of them has already stepped over deadline number one, deadline number two, or deadline number three. And I want to tell you, I believe everybody in this house, If the devil is whispering to some of you right now, you've committed that sin, you've committed the unpardonable sin, I want to tell you, he's a liar, and I tell you, you've got at least one more opportunity to ask God to forgive you and get right with God before you go home tonight. Have I made a claim? Do you understand what it is? It's not suicide. There are friends that I have that are in heaven that committed suicide. Now, that'll give you some thought to argue about going home. Deadline number two, sinning away your day of grace. Now, taking more time on this than I will the others. Sinning away your day of grace. Will you turn in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 29 and verse 1. Proverbs chapter 29 and verse 1. He, and then there's a comma there. He that being often reproved, hardened at his neck, shall certainly be destroyed, And I want you to underscore these last four words, and that, without remedy. I believe with all of my heart that God and the Holy Spirit could not make this verse plainer. I believe the second deadline that is spoken of in the Word of God is sending away our day of grace. This second deadline can be crossed. without speaking a word. It can be crossed by a friend of Brother Robertson. It can be crossed by Tyler of Gospel Light Baptist Church. It can be crossed by a good neighbor. It can be crossed by a faithful member of this church. It can be crossed by a respectable citizen. This sin is as deadly as the first. This sin cannot be crossed by a person that's been born of the Spirit of God, washed in the blood of Jesus. Only sinners can cross deadline number one and deadline number two. But you can be a member of this church. You can love this pastor. You can be a faithful member of this church. You can be a Tyler and be lost. You can come here and enjoy this wonderful singing by the choir and those wonderful numbers that Brother Bob Walker sang tonight. You can come here, wave your hand and shout and go to hell. I want to tell you that's not the new birth. The new birth is not baptism. The new birth, but I tell you, is not joining a church. The new birth is being made into a new creature. That means your beer will go out of your refrigerator. I mean, God will give you a new tongue, and you'll stop abusing your husband and your wife. I tell you, God will make you a new creature, and you'll honor your father and your mother. And everybody around you will know that you're not the same. When God saved me on September the 4th, 1932, I had a bulldog by the name of Tiger. He had to learn a different vocabulary. The morning after I got saved, so help me preacher, the morning after I got saved, I can see that old dog now. Turn his head and look at me. You look alike, but your voice is different. And the best friend that I had at that time was a man by the name of Junior Phillips. Every time I'd save $50, he'd strip me of it playing poker. And preacher, two weeks after I got saved, he came up to strip me. And he met a different person. And until 3 o'clock in the morning, brother, I tell you, instead of playing poker, I was witnessing to him about the Lord. And at three o'clock in the morning, I got him to promise to go with me at least to church the next morning, on a Sunday morning. And as we're walking to church, just two doors away from my father's home, Junior caught me by the arm and he said, just a minute. He said, you've got the same color of eyes, you've got the same color of hair. He said, you weigh the same. I recognize you as J. Harold Smith, but I don't know you. I didn't know that the Bible said he's a new creature. And a few weeks later, when I read that, I said, hallelujah. My best friend had to admit that I was a new creature. I'll tell you something, brother, you'll be different. If I were to be sitting in your home and I'd say to you, wife, is your husband a Christian? She'd say, I don't know. You'd have to ask him. No, I wouldn't have to ask him. I know, brother, you weren't saved. You might be a deacon. You might be a Sunday school teacher. You might be a church leader. You might be a preacher. You might be a preacher's wife. You might be the finest member in that church. But if your wife doesn't know you're saved, brother, I'll tell you something. You're lost. Lost. Your kids ought to know you're saved. When I was a pastor, I had in my desk a big drawer. It was about almost a foot deep, and it was about three feet long. And I kept it full of little pieces of candy. Back in those days, you could buy them for a penny a piece. Now they cost you a quarter a piece. But anyway, I tell you, if you were over five years of age, you didn't get that candy. No deacon got in it. Just those little kids. And they'd come, and