Chapter eight, please. Jeremiah in chapter eight. Hey, in case you didn't know, this has been a very exciting time for me to be allowed to speak with two such illustrious preachers. And in fact, I mean that seriously. And in fact, to show you just how excited I was, Milo had to tell me whether one had prayed or two had prayed. I didn't even know I'd turn around and ask Milo, so I may have to turn the message over to him here too, because you get that excited, you don't even know how many people have prayed. Well, that's pretty... But after all, when a small town boy comes to Big Town Atlantic, it is exciting. I thought that'd make you feel better and all, and give you a little more of that Texas Blarney before I leave. But let me say this now, and I'm putting on my serious face, and I mean this from my heart. I can be serious, and I am at this time when I say I... I and my wife from the depths of our hearts want to thank the conveners of this lovely conference for allowing us to come and to open His Blessed Word and to share in a very simple way with you the burdens of our hearts. So thank you. Thank you and thank you in His precious and very worthy name. Thank you very much. Now, if you want to blame someone for allowing us to come, you're going to have to get Sunnyside. I told you Sunnyside, I was mad at you. So if you've got any access to grind, go see Sunnyside. That is about me. So if you do that, please. No, I thank you very much. All three assemblies from the depths of our hearts. We know it's a joint effort, and we do. We want to thank Elm Street and Sunnyside and what's that place out there. Lyman, is it? Colorada, Lyman, Iowa. So we thank you again very, very much. Been a real privilege. Tonight we're going to share the gospel. You know, that's not hard to do. That's the story of how the Lord Jesus Christ loved you and me, and he loved us unto death. I'll tell you something. I used to get up and I'd look around at the audience and I'd say, hey, I kind of believe most of those folks out there are Christians. Why am I preaching the gospel to a bunch of Christians? I might as well sit down. Never mistake. How do you know they're all Christians? And besides, I found this out, that the preaching of the gospel is one of the best ways to stir the hearts of the saints of God and get them up and on their feet and dialing on that telephone, as I said, reaching out like we used to, and I say used to, because I want to admonish you a little bit. We really went out for souls. We worked to see people come to the meetings. They wouldn't come. We'd go to their homes because we had a message. The message hasn't changed. It's me that's changed. I just had a brother tell me I only had ten more years. He didn't mean to live, but he meant I'll leave that be. But anyway, I want you to understand very much that I make no apology if you all were Christians for preaching the gospel. But there was a man, and he wasn't sent from God particularly, but anyway, there was a man down in Houston, a real man. A live human being, and he was considered an elder in one of the assemblies down south. And went along that way for years, recognized as an elder. And you know something? During a gospel message one night, that man who called himself an elder suddenly was jolted with a bolt from heaven, and he realized, I'm not saved. He'd heard the gospel again and again and again, but finally the Spirit of God reached in and touched the core of his heart and he was wondrously saved. And you know, he wasn't bashful about it. He got up and he told him, he says, I'm saved. So you see, maybe there's someone like that here tonight that you're just kind of thinking you're saved. But you know, the Bible tells us we can know. A lot of people say, oh, you can't know if you're going to heaven. Hey, that's the one thing I do want to know. That's the one thing I want to pin down. And God makes it sure to us in His Word. You all know, first John and chapter five in the very famous verse that says, he that hath the sun hath life. That's pretty plain and simple. You say, well, I'm breathing. How ridiculous. I'm alive. Hey, there's more than one life. There's eternal life versus just the natural life. I want to talk to you tonight. Not about the natural life, but, hey, some of you are sleeping, but I assume you're alive. And so it's not just the natural life I want to talk about. That's pretty important, but it's not the most important, believe it or not. The most important life that you should be concerned with is the life after death, because there is an existence, at least, after death. You see, once you are born, you never cease to exist. I like to say you never cease to live. Some take exception to that. But hey, you're going to be in eternity in an existence somewhere, one of two places. There are only two destinations from the Word of God that you can go. It's either heaven or hell. Now some don't like the fire and brimstone preaching and the bloody preaching anymore. I've been accused of a bloody gospel preacher. And you know that's right. I believe, as our brother said today, I believe that