I was walking down the hall earlier tonight
and I thought I'd pull a little joke
on somebody and I stopped somebody and I
said, Arthur Blissett couldn't come.
He changed his mind.
I thought the guy was going to kill
me.
Well, he did come.
He got here this morning from Dallas and
before I introduce him, I'd like for you
to meet his, one of his sons.
Joel, are you here?
Where's Joel?
I don't see you.
Stand up, son.
I'd like for you, give this young man
a West Texas welcome, will you?
We're glad, we're glad you came.
He flew in this afternoon from Los Angeles
and Arthur came from the opposite direction, came
in from Dallas.
This is a night that many of us
have looked for and longed for and prayed
for for a long time and we've been
talking about Arthur's coming and about his ministry
in many ways.
I don't know whether I've ever met a
preacher of the gospel quite like Arthur Blissett.
I don't know whether I've ever met a
man quite like Arthur Blissett.
You're in store for a real treat.
Arthur, welcome to Midland.
Welcome to our city.
Come, speak to us tonight.
Amen.
Well, are you ready, folks?
Are you ready?
Oh, well, stand up, everybody.
The preacher asked me to come and he
said you can do anything you want to,
something to relax in this beautiful building.
I mean, he brought me in here this
morning and I said, oh, wow, you know,
a real church.
This is really it.
I bought a pair of new blue jeans
and a new shirt.
I dressed up for you today and it
looks so pretty.
I mean, artificial.
That was real.
Get some real ones in here.
I like it real, don't you?
Somebody bring some real ones in here tomorrow
night.
We don't want anything fake in this building
anymore.
I think we'll just start off with a
Jesus cheer, don't you?
I mean, if you don't run me out
after this, then I can stay the rest
of the week.
And we want the devil to know we're
meeting here, don't we?
God already does.
But I mean, let's just declare.
I mean, some old back slidding Baptist about
two blocks from here is going to hear
us holler Jesus and they'll think the Lord's
come in and just ushers open the door
and let's let the good news out.
It's great to be in church, but it's
even greater to get out with Jesus Christ,
isn't it?
I mean, it's good to meet here and
be empowered and then go out there to
share about.
I'll go give me a J and you
go J and then E and S, U,
S.
And what does that spell?
Jesus.
Now, I know that there are football freaks
in Texas, right?
I hear that people are excited about football
here.
Last night I met with the owner of
the Dallas Cowboys for several hours.
I mean, if somebody can get excited about
an oblong ball, we ought to be able
to get excited about Jesus Christ, right?
And share about.
Now, some of you say, now, Arthur, I
don't know whether I want to do that
or not.
I'm only, we're a biblical church.
The preacher told me this afternoon, when we
were coming back from the television station, he
said, you know, I said, what do you
really, what's God teaching you?
What do you really want to do around
here?
He said, I really desire a real New
Testament church.
I said, great.
I said, what's your model?
You know, where do, what's the base?
And he said, Jesus.
He said, so I got all excited.
I knew we could have a Jesus here
because I, I read over there where the
Bible says, where the Bible says, when Jesus
comes, there's going to be what?
The sound of the flute and the whisper,
right?
What did he say?
The sound of the trumpet and the shout
of the archangel.
So if you don't like noise, don't go
to heaven.
There's going to be noise in either place
you go.
The noise in the heaven is going to
be shouting.
The one in the other place, you don't
want to hear those screams, but it's biblical.
The children of Israel marched around Jericho seven
days.
And on the seventh day, the seventh time
around, old Elijah hollered, shout, and they didn't
go, you know, they got it on.
So let's, let's just warm up for heaven.
Now this is rapture practice.
Okay.
Give me, I think y'all are all
ready to go.
What do you need me?
I thought I had to get you ready,
but you're already ready.
Okay.
Give me a J.
Sounds like a bunch of winos in Houston.
Come on now.
Sounds like a, I mean, act like you're
talking to your wife, or your children, just
act like it.
And, uh, well, let's just shake this old
building up.
Uh, and, uh, everybody, are you ready now?
Let's just, wouldn't it be great if we
all got excited.
And next Sunday night, when the preacher gets
up to preach, the choir jumped up on
the seats and hollered, go, go, go.
He'd pass out, wouldn't he?
All right, everybody.
Let's try to give me a J.
E.
S.
U.
S.
What's is that spell?
Jesus.
Who is Lord?
Jesus.
Who is coming again?
Jesus.
Who are you going to tell the world
about?
Jesus.
If I was in Hollywood, I'd say, what'll
get you higher than acid?
Jesus.
What'll keep you up longer than speed?
Jesus.
What'll make you feel better than Coke?
Now, not Coca-Cola, but Coke or booze
or anything in the whole world.
Jesus.
And what are you going to do with
Jesus?
Go, go, go.
Let's give the Lord a great praise off
and to go.
Kiss them or shake their hand real hard
or something, okay?
I love you.
God bless you.
Well, we're
going to have a good time, don't you
think?
Uh, you could go home now and feel
it's worth it.
I make no apologies about being excited about
Jesus Christ.
God made us to laugh.
God made us to smile.
God made us to be happy.
And it's the devil that's been robbing us
that Jesus said it's the thief that cometh
to lie, to steal, to kill and to
destroy.
But I have come that you might have
life and have it more abundantly.
Too many times we've come to church, somebody
walks down the aisle grinning from ear to
ear and they punch you and wonder what
they did last night.
Uh, you know, it has to have done
something wrong in order to smile.
But I make no apologies.
I am excited about Jesus Christ.
I love Him.
And I'm not ashamed to tell anybody, anywhere,
anytime that Jesus died for them, rose again
and that He's coming again.
And I haven't come to this town as
a tourist.