they'd knock on my door, and they'd say, preacher, may I have some candy? I'd say, yeah, Tommy, open the door and come on in. And he'd come in, and I'd say, now you just have one piece in each hand, just one piece. And while they were getting that, they'd give me the lowdown on their dead mother. And they'd say, they'd say, preacher. I'd say, yeah, Tommy, you know what happened coming down this morning to church? No, Tommy, what happened? Well, Mama was fussing with Dad, and he said, if you don't shut up, I'm going to slap your face. And she said, if you do, I'm going to run this fingernail file through your gut. I said, did they say that, Tommy? Sure did. I'd get up to preach. And they'd be sitting over here, and I'd say, some of you. I'd see you sitting out there, brother, I'd give you a little holy, ecclesiastical look. And I said, you're mean as a devil. I said, coming all the way down here, you were pussying at your husband? He said, if you don't shut up, I'm going to slap your face. He said, yes, if you do, I'll run the fingernail file through your gut. Now, if I'd have been Brother Pat Robinson, I would have said I had a word of knowledge. But I got my word from little Tommy. Yes, sir. We had a black lady that didn't do anything, only keep our auditorium. That's all she did. The auditorium of the First Baptist Church, she just dusted and vacuumed, and that's what she did for 40 hours a week. And her name was Inez. And she always called me Pastor. And one day I came in through the auditorium and she said, Pastor, she said, you always have been our Pastor now for nigh on to 18 months. And I said, Pastor, you know what? I said, no, Inez, what? She said, I don't have to do nigh as much polishing on these pews as I did before you became our pastor. And I said, well, Inaz, why? She said, I don't know, sir, unless they twist while you preach it. I believe that the Bible teaches that no man can come to the Father except the Holy Spirit draw him. I do not believe that the preacher lives that can bring conviction in the heart of a person. Only the Holy Ghost can bring conviction of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. And I want to tell you the Bible teaches that His Spirit will not strive with us always. If I had not surrendered to the Lord on September the 4th, 1932, at 630 at 9 o'clock that night I was involved. And what could have been a fatal accident? And God told me right here under this great 18-wheeler, this is where you would have died. I was two hours and a half from hell when God saved me. That's the reason I want to be as urgent as I can to say to everybody that's not right with God, now is the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation. Don't put it off. Most not by myself but tomorrow, but I know it's not what a day may bring forth. Jeremiah was told three times, don't pray for that party. The Bible tells us that Ephraim is joined to his idols. Let him alone. What if God were to say to you tonight, I'm never going to speak to her again. I'm never going to convict her again. I'm never going to convict him again. There's some of you sitting right here with the sound of my voice right now. You have your name on this church roll or some other church roll, and you know way down deep in your heart you've never been saved. You know it. You're afraid to die. You've got religion, but no Redeemer. You've got a great big beautiful church, but no Christ. You've got the waters of baptism, but no blood. That means you're lost. Four years ago, this past January, I was at the First Adventist Church at Altamont Springs, Florida, holding a revival meeting. And when I preached this sermon on Sunday morning, eight of their deacons walked down the aisle and said, we're lost. The first person that came was a pianist. To make a long story short, my secretary came back and gave me the cue that there was something important needed to be stopped at the next stop in place. And when I stopped, she said, Dr. Jerry Kennedy, pastor of the church, and his wife were up in your study and said, both of them are crying. I don't know why, preacher. But they said they got to see you. I walked into my study. Jerry Kennedy stood up and he said, preacher, I have been preaching for 13 years. He said, I've been the pastor out there at the First Baptist Church for three years. I'm a graduate of New Orleans Seminary. And he said, I want you to know I'm lost. And I'm lost. He said, I have preached on hell. And the Lord and the Spirit said to me, Jerry, you're going there. He said that yesterday morning when you preached, God smoked in my heart. But I just didn't have the courage to move. But he said, I haven't slept a wink, preacher. And when I got out of bed this morning, God said, Jerry, this is your last day. Your last day. To make a long story short, Jerry Kennedy got on his knees, and God saved him. Two weeks