the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanses from all sin. I believe that because the Bible says it. I don't understand it, but I believe it. I don't understand why Christ loved me. I even don't know why my wife loves me. But I surely don't know why Christ loved me because, you know, what, he loved me when I hated him. For when we were yet, you know, in our sins, when we didn't love him, he loved us and he loved us unto death. You know, I talk to parents. I'm a parent, believe it or not. We've got four children. Our baby is twenty-three. So you can see we've got a big baby at home yet. But nevertheless, we had four children, two girls and two boys, and all but one is married. We're going to try to kick him out as soon as we can. We find the right girl, girls. He's twenty-three. Good Christian man preaches a little bit. But no, seriously, now, honestly, it is a good thing to know where you're going. Whether it's heaven or hell, and that's the only two destinations, and it's the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, that cleanses from all sin. So it doesn't matter who you are, born with a silver spoon or whatnot. That doesn't matter. What matters is do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? Do you know that? K-N-O-W. He that hath the Son has life. And that's that eternal life, not physical life. I realize you're here. But, you know, he that hath the Son hath lie. Eternal lie. He that hath not. Now, isn't that pretty simple? You know, the gospel is wonderful. Even children can understand it. I love that. I love it because I don't like to be complicated about things so important. It's good to know that even children can come to the Lord Jesus Christ because all have sinned, he says. And that includes children. They're real people. You don't think. So you think they're two-headed monsters when you turn them loose in the meeting sometimes and they do wrong, but they're children. They're human being. And God says that all have sinned. Now, what's the bad about that? Well, the Bible again tells me the wages of sin is death. Many years ago, I was really startled. I just preached my older brother's funeral back in March, and I loved him dearly. I still love him. I'm going to meet him in heaven. I just could hug his neck if he were here tonight. I love him so much, and I miss him so much, but, you know, I'm going to see him. But we were, my dad had just passed away, and the three boys, we were in the car going down to the mortuary, down the funeral home to make the arrangements that we were going to go down and see about, you know, all that. I won't go into the ugly details, the gruesome details, but anyway, on the way down, My older brother said, you know, Glenn, there's one set of wages that hasn't had any change. Inflation, he said, has had no effect upon the wages of sin. It's still death. It's still death. I'll tell you something. If you're here without Christ tonight, you're going to die. Absolutely. You can't escape death. You cannot escape death. Only a Christian can escape death. And the rapture can be that escape for him, or else he'll see death. But the destination for the Christian and the non-Christian of the one who has trusted Christ and the person who may call himself a Christian, you know, you can call yourself, I can call myself a millionaire, and that's foolishness. You can call yourself anything and make me believe it. You can even walk up to me after this meeting and say, hey, I'm saved, and I'm going to say, well, that's nice. That's nice. But you know something, if you're not saved, you've only fooled a fool. And you haven't really done anything great. But you can't fool God. You see, you can't fool God. It's with God that you have to do. God looks into the heart. I only look into the eyes. And I have to see and hear what the lips are saying. And so, hey, if you fool me, what have you done? Nothing. You can tell me anything. I'm gullible. I'm from Texas. I'll believe it. But you know something? You can tell me you're saved. I'm going to look for some evidence of it. We're going to look for some evidence of it. But really, I want, I'm here tonight primarily in these few moments to warn those who might be sitting here like the chameleon. You've only taken on the Christian look. You've only made yourself to blend in with the saints of God. You find their clean company or something like that. You know, the chameleon changes to fit its surroundings. And I have known people who call themselves Christians, because we live in America, and you say, well, what do you think I am? A heathen? I'm a Christian. Why, my parents were Christians, and my granddaddy was a Christian, and he settled Podunk Alaska, and I'm a Christian. Of course I'm not over in Africa, because a Christian has become to be a cheap word today, like born again. But listen, because they make it cheap does not make it cheap. Born again is a good expression. We've heard that. Christian is a good expression. You want to tell me what, or let me tell you what Christian means. Yesu Yan. And you look at me and you say, gosh, he's gone to speaking in tongues