Jesus' teaching in John 6:26 highlights the difference between seeking Him for physical sustenance and seeking Him for eternal life, urging listeners to labor for spiritual nourishment over perishable food. The sermon contrasts the temporary satisfaction of bodily needs with the enduring life found in spiritual hunger, emphasizing that true fulfillment comes from seeking God's provision for the soul. It critiques modern faith healing practices by comparing them to the genuine, lasting miracles of Jesus and His apostles, noting the emphasis on money and the lack of verifiable results in many contemporary claims. Ultimately, the message calls for a focus on the salvation of the soul, which is eternal, rather than solely on the temporary needs of the body.
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Chapter six. John chapter six. And verse twenty six. John six and twenty six. And Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye seek me not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled. They saw them that got a one of the second fillers. coming. Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you, for him hath God the Father's will.
Now the Lord Jesus is teaching a very remarkable lesson here. He had fed five thousand people, that is men, plus women and children, with five loaves and two fishes. That was in the evening. The next morning they found that the Lord wasn't there. And so they heard he was on the other side of the lake, and they went around the lake. And when they gathered around the Lord, he saw what was in their hearts, and that's what he told them. He said, you didn't come all the way around here and all that long trek bringing your families and the rest of the folks, friends and so on. You didn't come all the way around here just to see the miracles, although that was something.
and he really performed everything. He says, you came around here just to get some more bread and fish. Now he says, don't put forth all that effort and labor just to get bread and fish for your body. He says, something far more important than that, than that, and he tells you, in verse twenty seven, labor not for the meat which perishes. The food you eat, you're to perish and so is the body, for the outward man perishes. But the inward man is renewed day by day. He says, I want you to seek that meat which endures unto everlasting life. I want you to consider the spiritual hunger.
I want you to consider the spiritual food. That's the spiritual life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you, for him has God the Father. Man shall not live by bed alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord. Now our subject on healing, I don't know whether we're going to get through all fifteen points or not this morning, if not we'll continue later on. But the Lord is pointing out a very important lesson. Men and women are living for the body, and that's for the present. Now I know there are a lot of pleasures related to the body. Who doesn't like to sit down and... eat a good, sumptuous meal.
I do. Because I have a good appetite, and I love good food. But there's something beyond that. All this is transitory. It's passing. It's temporary. But the Lord said that men and women would only put forth the same effort to get food for the soul, for the soul's going to live forever. If they put forth ten percent of the effort for spiritual food, they heads give to, for physical food, and food and attention for the body. Why, there'd be a lot of people getting food. But man today lives for the present. He lives for the body. The appetite, the lust, the hunger, the desires of the body.
That's his main objective in life. And the devil knows. And if he is unusual, he just wants men and women to live for the material, the body. And he doesn't mind. The devil doesn't mind these faith healers going around, drawing great crowds, and so on, people professing to get healed of their body. The devil doesn't mind them. He doesn't want men to preach the gospel that men and women will be saved. His object is this. Let people have all they want to eat. I'll get them in eternity, in the lake that Burnish has fired and Brimstone has been established. The devil doesn't mind you tending to your body.
And he doesn't mind preachers, except healing to the body, healing the body, just as long as these preachers don't emphasize salvation or salvation of the devil. The devil says, I'll have their souls for the eternity if they spend their life looking after the body only. But God says, I want your soul saved, never mind your body, I'll give you a new one on the resurrection wall. So you see the two qualities and principles that are working in the world today. And that's what the Lord said here. You people came all the way around the lake quite a long walk just to fill your stomach. And you're not interested in what I came into the world to do.
Save your soul. That's the main and important thing in this life. That's why the Lord Jesus did. Now one reason, the first reason. If you compare faith healing as it was practiced nineteen hundred years ago by the Lord Jesus and his disciples, faith healing today just does not stand up. It doesn't, then. All kinds of cases lie there. They don't last. No more in two or three hours. I read in one case where there was a great faith healer came to town and by they had the newsman there and they had a whole pile of crosses. They had wheels there. and everything else.