later, he saved his wife. He said, I've got a deacon's meeting tonight. He said, you know what, this will result in, preacher, it may mean they'll fire me. I said, Jerry, if they do, we don't have too much money here at the Radio Bible Hour, but I believe we've got enough to hire you to help us, right here, so we can find you a church. That night, after the agenda was all taken care of, he said, I've got an announcement before we go home. I got saved this morning. That's as far as he got. Two more deacons. Eight, remember, got saved Sunday morning. Two more deacons jumped up and said, Brother Pastor, we are lost. We haven't slept a wink. We want to get saved. And I want to tell you, it'd be amazing maybe how many preachers in this house, how many deacons, how many Sunday School teachers, how many of you bus captains, how many of you bus leaders, how many of you visitors are here tonight. It'd be amazing to know how many of you may be lost. Lost! I didn't say backstreet. Lost! I believe the Bible teaches that 75 out of every 100 church members are lost. Lost. Lost. A sower went out to sow, and only one-fourth of the seed fell on good ground. Pastor, I haven't asked you, When I left the First Baptist Church, the day I resigned, we had 6,008 resident members. I had 13 associates in that church. And I'd wake up in the middle of the night crying. I'd wake my wife up. And she'd say, Harold, what's wrong? Are you sick? No. What's wrong? And I'd say, honey, I've got so many lost members in our church. Lost. Does it bother you? Brother B.B., when you were pastored, did it bother you? Brother preachers, does it bother you about how many people that you've got in your church that are lost? Absolutely no evidence of being saved. Now listen to what I'm about to say. If you've got a church with 400 members, 400 on roll, and you've got 100 tithers in that church, you're above the average. You've got 100 people that are on Wednesday night, you're above the average. You've got a hundred coming back for Sunday night services, you're above the average. You've got a hundred going out knocking on doors and visiting with you, you're above the average. Where are the other three hundred? And the guy looked up with both eyes and seemingly I could hear him, how those eyes saying, help me. And I stepped back and I said, Alvin, that guy opened both of his eyes. And they all laughed and said, that can't be. And I always carry Everywhere I go, night and day, I carry that little knife. It's got a little blade on it. It's about an inch long. And so I reached down and got this little knife. And I said, I'm going to walk over there, and I'm going to salve this thing in that guy's leg, and if he don't move, that window right over there is mine. And I tell you, as I started to work toward that body, he sat up in the castle. And ever since that, I've called this little knife my resurrection knife. And what they had done, brother, they had put this man in there to scare me or trick me or whatever. But if he'd have been dead, I could have stuck this knife in him a thousand times and he'd never flinch. That's why people can come to church on Sunday morning, hear the preacher preach, never be moved, never flinch, they're dead. Dead! I tell you, you're sitting here tonight, And you're a member of some church. And you're respectable. You never have smoked a joint of marijuana in your life. You've never sniffed glue. I tell you, you've never taken an upper or a downer. You've never taken a drop of liquor. You've never drank a bottle of beer in all of your life. You are viral and clean. But I tell you, a wonderful citizen. And all of us would like to live by you. But you're lost. Lost. Hundreds of our young people are lost. If your dad and your mother have to beg you every Sunday morning to get out of bed and come to church, you're lost. If you'd rather go to a basketball game or a football game and get more enthusiasm out of it, and greater joy out of it, than you do rather actually come into church, you're lost. I didn't say bachelorette. Lost. You deacons that sit out there and swell up like a poison pup. Criticizing everything that goes on in the church. You're not vaccinating. They're lost, preacher. Lost. I want to tell you, brother, a man that is born again, he is not easily offended. The preacher preaches and you've got your little feathers ruffled up, go over and join another church. You know what's wrong with you? You're lost. If you ever get saved over there, you come back here where they told you the truth. You know, the Bible says about the people in Nineveh, Nineveh said, therefore they could not believe. It didn't say they wouldn't believe, it said they couldn't believe. There is a time we know not when, a place we know not where, that march the destiny of men from glory to despair. There is a line by us unseen which crosses every path, the hidden boundary