already, and we don't allow that here. Well, it is a tongue, and it's a legal tongue. That's a Chinese dialect for Jesus man, or one who belongs to Jesus. Yesu Yan, one who belongs to Jesus. That's what a Christian is. You've got to belong. How did you get in your first family? You were born into it, weren't you? That's how you get into the family of God. You've got to be born again. Born from above, this time, though, born by the Spirit of God. And there's no fool in God. He knows who's in his family. So if you're here tonight and you say you're a Christian, check it out. Check it out. Don't just allow that you're holding on to mama's coat tails like old Milo said last night or apron strings. He was nicer than I am. He said apron strings. But anyway, that doesn't make you a Christian. So I want to impress you with that tonight. But now I want to read a couple of verses from the Word of God in Jeremiah chapter eight and begin with verse twenty, please. A very wonderful verse. And yet to me, perhaps the saddest verse. in all of the Bible, perhaps to me the saddest verse in all of God's Word. I want you to read it with me now. Look at it. Everyone have your place. Please. We won't be reading too many scriptures. Jeremiah eight and verse twenty. The harvest is past. The summer is ended and we are not saved. That's another good word. Don't let the world cheapen the word saved. I imagine if you went over the side of a ship, like we were out in a hurricane one time, if you went over the side of the ship, you wouldn't shout anything. But if someone said, do you want to be saved, you wouldn't say, what does that mean? What does that mean? I was down at the University of Houston a good number of years ago and working with a group down there and they kind of, I walked into a hornet's nest. I didn't belong there, but I went into this little meeting, you know, and there they were all sitting down, wrapping around and session you know and everything else one little girl jumps up and she does a little dance and says I'm saved and and sits back down somebody else gets up and does something else and I come to find out they didn't even know what the word sin was you know how come to find it out my preacher friend and I we were there to speak to them and I suddenly noticed the leader of this little cell group got my preacher friend by the arm tucking back in the back room and about five minutes later they come back out and boy my preacher friend's face was white I mean it was white he was a dark-skinned person He was actually from Egypt, and his face was actually pale. I wonder, what in the world? And I noticed in his preaching, he began to stutter and stammer a little bit and fumble around, couldn't seem to get started, wasn't like him. What in the world is going on? Finally, I got him aside after this little meeting that we somehow got into, and I said, Peter, what in the world is going on? He said, you know what that fellow did when he took me back there in that back room? I said, I had no idea. Strange things were happening out front too. They were up and jumping like jumping jacks. I don't know what happened to you back there. He said, that man said, don't use the word sin. They don't understand that. Don't use the word sin. That's too hard. They don't understand that. Don't tell me they don't understand sin. Have you ever seen a little baby cry when nothing was wrong? It's natural to sin. It's natural to be deceitful. Deceitfulness is sin. You don't like for me to call your baby sinners, but they are. I'm trying to say to you that we're born sinners. We're born in the family of Adam, and Adam's race is under the condemnation of sin. So you do not have to sin to become a sinner. You just breathe, and you're a sinner. It says, all have sin. That includes children. That includes children. I'll tell you that much. Let me repeat that statement because some people don't seem to get it. You do not have to sin, as we say, to become a sinner. You're born, conceived and shaped in iniquity. We're from our head to our feet, nothing but putrefying sores. All of our righteousnesses are as filthy raves in God's sight. Don't try to dress up. Don't try to fool God. Don't put on your little bonnet and your little cape and say, well, I'm a Christian and go trotting down the road because you're not going to fool God. God sees the heart and he sees through the confetti. He sees through those self-righteous things. You know, I meet so many people today and they think you have to murder, rape, or steal to be a sinner. They don't equate, you know, taking something from the job, robbing your boss of time or something like that to be sent. Hey, that's just good stuff. If you can get by with it, that's great. If you don't have to work all day and you punch the clock at five o'clock and you've done nothing, hey, man, you're sharp. You got it going for you. Just wait. Make sure you get your paychecks. We really think that away today. So sin is not sin. I'm telling you something. God hates all sin, no matter big or small, if you want to call it that. There is no white lie. They're all black, dastardly