The people gave up. They got healed. But he said they all came back and gone and made the day. It just didn't last. It didn't last. And that's true. But it's different than what the Lord Jesus done in the Bible. You take, for instance, in connection with what the Lord Jesus did. The scribes and Pharisees were looking for a flaw. They were looking for a fault in the Lord Jesus' sight. They wanted to find something and they could criticize. And they just tried about everything to try and find some fault in the Lord Jesus Christ. They tried to trap him. They called him a drunk, the friend of publicans and sinners.
They complained about that he didn't believe the law. And they tried in every way to get something against the Son of God. If he had healed someone... And that case had not stood up, they'd have pounced on it like a lion on a piece of beef. You healed somebody, and the next day he wasn't healed. They'd have jumped on that in a move, because they wanted to find fault with the Lord Jesus Christ. That was true in the Acts of the Apostles. I'm going to read you a text in Acts chapter four. This is what it says. The apostles had healed a lame man.
And here are the authorities who are trying to stop the apostle preaching the gospel and no going on. He says in verse sixteen of Acts four, what shall we do to these men? For that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them as manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem. And we can deny. They said here's a remarkable case of healing and the authority. And it was so convincing they couldn't apprehend Peter and them the way they wanted to. And there's nothing more than convincing than when you see something, stand up. And this man, his case stood up because it was genuine. And there are other cases. Remember the case about Lazarus?
When the Lord raised Lazarus from the dead, the Jews were stopped because they said, the people came to the Lord Jesus, not because of Christ's sake, only but for Lazarus. whom he had raised from the dead. They saw what an attraction Lazarus was. Why, he's the man, the Lord raised from the dead. And so the multitude came, and this aggravated the strides and the Pharisees. And so it is today. People, they're attracted to the miraculous. They're attracted to that which seems to be supernatural. But in so many cases it doesn't last. It just doesn't stand up.
And there's a great healer today, still going. and in a number of places disappeared next to his big ad. One thousand dollars will be given to this man, mentioning his name, if he can come up with one bona fide case of healing with a doctor. Announcement and certificate. This man or woman will actually sit with a broken leg and definitely heal. A doctor who examined the case will give this man one thousand dollars. That was down in Miami and was put in paper at another big center. He never collected it once. And so there's a lot of this just going on today, and I think it's just a lot of paper.
I believe that with all my heart. Another reason. Because of the emphasis, the emphasis that's put upon money. That's what these fellas like. They like the green stuff. Green leaves. You know, the Lord Jesus didn't charge anybody. He didn't charge Lazarus. He didn't charge Mary and Martha, Lazar's two sister, when he raised Lazarus in the dead. He didn't charge the widow when he raised her son, nor Charius, when he raised his daughter. No charge at all. He didn't charge the leper, nor the nobleman's son, nor Peter's wife's mother. He didn't charge anybody for years. And yet he was so poor when he wanted to use the little space, he says, Show me a penny.
You take the money away from these fellas, and they'll stop right now. The money! Oh, yes. Lots of money in this game. They've made millions. Money, they say. We've got to live, these fellas. We've got to live. Look at the cost of our equipment. We have to go to town, travel all the country with a great big truck and tractor. I've seen it. Yes. And so do the Lord's servants. Two servants have to live. But the Lord told them to go and pray, taking nothing of the Gentiles. I've lived for forty-one years, preaching, and I've never lived with a collectioner. A collectioner asked anybody for a dime. I have to live, too.
I don't take a salary at the time. I couldn't tell you where the next dollar is coming from. It's come forty-one years. Because I believe I'm doing what God wants us to put an emphasis on the salvation of the soul. Money doesn't worry me. Not a bit. I want to see men and women saved by the grace of God. So these men say, well, we've got to live. You have to have expenses. And, of course, we've got to have equipment. Well, brother, I can tell you where you get all the equipment free. And it won't cost you a dime. It won't have to get a big tent. We won't have to have big trucks to take around the country. The hospitals are all free. And the old folks home and lots of patients. It won't cost you a dime.