between God's mercy and His wrath. I begged a young man one night to give his heart to Jesus. singing in the choir. He walked out, went two blocks, sat down on the steps of a girl that had rejected him and was going to marry another man, pulled out a little gun, and blew out his brain. Before I left the church, they'd come running down and saying that he committed suicide. I told you a moment ago that I'd only known 21 men, no women at all, that had ever committed the unpardonable sin. Preacher, how many have you ever known personally that have committed Deadline No. 2 and send away their day of grace? I believe that I have preached to over 100,000 people in my lifetime that heard me preach the last sermon they ever heard. Mothers have walked out and died on the parking lot. Young men, brother, I tell you, have heard me preach, and I begged them personally to come to Christ, put my arm around them and begged them to come to Jesus, and that afternoon be killed in an automobile accident. A young man, 15 years old, and I begged to give his heart to God. He said, I'll be back tomorrow night. I said, son, that's presumptuous sin. Today's the day of salvation. Now is the accepted time. The next afternoon, a deacon came by where I was staying, and we walked out in the yard. A little strip of a cloud came up. One bolt of lightning came out of that cloud. It is one of the most severe bolts of lightning I've ever seen. He just stood and danced like that. And it killed that boy in a watermelon patch, plowing. Killed the mule, killed the boy. I could go on and on and on. I was told to revive a meeting, preach a sermon. When I gave the invitation, over 90% of all the people in the audience, the Christians, the backsliders, the sinners, over 90% of the people got up out of their seats. They just like to dismiss them. But there was a man and a woman and a little girl on the fourth pew, right here in this section. They didn't move. And I felt impressed, you know, speak to him. So I pushed my way through this crowd, stepped on the bench, stepped over the next one, over the next one, and I stopped right in front of the mayor and I said, Sir, are you saved? He said, Yes, I am, preacher. Then I said, Ma'am, are you safe? She said, Yes, I am. Then I turned to the little girl and I said, Honey, are you safe? She said, No, sir. I said, How old are you? She said, I'm 14. I said, What is your name? She said, My name is Katie. I said, Katie, you're just a young lady, just 14 years old. Do you ever think about giving your heart to Jesus? Oh, she said, maybe sometime. I said, Katie, if somehow or another you could know that you'd be dead before midnight, would you let me pray for you? She folded her arms, crossed her chest like that and said, no, sir. Her dad started crying. He said, Katie, would you let me pray for you? No, daddy, I don't want you to pray for me. Then the mother started crying and said, Katie, would you let me pray for you? No, mama, I don't want you to pray for me. On their way home that night, they lived three miles out of this little town where I was holding a meeting, on the left side of the highway. And the father said, I had my signal going, I was turning left, my hand out, but four drunken men were coming up that highway, the police said, in excess of 90 miles an hour. The father said, I saw the lights, but he didn't realize they were coming so fast. And before he could turn left and get in his driveway, they struck him. That car rolled over three or four times. The mother was knocked out of the car. The father was knocked out of the car, just bruised up a little bit, but not seriously injured. But little Katie was wedged. They had struck that car right in the back, and little Katie was wedged in that car. And when it stopped rolling, it was upside down. And the man that told me about it, he said, Preacher, I was the second car to arrive on that busy highway. And he said, I want to tell you because this little girl kept calling your name. I want to tell you what happened. He said I guess maybe in five minutes there must have been 25 cars and maybe 50 people around. And he said the gasoline was gushing out of that tank and running down that highway. And he said this car went on, hit him, went on about a hundred yards and wrecked. And he said another gentleman and I got up in that back seat trying to get that little girl's legs freed. She was hanging upside down in that car. He said we'd been working with it about five minutes when I saw this flash. And I knew that somebody had set that gasoline on fire. One of those drunken men, he got out of the car, lit a cigarette, and threw the match down, and it fell in that gasoline. And he said, I turned to my friend that was on the other side, and I said, we've got about five or ten seconds to get this little girl out of this car. He said, Preacher, I have never put forth such an