lies. A lie is a lie. You can't term it any other way. So if you try to go to heaven on your own coattails, if you try to go to heaven by pulling on your own bootstraps, do you ever try to lift yourself up doing that? We Texans try it every once in a while. Put on your boots and then try to lift yourself up by the bootstraps. Tell me about it later. But nevertheless, you cannot, I want to repeat, fool God. You cannot do that. There's nothing you can do for yourself. to merit heaven. Nothing. Absolutely nothing but receive Christ. You can't do a thing for yourself. Well, back to our verses. I got a little excited there because I like the first thing I like to do is make people know that they need to be saved. You know, if you don't know you need to be saved, you'll never be saved. I don't think we preach sin and repentance enough today. Repentance is a good thing to preach. Now, some of you may not like that, but I believe in preaching repentance. I really do, because repentance means that you recognize which way you're headed. You don't want to go that way, and you turn around to God. That's what repentance is. It's recognizing where you stand before God, where you're at, and where you're going, and you don't want to go. Believe me, if the devil punches your ticket, you won't like it. The rich man, as we heard this morning in hell... He didn't like it. I used to ride with a motorcycle gang down in Waco, Texas. And we'd cut figure eights. We'd get out and I don't recommend this young man. That's why I'm telling it. That's why I'm telling it. I'll tell you. You'll see in a minute why I'm telling you this. We would go out on the Valley Meals Highway and I had the first English bike in that city. It was a seven fifty. And so we got out on the road to road race. Well, we could get the honkies. That is the Harley's. We could get the jump on them. These English bikes could do that triumph. I had a Spring Hub Seventy Triumph, okay? For you boys, that's what it was. You're wanting to know I can see that right. Right away, it's a Seventy Triumph, Spring Hub, first one in Central Texas. And so we'd get out on the road. Boy, we could get them on the jump, you know, and just run off. and leave them. So they said, okay, Glenn, what we're going to do to see what the top end is on these bikes, we're going to get out, we're going to stay in third gear to a hundred, pop it into fourth, and you won't have the jump on it, and we'll run it out on the top end. So that's what we'd do at night. We'd run it out to a hundred, pop it in fourth gear, and I couldn't get the jump on them, so we'd have top end speed. Well, one of the guys one night, I wasn't there, thank God, but one of the guys one night, you know, we popped it into fourth, whoo, hit the corner, And right off of it, it went and we picked him up in a wash tub. It's not funny. You can die in a second. I wonder how many of you are waiting to make a choice till tomorrow. I've visited a lot in the hospital as the harvest may be passed. I've heard people die, and most of the time the ones I've heard die that could say anything at all said, Oh God, that I knew weren't Christians, had never received Christ. The last words they would speak was oh God, but it's too late. Beloved, you've got to make this choice before the harvest is passed and the summer is ended. There's no opportunity after death. And you know something that frightens me today about the medical profession, and I used to work down at the Baylor School of Medicine, but I'm telling you today they make it easy for people to die. They make it easy for people to die because they pump you full of all kinds of drugs so that you don't feel the pain. And you say, thank God for that, and I do too. But you know, if you put it off till then and you'll make that deathbed profession, I'll tell you, you've got to have an intelligent choice. You've got to have your mind about you. You've got to know what you're doing to receive the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't just fall into heaven. It's up. It's not down. You don't slip into heaven on any other merits. You go in there because of the blood of Jesus Christ. God's Son has cleansed you from all sin. From all sin. A-L-L, all sin. So I tell you, you can't wait till you're in the hospital, gasping your last breath, and you think, well, I've always heard about those deathbed professions, probably though it was back in the farming days when you died at home. Now they even make that easy. They come in and they give you some shots and you don't even know that you're going. You're laying there and you don't even know that you're going. Listen, you have to know what you're doing to receive Christ. It's an intelligent choice. It's an intelligent decision made in full control of your facilities. And I'll tell you something. I believe that with all my heart, and I don't mean to be unkind. The harvest, there is a time, and you farmers know this. You say it's not yet. Well, in this case, the Scripture tells us the harvest is past. You can't harvest it if it's not there. The summer is ended. There's nothing you