And if you're really loving... healing men and women. You won't mind working with your hands seven or eight hours a day and spending your spare time going healing these people. It doesn't stand up. It's the money that quite often is the object of these men. Why? If they offer you a free handkerchief over the air that they've blessed, they'll include, don't forget your gift. Don't forget your sense of gift. That's it. And so it just doesn't compare with Scripture. In the Scripture, the Lord didn't charge anybody. The disciples went out. They didn't charge anybody. They did it free. Now, that's what the Bible teaches.
And that's what I believe. Also, you think of another thing, scream cases. Today, they'll scream them. They'll take certain ones and propose to heal. There was nothing like that going on with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ healed visible and invisible patients. I'm going to give you some devastating texts from the Bible to show you that the Lord Jesus Christ didn't screen anybody nor did his disciples. Let us notice one over in Matthew chapter four and verse twenty-three.
Matthew four, twenty-three, and Jesus went about all Galilee, that's quite an area, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. He was most reading that. He healed all, he said. Matthew eight and verse sixteen. And Jesus went No, verse eight, chapter eight, and verse six did. When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick.
All. Matthew nine, and verse four. And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom. and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. And then Matthew eight and seven. And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching him and saying, Lord, my servant lies at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented, and Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal him. He didn't say, bring it to the tent.
Bring it to our meetings. We're having a big campaign. The Lord Jesus said, I'll come and heal you, sir. He went to where the patient walked. And that didn't happen to him where the patient was dead or where he was alive. The Lord healed. Another case you have in Acts chapter six. Now you come to the Apostle's chapter five, rather, of Acts. and verse fourteen to sixteen. And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women, in so much that they brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.
There came also multitudes out of the cities round about and Jerusalem. bringing sick folks and them which were vexed with unclean spirits, and they were healed every once. Every once. That meant multitudes. No screening here. Everyone, regardless of his ailment, they were healed every once. You want anything more conclusive than that? Notice also, in Acts chapter five, further down, There was another one up in chapter, Acts ten.
Now God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil for God's own. Now here are these sections covering the Lord Jesus himself and his apostles. No screening. They healed everyone. No one was turned aside. Is that true today? No. Out of five thousand, I've seen that many times these meetings. Out of five thousand, maybe a half a dozen were screamed.
Not so when the Lord Jesus was here on earth. Not so in the acts of the apostles. They healed everyone. That's a lot of healing. You can prepare the truth. There's no comparison to what they did in the days of the Lord, in the days of the Apostle, what they do today, supposedly. Another thing, as I've already mentioned here, their case must come to these healers. They have their big tent or their big building, and they send out the invitations. You've got to go with it. Not so, the Lord Jesus. He went to where the patient was. Did he not go to the man I just referred to, the nobleman's son?
Furthermore, did he go to the tomb when Lazarus was in it? Did he not go to the home of Jarius when his daughter was dead? He said, Did he? He went to where the patient was, and distance meant nothing to him. He spake the word, and the man was healed miles away. Really, he healed. You'll know papery about that. What's the idea today? The big crowds, wonderful singing, a lot of excitement, they create an atmosphere. It's quite easy for a person to be psychologically into it.
And they say, I got here. But you go into the quiet room of a hospital or a home where there's a very sick person. And without any fanfare or excitement to add to your case, sit down on your knees and just ask God for Christ's will. He will live for hitherto your glory. If he or she gets healthy, he'll use that strength for thy glory. No money offered. Just a quiet waiting upon God and dependence upon God. That's the way they did in the Bible.
so important today in what goes on, this great big meeting that I've been there just to go and see what goes on. Creating an atmosphere, and furthermore, the Bible says God's not the author of confusion, and if ever I've seen confusion, I've seen confusion in some of those evenings. Just a lot of noise. Ah, yes, try trying to create an atmosphere that might tell someone that, I got healed. Well, I tried my best to find somebody, and I've seen hundreds and hundreds of us to get saved, and they still had their aches and pains two, three days after. I went to one place, and the brother said to me, sir, maybe he's coughed up a goiter.