effort. But he said, I looked, and I knew I had to abandon her. And I got out of that car. And he said, what I heard the next 30 seconds, I'll never forget. He said, that little girl began to scream, Daddy! Mother! Somebody get me out of this car, Daddy! Mother, I'm going to die. And I'm going to go to hell, Mama. I wish I'd have let Pritchard Smith pray for me. He said, Pritchard, we had to hold that father and that mother. He said, I actually believe that he ran right into that fire. When he said that, Mother got as close as she could get to that car and said, Katie, can you hear me? Yes, Mama. Katie, you are going to die. We can't get you out, honey. You are going to die. Call on the Lord and ask Him to save you, honey. Ask Him, Mama, Mama, I can't pray, Mama. I can't pray. I sat here a moment ago and I wondered if there's some young person in this house You got your name on some church roll. But you know way down deep in your heart that you've never really been born again. You've never really been saved. You were just sort of brought up in the church. One day you walked down the aisle and gave the preacher your hand and they baptized you. But you never were born again. You never have become a new child, a new person. And I wondered, maybe before Sunday, Will some young person in this house that's listening to me now sit there in a moment when I give this invitation, knowing that you're lost, knowing that you almost hate your father and mother, only come to church because you're going to serve a pizza or because you want to meet a boyfriend or girlfriend? No real love for Jesus. And before Sunday, you'll stand before God. Will you stand before him lost or saved? He said, Preacher, that fire got inside that car. He said, if you've ever rung a chicken's neck and then threw it on the ground while she floundered around in death, she began to fray on her arms and scream. And people a half a mile away heard the screaming of that little girl as she died. And at this very moment, screaming still, in the fires of hell. I want to beg you young folks up in that balcony, I want to beg you older folks, I want to beg every one of you here tonight that do not know that you are saved. If you absolutely do not have the Spirit of God witnessing with your spirit that you are a child of God, don't sit there. Walk down this aisle. And if you do not have a spiritual birthday, make this wonderful February 5th, 1992, as a wonderful day You were born into the family of God. There are some of you senior citizens sitting right here before me. You've been a church member all these years, and you know that way down in your heart you've never been born again. And the preacher has preached, and God has shown you. And I tell you, you've hardened your heart, stiffened your neck, pried, pried. You're ashamed to walk down and say that I've been a church member, I've been a deacon, I've been a Sunday school teacher, I've been a trustee, I've been a leader, and I never have been saved. I'm plastic. I've been a hypocrite. I've never really been saved. But that's what it's going to take if you're ever saved. He said, preacher, that little girl began to scream, I'm damned, mama, I'm damned. My beloved pastor told me about when he was pastor of a little country church during the Great Recession and Depression of 1933. He said, preacher, we had one rich man in our community. He had a thousand acres of peaches. He had the only peach shed that was in our county. He had the only cotton gin that was in our county. And about a third of all of our church members worked for him. And all of us were so poor we could hardly exist. But he said one Sunday night, I was just ready to preach when I saw this man and his wife and 16-year-old daughter. The wife and 16-year-old daughter were members. Come in and take the back seat. Brother Roberts said, I preach with one man on my heart. And he said, we sang the first stanza on the invitation, he didn't come. Sang the second stanza, he didn't come. On the third stanza, Brother Robert said, I walked off the platform and down the aisle. And I went down and put my arm around him and I said, John, we are so glad to have you with us tonight. Won't you give your heart to Jesus? And he said, Preacher, that was a good sermon. I enjoyed it. But I cannot go down there. I've got a deal on next Wednesday. And I'm going to make $25,000 out of that deal. Now, back in the 30s, that was a half a million dollars or more. I said, I've got a deal on it. I know it's crooked. And if I were to go down there and get saved, I'd have to call off that deal. Brother Robert said, I picked up the lapel of his coat. And I said, John, do I understand that you're putting a $25,000 price tag on the lapel of your soul? He said, Preacher, I'd never thought of that. That's what I'm doing." Turned and walked out of the church. Brother Roberts said Tuesday morning at 4 