can do about that if it's ended. And if you've come to the end of your life, the end of your road, and you've never made a decision for Christ, how do you know you'll be at your width? How do you know you'll have the opportunity? That boy that rounded the corner at about a hundred and twenty, he never knew what hit him. I tell you, that made me stink. I quit cutting figure eights in the gravel. One laid down on me one night and wallered all over me. And after that, I decided I better leave the motorcycle along, fellas. And I advise you to do the same. You can't conquer it, it conquers you. You're not so smart. I thought I was a whipper snapper. I could cut figure eights better than anybody else, but you know something? We all fail, and I did. And I'll tell you, it could have been just as well that the motor would have taken me right over and into the traffic lane, and I'd have been a dead man and without Christ, without Christ, because I wasn't saved. I went down to the Salvation Army. I felt good, you know, you have ideas when people sometimes get a spurt of religion on and so forth. So I went down to Salvation Army because I was seeking. There was an emptiness, a void within me. I knew something wasn't right. So I went down to the old Salvation Army because Major Stevens had said, hey, Glenn, hey, Glenn, come down here. And you know why I was going, hey, Glenn, come down here. And I'm not making fun of the Salvation Army because, but you'll understand in a minute. He said, hey, Glenn, come on down here. I was a cornet and trumpet player. And they needed one to go down the street corner every Saturday night. And boy, I would play there's power in the blood on my little cornhead or trumpet. I'd blast it out while the little girls went in with their tambourines to the beer joints and got the money and come back out. And I'd say, hey, Major, how am I doing? You're doing all right, boy. You're doing all right. You're doing okay, Glenn. Just hit that note a little bit higher next time and waver it a little bit when you get up there. There's power in the blood. Boy, I'd teep that thing out. I stand on the street corner and look around. I'm working for God. I'm going to work my way to heaven, you know. So I remember one night, there was an old Major Stevens made a great appeal down at the little chapel, you know, because I was a down and outer. And he went down there and he really made a powerful appeal. And I could see him looking at me. Glenn, get yourself up here. Glenn, get yourself up here. So I did. I got up. I walked the aisle, went down front, kneeled down at the altar, you know, and I'm all knelt down there. And he had his hand on my shoulder. And I don't even remember what he's telling me because suddenly, you know what I thought of? Man, I got a hole in that right shoe. An old dirty sock and my foot's showing through that hole. And all those people are going to see my old dirty foot and old dirty sock with a hole in it. What am I going to do? And that's all I thought about. And the minute, man, I could get his arm off my shoulder, out that door I went. I cut it, man, right through the door I went because I was through. All I could think I was embarrassed I was that the people saw my old dirty foot and old dirty sock with a hole in my shoe. So out the little chapel I went and I never went back. But you know something? I went to a little old place one time to get baptized. Preacher made a great appeal, you know. I knew something was wrong. So I got up there. Suddenly I realized, man, what are you doing? Glenn, you're walking. What are you doing? But I went up anyway because I was too far down the aisle. So the old preacher, you know, he shakes my hand. Boy, are we going to baptize you tonight. You get back here tonight at seven o'clock. We're going to baptize you, boy. I said, yes, sir. And I went out that door and I never went back because I thought, man, what's he going to do? He might drown me. I got no business with it. What's baptism for? You see, you can think all these things, search all these things, and, you know, but God's gracious. He let me live long enough till finally it came to a time. And I was a drinker, and I was a lot of other things, and I really woke up. I woke up in a little meeting when Brother Harold Kessler in the home was preaching to the saints of God. He was preaching to Christians. But he mentioned one thing in Philippians there. He said, citizenship. And boy... You didn't have to know, tell me twice, I knew my citizenship was in hell. Because I was smart enough to know that citizenship gave you a tag of belonging. A tag of belonging, and I knew I belonged in hell. I just went home. I could tell you a lot more than I'm not going to. Sometimes I'll take three hours and give you my testimony. But anyway, you know, there is a time. The time is now. God is offering salvation tonight. The harvest is not yet passed. The summer is not yet ended. Are you saved? Are you saved? I'll tell you another little incident. You know, you can come close to salvation and miss it all. You can come close, and close is not good enough. We were with