That'd be quite a job coughing up a goiter in there. In other words, things don't happen like that. Another thing, the fifth point, the Lord Jesus met the challenge. You go up to a man, say you? You say, Peter? Yes, sir. All right. I want to put you a challenge, give you a chance. You need to come over to a place and hear that person? I wonder if you'd meet the challenge. The Lord Jesus did. John was in prison, and John was in prison. He heard about the Lord. He thought this must be the Messiah, but he had some doubts. So he sent some of his disciples.
to the Lord Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should come, or do we look one another? When the Lord Jesus got that message, he said to the disciples that came from John, he said, Do this. Matthew eleven four six. Go and show John again those things which ye do here, and you see them. The blind the see, their sight, and the lame walk, and the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have their gospel preached to them. Obsessed it is he whosoever shall not be offended. The Lord Jesus met their challenge, met the challenge of John the Baptist.
What about other places? The Herodians. What did they try to do? They questioned the Lord Jesus and the tribute money about whether they should pay taxes. So the Lord met that question. Also, the Pharisees, they came to the Lord, and they challenged him about his attitude toward the law. And the Pharisees, they come up with something else, too, the Sadducees, rather, and they want to know something about the law. They were trying their best to corner the Lord Jesus and put him on the spot, challenge him with something he couldn't do. In every case he silenced the Herodians, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, He met all their crats, Christians, their criticism.
And then he put this to them. What think ye of Christ? You've tried to corner me. You've tried to tangle me in my speech. What do you think of the Lord Jesus Christ? Now let me say this. If the Lord Jesus Christ, I go back to this point again, and they were asking the Hologians, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, Sadduce, If he had performed one miracle that didn't stand up for one case of healing that wasn't modified, real and genuine, they'd thrown that into his face, few healed souls. And they weren't healed.
Not once in all the criticism that was leveled at the summit, God, by the Herodians, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, and all the scribes, they tried their best to get something against them. Not once did they bring up a case of all the multitude there to hear, the lepers, the blind, the dead, not one. So none of them ever lay backfired. They were all two cases of bodily ill. You don't find that today. My, to get one or two, they claimed that they got peered up. Some of the bodily illness peered up. They would throw over that one, put them in the face.
But in the case of the Lord Jesus, every case he healed and the disciples to his stood up. And that's what I like. But think of other things. You know, if there was anything through this business of faith healing, you could get all kinds of agencies to finance you. You could. When you start to think, I get... mail plenty of them. Sometimes, fifteen, twenty pieces of mail a day. And I one day this week, I got ten pieces of mail, and nine pieces of mail was asking for money.
Asking for money. A lot of it from healers. Showing great big pictures of so-called healing revival. Well, all I can see is that the man can really, truly heal the sick. There are many agencies, societies, and organizations. who would give him a handsome salary and a fabulous home to live in, which is indivisible. Brother Busby here, it is a plus for the Civitans. I think he's in Boulder. And other agencies like that and Civic Club are willing to finance any project for healing a sick or helping other people, willing to spend money as a project.
Stop and think of the funds that are out today, such as the heart fund, cancer fund, polio fund, GB fund, epilepsy, and blind, all these kind of things. Wanting money, wanting money, wanting money. And yet we have a lot of men running around saying they can heal you. Any of these agencies would hire them if he could really do it. Trouble is, they can really do. Suppose you ran an ad like this in the paper. Here is wanted, a bona fide, sincere, genuine, in good faith, without fraud or deceit, wanted, large-salary, fabulous home.