a.m. the telephone rang. It was John's wife. And she said, Oh, Brother Roberts, could you and Sister Roberts come over as quickly as possible? John woke up about an hour or two ago and he's so sick and we can't get the doctor. And Brother Robert said, her call was so urgent, I just pulled on my trousers, over my pajamas. My wife just threw on a bathrobe and we got in our car, drove out about three miles to that beautiful palatial home. And he said, as soon as I cut off the ignition, I could hear him screaming, Don't let him have me! Don't let him have me! Brother Robert said, I walked up those steps to that beautiful colonial home. He said, if I'd have never been there, I'd have known where he was. I walked in the hall, back to his back bedroom, and his wife was on one side and the daughter on the other, holding him, and he was just boring his head back to the headboard of that bed, screaming as loud as he could, don't let him have me. Brother Roberts said, I leaned over and I said, John, this is Brother Roberts. There's no one after you. Please, sir, go shut the front door. Don't you see him? Down there comes the devil up our lane. And look at that chain, Brother Roberts, he's coming after me. He's coming up our front steps. He's coming in our front door. He's coming down the hall. There he is, Brother Roberts. There he is. He's standing in the door. He's climbing over the foot of the bed, Brother Roberts. He's wrapping that chain around my ankles, Brother Roberts. He's wrapping that chain around my waist, Brother Roberts. He's wrapping that chain around my throat. He's choking, Brother Roberts. He's choking me. Don't let him have me." Brother Roberts said with a last gasp, he said, he's got me. He said, I pulled him down in that bed. He said, Harold, his hair was thicker than yours, and all over the headboard of that bed were hairs, and all on the pillar and the sheet, where he bored his head back in that bed. Time to get away from the devil. I want to tell you something. As sure as my name is J. Harold Smith, are you listening up in that balcony? This section, this one, this one, this one, this one? I want to tell you, as sure as my name is J. Harold Smith, there's somebody in this house, if you walk out of those exits like you came in today, tonight, You walk out of there without giving your heart to Jesus tonight, that same devil is going to pay you a visit. He's going to pay you a visit. And I want to tell you, if I didn't know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was a born-again believer and washed in the blood and had me a spiritual birthday, I'd get to this altar tonight. And I wouldn't come down and say, Lord, I'm a backslider. I'd come down and I'd say, Lord, I'm a sinner and I want to be saved. I said, we've walked down the aisle, and we've rededicated our lives, and rededicated our lives, and that's putting a band-aid on the cancer. Let's stop it, and let's come, face the situation, and ask God to forgive us. This is the sin that Agrippa committed. Almost, Paul, thou persuadest me to be a Christian. I want to tell you what, believe it or not, this is a sin that Felix committed. Phoenix said, I will call on you at a more convenient season. And both of them are in hell. This is a sin the pest has committed. And brother, he said, Paul, much learning hath made thee mad. And you know what some of you are already saying? You're saying that J. Harold Smith is crazy as a loon. You handed me a little envelope tonight and said, preacher, here's your honorary. I have no idea what's in there. But I want to tell you, I did not come to this church. Did I write you and say, Brother B.B., you've got to give me so much money. I'll give anybody in this house a thousand dollars and borrow it from Brother B.B. If you'll stand up and say that you ever got a letter from me when I was coming into Revival and I had to pay you, you had to pay me so much. I do not know what that honorarium is, but I did not come here for that. At 82 years of age, Pastor, do you believe I'd stand up here and only a preacher knows what it takes out of a man to preach 30 minutes? But watch, up on that clock tower, I would have been up here one hour and a half. And preacher, do you believe that I would come here and preach at my age for an offering But somebody's going to say, J. Harold, he's just after the money. He's crazy. Say what you will. But I want to tell you, I've warned somebody for the last time you're ever going to be warned. And you're never going to have another chance. Never, never, never to get right with God. And to face up that you've been a hypocrite, that you've been a liar, that you've been a deceiver, and that you've been plastic. And if you'll come, I've got the promise of God before daylight this morning, that He wouldn't turn down a person that comes, stands here tonight and says, Lord, I'm a sinner. Not even Jesus