the occupation forces in Japan right after World War II, and I was going to go over to the Eleventh Airborne. Dumb idea. But anyway, I thought I was going to transfer to the Eleventh Airborne because a buddy of mine, he was big and handsome, and the patch looked good, you know, and his... Troubles were bloused in his old polished boots. I liked everything about him. So I'm going to transfer to the eleventh airborne. And so we caught the old train out of Yokohama, or rather from Kiel University, where we were, down to Yokohama. Nine stops. Everything went by stops in those days because The train just, it's electric train, just made a stop ever so often, you know. So we were standing there, as all the GIs did, were the doors open. It's like cattle cars. The doors were open. We were going down the track, lickety-split, you know, and boy, chum, chum, chum. That's the way the poles were going by that helped the electric wires for the train. Chum, chum, chum. We were standing there, you know, as all GIs do, just bragging, only telling about the good times. which was about one out of every million. We forget to tell you about the nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand bad times, you know. We're bragging and popping off and going on. This old Leaventh Airborne says, yeah, I said, man, when I go out the door, I go all the way to Droneimo. I said, I let them have it. And I said, well, that's great. So we went on talking. Come to find out, I believe it was a couple of days later. I don't really remember. It's been too many years ago. But anyway, short time later, two more guys, one from the Eleventh Airborne, riding the same train, going down, and this one guy was all boozed up, and he was great in everything. He's standing in the door. He said, I'm the toughest of the lot. Geronimo! And out the door he went, pah! He met the light pole, right? It was like just grease. They just pulled him off the pole. So I'll tell you, life can end so suddenly. And he was on, you know what, he had enough points to go home. He could have gone home. This eleventh airborne man could have gone home. But where did he go? For him the harvest was passed. The summer was ended. And from all I could know them, because I wasn't saved, neither was he. Never told me about Christ. Never told me about Christ. Well, I'm going to have to give Milo a good time here. So I want to just have one more shot at you tonight. One more opportunity to tell you that the Lord loves you. Christ died for you. He showed his love. God gave his son. God showed his love. The Holy Spirit is speaking tonight to some soul, surely, telling you to step out, receive the Lord Jesus. I don't mean come down front, but in your heart to really make the decision, an intelligent decision, that if you're going that way, why not go that way? It's a matter of choice. It's a matter of receiving. Won't you receive the Lord Jesus Christ? You know, there is a time, and I believe it comes. I'm going to tell one more thing, Milo, and then I'll let this thing go. But I really feel that some need to understand that it's dangerous to put off Christ. I was dealing with a young man over North Carolina a number of years ago, and I was a Christian, of course, but I was dealing with this young man and I could see he was under conviction. I believe the Holy Spirit of God was really dealing with his soul. We parked in my front yard over there in the mountains in our little car, and he began to weep and to shake and to tremble. He was under such conviction, but he just said, I can't believe, I can't believe, I can't believe, I've gone too far, I've gone too far, but he was weeping and just shaking and trembling, and I was praying so hard, oh God, save this man, save this man. But suddenly it was like turning on or off a light. He straightened up, wiped the tears away, put his jacket on, and he says, Glenn, I'll see you. I've never seen him since. I've never seen him since. I don't believe he received Christ, and I don't believe he ever has. There is a time when the Spirit of God will quit striving. I don't know when that is. Thank God I don't know when that is. And Christian, you don't need to know when that is. God wants us to continue to go after souls. But you know, there is a time that the Spirit of God... will quit dealing. I believe, now this is just an assumption, but I believe that young man hardened his heart that night and the Spirit of God quit dealing with him. He'd been dealt with before, numerous times. But I really believe that that young man made the final, ultimate decision to not have Jesus Christ as Savior. It's possible he's in hell tonight. He lived a rough life. I warn you, God will not always strive with man. That is, the Spirit of God will not always strive with man. He sees when the heart becomes stone. That's an awful destination because hell is real, but so is heaven. I wouldn't leave you without giving you the positive note that Christ is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him. I'm just going to close with that and let Milo close with prayer when he finishes. Thank you, brother. Thank you.