Reply to a father there. I'll guarantee you there wouldn't be one man. And yet they love money. They'd love to have a fabulous home on the continental. But they won't accept that challenge because they know they can't live up to it. And I challenge any man, although I did read one pretty bold, I challenge any healer to put in the paper, an experienced, successful, qualified healer. Definite result. You won't get a healer putting that in.
I picked up a paper magazine not too long ago, and this man was offering his service as an evangelist. And he says, I guarantee so. No preacher of the gospel in his right mind would guarantee so. Salvation to the Lord. I can't save anyone, nor can any other preacher. I can preach the gospel, but I can't guarantee that people are going to get saved. When you come to handing the wings of God foundations of the Lord and don't forget healing the bodies of the Lord. The day they pawn off these fellows and make an escape hatch. Well, the patient didn't have enough faith.
They don't say I didn't have enough faith. They blame the patient. The patient didn't have enough faith. And neither did they. And in the final analogy that God has got to heal that person. not the healer nor the patient. In every case except one, the Lord Jesus healed every patient independent of faith. And the only one that he mentioned, faith gave. I think this is the scripture. In chapter X. No, not in chapter X. I think it may be verse ten.
Twenty-eighth of Matthew. And when he was coming to the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this, and he was testing their faith. They said unto him, Yes, Lord, then touched ye their eyes, saying, According to your faith, ye, unto you. That's the only case of healing where the Lord Jesus put any emphasis on the patient's faith. He walked into the house where Lazarus walked. Lazarus was dead. He didn't have any faith in the Lord either. He walked into the house where Charis' daughter was. He raised him in the dead.
She couldn't believe him. He met the widow's son, the funeral, the sacred place, between the house and the cemetery. Here was this widow's son on that court carrier. He didn't say, lady, this won't charge us so much. He didn't say, it'll be a prolonged process. The man couldn't believe. She didn't say, Mother, if you've got enough faith, I'll heal your son. She healed them. She raised them from the dead. That's what the Lord Jesus did. Healing is a direct act of God. All this is taught in your life. That's why they go around today and fool so many people, I don't know.
Saying that this person has enough faith, they'll be healed. For I've got enough faith, I heal. No, you won't. I don't find that in my Bible at all. Another thing, when you stop to think about healing, you know, you've got to reverse the laws of nature. Because it's the laws of nature that's working, sin that will continue to bring forth fruit unto death. The Lord Jesus never got sick. Now the Lord Jesus Christ never would have died. Natural. His death was unnatural.
Only the Lord Jesus could say into thy hands, I commend my spirit. You go to a lot of these hospitals and nursing homes, and you'll find old people either wasting away. How may this be want of thy, is that? They're waiting for nature to say the poor. But the Lord Jesus would say, my work done is certainly free. Perhaps I submit my spirit to the Lord. He died. He could not die because of sin. There was no sin in him. He couldn't die because of sickness. Because there was no sin in him to produce sickness. He was the sinless, spotless son of God.
We die naturally because of the process of nature that's going on in our body. The Lord said Jesus' death was unnatural. He just dismissed his work. And there's a remarkable text talking about the Lord Jesus Christ and how he, by his body, confirmed it could not corrupt him. His body could not corrupt. There was no process of corruption going on in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. He saw no corruption. And the Bible says he was not corrupt. no process of corruption going on in the body of the Lord Jesus.
When time came for him to die, they didn't call him a doctor. No medication was prescribed. The Lord Jesus was a healthy man. In the very middle of his life, the man's life was three, four years in ten, seventy, and the Lord Jesus was around thirty-five when he died. He just yielded up his spirit. Had he lived for this day, he had never been sick. but there was no sin in them, there was not any principle in them to bring forth to death. I said to one of our young brethren, I think it's Bobby Marshall the morning, something had been said in the worship of you. I said, Bobby, you remember the case when the law was given, and God told Moses, Moses, you go down, and you put a fence around this mountain, and if a dog or an animal...