could save the men that wouldn't come. The rich young ruler heard and went away. And as the Lord looked at him, he looked at him and loved him. But he's in hell. And there's not a person in this house that my Lord doesn't love and would save and wants to save. But if you walk out, it may be hell for you before the end of this month. I've taken more time. I don't know why. I've taken more time on this second point than I've ever taken in my life. I believe there's somebody in this house that would absolutely surprise everybody in this house if you'd come down and say, I've never been saved. Because they think you're one of the best people in this city. And maybe one of the best in this church. But I'd rather come and confess that I've never been saved than to die and go to hell. Will you come? We say no. I'm not going to come. I'm going to harden my heart. I'm going to stiffen my neck. I'm going to set my will. That's what this means. He that being often reproved, hardeneth his heart, stiffeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed. And that without remedy. That's it. So you don't have to say a word to step over deadline number two. Just harden your heart. Let the spirit knock. Stiffen your neck. It takes its flight. Never to knock again. Never to call. Never to rebuke. Never to convict. He's gone. Forever. There is not one of you sitting here tonight that will have the promise and can go out of that building believing that God is obligated to give you another chance. Am I telling the truth? Last of all, deadline number three. Deadline number one, deadline number two can be crossed only by a born-again sinner. Deadline number three can be crossed only by a born-again believer, a person that's really saved. What is the sin that Brother Beebe could commit? What is the sin that your beloved pastor could commit? Or his sweet wife? What is a sin that J. Harold Smith could commit, and God would sign my death warrant? You say, I don't believe there's any such sin. Turn in your Bible to 1 John, the 1st epistle of John, that's the epistle of John, not the gospel. The 1st epistle of John, chapter 5, verse 16. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask him he shall give him life, for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I did not say that you should pray for it. Now, what is this sin? If you have your Bible, turn to Amos, chapter 4. Amos, A-M-O-S. Chapter 4, verse 6. And I want to read this passage of Scripture real hurriedly, and five times you're going to hear the expression, yet have you not returned to me, saith the Lord. Amos chapter 4 verse 6, and I also have given you cleanliness of teeth in all of your cities, and water and bread in all of your places. Number one, yet have you not returned to me, saith the Lord. And also I have withheld in the rain for me whenever yet three months of the harvest, and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city. One piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered. So two or three cities wanted one city to drink water, but they were not satisfied. Number two, yet have you not returned to me, saith the Lord. I have submitted you with blessing, and milled you, and your gardens, and your vineyards, and your fig trees, and your olive trees, and increased the palm of where I have devoured them. Number three, yet have you not returned to me, saith the Lord. I have sent among you the pestilence after the manor of Egypt. Your young men have I slain with a sword, and have taken away your horses, and have made the stake of your camp to accompany your nostrils. Number four, yet have you not returned to me, saith the Lord. I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning. Number five, yet have you not returned to me, saith the Lord. God said, I sent Famine, and you will not come back. I sent drought, and you will not come back. I sent pestilence, and you will not come back. I sent war, and you will not come back. I sent destruction, and you will not come back. Now look at verse 12. Therefore, thus will I do unto you Israel, because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, get ready to die. This Bible teaches that God's people, Israel, had sinned. They refuse to come back to God. God signed their death warrant. When a child of God sins and refuses to repent or to forsake that sin, God punishes that child. God whips them. God chastens them. But the child remains stubborn. God turns such a child over to the devil, for the devil to kill that Christian. You say, I don't believe a word of that. Turn to 1 Corinthians 5, 5. First book after Romans, chapter 5, verse 4. 1 Corinthians 5, 5. I'm going to quote it, and I'm going to quote it wrong, so I want you to look at it now very carefully. Have you found it? 1 Corinthians 5, 5. To deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the soul. Is that what the Bible says? No. Now I'm going to quote it correctly, "...to never such a one as Satan, for the destruction of the flesh." Then the next phrase, "...that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." What does that mean? That means a child of God that will not repent, give up their sin when God chastens them, God turns them over to the devil, for the devil to kill them. Now, Brother Beattie, I don't know, I may die before I finish this sermon. The preacher may kill me driving back home tonight. I may get killed going home tomorrow. But if it's the Lord's will, I'd like to live until Jesus comes. But if one of these days you read my obituary, or you hear about my death, you mark it down, one guy was surprised. That's me. I got a $50 bill set aside to buy an ad to put on a local paper. My wife knows about it. To put this little ad in there. His death was unexpected. I'm looking for the upper taker. Not the undertaker. I'm looking not for a hole in the ground, but an opening in the sky. And I'll tell you something. If God should say, J. Harold, I'm not going to live until Jesus returns. You don't have to die. And I have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, shadow, not the wall, but the shadow. If I have to walk through that shadow, I don't want the devil on my back doing the killing. When I have to die, I do not want to die in the devil's slaughterhouse. Think of what the devil did to Job, and he was a perfect man. The most horrible death that I ever witnessed was not in the emergency room, Watching somebody die from an overdose? Or somebody getting brought in by the ambulance from an accident? With part of their brain oozing out through their skull? The most horrible death that I have ever witnessed in my years, my 82 years, is a Christian that has been turned over to the devil for the devil to kill. I want to tell you, you die the most horrible death, the most horrible death of anybody I know. Listen. I just ask you to raise your hand once. No more. I promise you. How many of you in this house believe that God knows everything that there is to know about every person on this earth? All right. Then does He know my heart? Brother Beebe, I believe that if you'd have thought there was some unconfessed sin in my heart, and if I had some of the secret sins that Jimmy Schweizer had, I wouldn't be here. I believe you're a man of God enough. If you knew that I had some unconfessed sins, you'd say to me, that man's not going to preach in my store. And I don't believe you wonderful people would come out here and set for an hour and a half to hear me preach if you thought that I was a hypocrite. But you don't know me. I met my wife when we were both 11 years old. She was 82 yesterday. And we have known each other for 71 years. And if anybody in the world ought to know a man, it ought to be my wife knowing me. But I could hoodwink my wife and deceive her. But I cannot hide from God. Neither can you. And as you sit there on that pew, as you sit there tonight as a born-again believer, as my brother and my sister in the Lord, does God see a little pet-stick in your heart? Does He see that you've departed from your first love? Was there a time, brother, I tell you, on Sunday morning before you paid the rent, before you bought the groceries, before you paid the doctor bill, that you took out that tithe and brought it to the house of God? Was there ever a time in your life When you look to read the Bible, better you look to read it now. Was there ever a time in your life when you talked to people about Jesus with greater boldness than you do now? Was there ever a time when your family had second place and your friends had third place and your home, brother, I tell you, had a place underneath the priority and the preeminence of Christ? But many of us have made our home, our jobs, society, our pleasures, our profits, our prestige, our power, our politics, our prosperity, all of these things that come in between us and the Lord. Was there ever a time when you attended the services of God's house? more than you do now? Was there ever a time when your conversation was cleaner, your character more noble, your companions greater people and friends of God? Was there ever a time when you had a cleaner conscience than you have tonight? Was there ever a time when you asked a blessing before you ate, but now that you just gobbled down your food like a hog? I tell you, was there ever a time when you had family worship and you read the scriptures and had prayer around the family altar? Was there ever a time when you Walk closer to God than you're walking tonight. If there was, it's a sure sign that you're backslidden. Don't take that fatal final step. Take a step of faith. Turn to God. Turn to Christ. Turn to the cross. Turn to the Church. Come back home. If you are backslidden, get out of the hog pen. Quit serving the hog herders and come home.