For any man crosses that line, he reached a certain day. I said to Bobby, should the Lord Jesus cross that line? Certainly he could. The law was to condemn sin. A son of God could have walked across that line right up the mountain to the presence of God, but there was no sin in him, the law would condemn. And he's the only man who could. Lord Jesus Christ did not have the only sin he had was yours and mine that was imputed to him on the cross. Our sins imputed to Jesus Christ that his righteousness are made me imputed to us when we receive him.
And you'll notice a lot of these fellows. I've been watching them over the years. I noticed now and again their hair started getting a little gray. Then they come up with some glasses. First of all, they had just a glass. Then they get bifurcals, then they get trifurcals. What's going on here? Something must be defiant. It must be some decay going on. And then they come up with false teeth. Well, there's a process of defiant, this process of decay going on, these very men who claim they can heal people. For you to heal a person, you've got to get rid of sin.
For all sickness and death is because of sin. and no living man can take sin out of a human body. Then he's slower up a little, but he can't take it up. Only one person who was without sin, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, these things are in the Bible. I'm not telling you something that's true. I'm giving you what is in the Bible about this matter of the body. This is the text I want to read a while ago, Acts two. Same in Psalm sixteen ten, it's found three or four times in your Bible. Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, the Lord Jesus speaking, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption.
Thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, he fell on sleep and was laid unto his fathers and saw corruption. But he of whom God raised from the dead saw no corruption. It was impossible for him to see corruption. The Lord Jesus Christ was the only living person. He saw no corruption. He tasted death out of love to you and me. His death was not natural. He didn't die like we die today. The process of nature don't run in his body. If his work was done, he ended up in his way.
The laws of nature are the laws of God. When the flood was upon the earth, God could have spoken the word, and the flood waters would have disappeared. But God let nature take its course, and it took three hundred and sixty-five days for the waters who subside in the dry land would be. How many of these old folks who visit would love to be able to say, I've had it. I dismiss my spirit. They can't. Oh, Mrs. Fitzgerald, he was at the funeral of two weeks ago, coming ninety-six.
Her daughter, Sadie, said a few hours before she fasted on. She opened her eyes and said to her daughter, I don't want to let me die. Well, who's going to take her life? Nature has to take its form. As much as in misery, would love to die especially they say they want to go to heaven but nature's got to take it course and to do anything to heal a body you've got to reverse the laws and processes of nature sin i know it's quite easy today to hear some of them talking about people getting healed i think a lot of it is psychologically such as you've been about this positive thinking and also mind over matter, mental assassination.
People have an imaginary disease. They think they've got a disease. They're running this doctor, the other doctor, trying to find some doctor telling them they've got what they think they've got and they don't have it. They might go to one of these excitable meetings, have someone who grabs their head and shake it. And they say, I got healed? Well, they left. Oh, I got healed. They never had any to heal. who's all in their mind. Just imagine that. That's possible time and time again. Where are we getting to in this business of so-called hatred? And if God does not do it, it's not, it's not, Satan.
Or you can go to a lot of places in the country. It's not divine healing. I'm sure they said that. It's not divine healing unless God does it. Doesn't. God doesn't. then it's right. But a lot of, you go to a lot of places in this country, you see charm, you see a boat called Holy Water, and these witch doctors, all kinds of places where people have gone over the years to get healed. They've worn out a path to some of these places, back undeveloped countries. These shrines, images, people have gone there. And they come away claiming they got healed. Even the Catholic Church has stopped some of that practice.
It was all right when people were ignorant. But they have stopped it. And I read it in some of their articles because it was faith-related. People today, they want the facts of bonafide evidence. And today... There's a lot going on in this world in foreign countries around altars and around witch doctors. Oh, yeah, a lot of people get healed, and they get healed, but the Lord didn't do it. It wasn't divine healing. There's another power in this world that's deceiving people, and that's the power of the devil. The day is coming, and it's not far distant, when there's going to be a man, Jesus Christ, who's going to come.
and set his church away, and that could happen anyway, and after him the antichrist, and his false prophet, and heal before miracles that will startle the world. He will make an image, speak, and it's made of material matter with no soul in it, but it's going to be given intelligence and the ability to speak an image. He's going to call down fire from him. The whole thing boils down to this healing business. The powers of God and the powers of Satan. Satan be greater. Either Christ or the Antichrist, one of the others. It's either the body or the soul you're interested in.
Are you interested in your body? Three meals a day and a bed? Is that all you're satisfied with? Or are you concerned about the soul? Is that uppermost in your mind? That's what uppermost is brought up. I mentioned before a meeting prior to this about a lady, the name of Mrs. Shackleford, used to come here. She had a severe heart attack a couple of weeks ago. I mean, the one that she lived, she was around three hundred pounds. And I went to visit her in intensive care. I said, well, Mrs. Shackleford, you're fortunate to be alive. I said, have you a savior.
And then she said, Well, I think you ought to be concerned, sincerely, seriously. You could have another attack, and that's it. And you're not ready. Well, I saw that she was getting real into it, and after a few visits, Friday morning, Friday afternoon, I went to the hospital. She put in another room, and the next attack could be failed. I said, Miss Jackalder, what about salvation? He said, Mr. Ruffin, what have I got to do? She said, have I got to experience some great sensation, some great experience? Have I got to go to the church and walk down the aisle, join the church and say, no, I said, you don't.
You can be saved right where you are on that day. The tailor was saved at midnight. The woman on the fourth of John was saved at the well. And I mentioned others. Mr. Dean, was the heavenly saved at the moment. You can mention the Apostle Paul under the mask of her. I, from the sacral bird, you don't have to. They go anywhere to get saved. Right where you are, God will save you if you want to be saved. He says, I want to be saved. Well, I said, if you want to be saved, God wants to save you more than you want to be saved. He knows the value of your soul. So I went over the gospel. And if I explained the way of salvation to her, it was not what she did or ever would hope.
She's just a lost sinner on the way to hell. When I explained the way of salvation to her, she says, well, I want to be saved. I said, when do you want to be saved? She says, right now, I said, will you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? She says, I will. I've seen it. Well, I said, what does that mean? She says, I'm saved. Oh, well, now if you were to die, where would you go? She said, the heaven. Because you're a good one, or because Jesus died for you. She said, because Jesus died for you. I said, can you tell your family the next time they come, and they're not thirsty? Can you tell your family when they come that they're saved?
She said, I sure can. I'm going to tell them to bring my Bible. I want to read it now. Now, that takes God to do those things. That's what God is interested in. He's interested in. The soul. It's not the boss. She'll give you a new party on the resurrection morning. It's one worth having. No groan. No sin. No sign. No sickness. No die. God wants your soul saved. Man shall not live by dread at all. But by every word that proceeds about it, the mouth of the Lord. I haven't time to continue this. We'll finish it some other time. I ask you, friends, do you want salvation or don't you?
Do you want Christ or don't you? Do you want your saved soul, soul saved, or do you want your body healed? Well, I question, you're going to get your body healed. But I have no question that you'll get your soul saved if you accept the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what they're going to say. That can be true this morning and genuine. There's no fakery here. For this is the truth. Finally now, what is truth? The truth stood before them. Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me there's no victory in the salvation of a soul. Man can't do it. God has got to do it.
And the wonderful thing about it is free. You could be a millionaire. And God's no more interested in saving a millionaire than a poor beggar that doesn't have a dime. They both have souls that need to be saved. And the Lord Jesus died for those souls. And he can save you this morning. right this minute where you are if you accept jesus christ as your personal savior will you do it will you do it now shall we pray our father in heaven in the name of our lord jesus