I've come here to share about Jesus Christ,
to fellowship with you and to gather to
reach out and see this city turned upside
down for God.
The pastor said you're ready to go.
I don't, I haven't preached in one church
in America for five days in over ten
years.
This may be the last time, you never
know.
Maybe another ten years after you hear me.
Get him out of here, you know.
That, that I, I just want you to
know that our desire is that people see
Jesus.
And that we somehow fade away and that
Christ is glorified and that everybody gives glory
and honor to Him.
I received a telephone call of several years
ago and, uh, in Los Angeles.
I was back from an overseas trip of
carrying the cross and, and I answered the
phone.
I said, praise the Lord, Jesus loves you.
And the man said, uh, uh, what?
I said, praise the Lord, Jesus loves you.
He said, well, anyway, um, I'm a, he
said, I'm a psychiatrist from UCLA and we
want to psychoanalyze you.
I said, praise God.
He said, well, anyway, uh, you know, he
knew he had a case there already.
And he said, we would like to come
and, and, uh, try to figure out what
it is that you're using to get all
these people converted.
On the Sunset Strip that back in the
late sixties had almost 40 nightclubs.
We've now got only two left on Sunset
Strip.
And, uh, the Whiskey just closed down about
a month ago.
And, uh, and he said, we don't know
what it is.
I said, there's topless dancers that are now
gospel singers and, and managers of, one guy
ran five nude nightclubs is now pastoring a
church and saved it.
And, and you're carrying that.
Are you using hypnosis or what is it
you're doing?
He said, we'd like to bring three or
four students along.
I said, hadn't you got more students than
that out at UCLA?
And he said, that's enough.
That's enough.
And we agreed when to meet.
Came to my office with these four students
and they had tape recorders run down their
sleeve and they're going to follow me around
and, and, and record what I was saying
and take it back to the class and
play it.
And I was excited and it doesn't take
much to get me that way.
And I, I couldn't believe they were really
going to do this.
And finally they say we're ready.
And I started, I said, I stood up
and before I stepped out the door, I
said, listen, you've come to psychoanalyze me, but
God has already psychoanalyzed you.
And the problem is spelled F I N
sin.
And God's going to get you before this
analysis is over.
After a week's analysis, three of the five
had given their lives to Jesus Christ.
And that's what we're interested in is people
seeing Jesus, to know him and to discover
the abundant life that Christ gives and the
joy and the peace that he brings into
our heart.
And tonight I'd like to speak to you
about that liberty.
Now I'd like to really preach to the
church tonight, to the Christians, so all you
lost people relax tonight for a while.
I'll get you later, don't worry.
But I'm going to stomp around on some
Christians for a little while and, and you
just enjoy it, if you will.
Because, you see, Jesus Christ has given us
the commission to go into all the world
and preach the gospel to every person.
I believe with the pastor you have at
this church, with the Bible teaching and believing
that you have, you know what God wants
you to do.
You've got the knowledge in your heart, but
many of us need the fire of the
Holy Spirit in our life.
To have the liberty and the freedom to
do what it is that God has called
you to do.
Many of us have been praying and praying,
and don't get me wrong, I believe in
prayer.
But we've been praying and praying and saying,
God, save us, Lord.
Oh God, send a revival.
Don't let anybody break in my house and
steal my new stereo, Lord.
Oh God, don't let anybody steal the hubcaps
off my new car.
And we've moaned and groaned and complained and
begged God to do something, and I think
sometime he gets so sick of hearing us
moaning and groaning and begging, I think God
wants to say, shut up and get out
of there and do something.
Somewhere between heaven and earth, somebody's got to
move.
Amen?
Somebody has to hear God say, do something.
And for too long, we've allowed the devil's
crowd to intimidate us.
Why, instead of creating bold witnesses for God,
we've been getting a bunch of Christians about
as much backbone as a wet string of
macaroni, eking along in life, trying to be
a little witness.
You have a guy, big old mean tough
guy, sits down at a bar, gets a
six-pack of beer, punching pool balls.
He'd fight a gorilla with his bare hands.
That man isn't scared of anything.
He talks about God all the time in
the wrong way, but he uses his name.
And that man is mean, bad, and tough.
We get him saved, and in six months,
he's a little pussycat, meowing around, won't even
speak the name of the Lord, afraid he'll
embarrass somebody.
And instead of being a giant for God,
he's all calmed down, quieted down, and in
bed by 8 o'clock.
The wildest thing he'll do now is pop
popcorn and pool taffy on a Saturday night.
You got a girl.
Boy, she's a real hot girl.
Boy, she's down at the disco every weekend.
She's around all the clubs, drives around by
herself.
She isn't afraid of anybody.
And she's riding around town, drive 75 miles
to somebody's big party.
She's just ready to go.
We get her saved, and in six months,
she's scared to get out at night.
And if she does, she's got her windows
rolled up and her door locked.
We've got her scared to death, paranoid to
even move.
You get the point?
We are to raise up giants for God,
and we've allowed Satan to intimidate us.
Some people say, well, I don't know about
being so emotional.
Well, let me tell you, we have a
weird world.
Think about it.
Can you, did you, could you believe how
many people get excited about some form or
some kind of little ball?
Balls.
Pool balls.
Ping pong balls.
Tennis balls.
Volleyballs.
Handballs.
Golf balls.
Footballs.
Soccer balls.
Basketballs.
If it's round, America goes crazy over it.
I'm thinking about making a round Bible.
You, you couldn't get down the street with
it under your arm.
Give it to me, they'd say, I want
one.
If it's in this way, you can't.
We get excited.
I'm not ashamed of a God that made
a big round world.
Let me get excited about God.
Why somehow people are all screaming and cheering
and everything over these kind of balls.
Every time I see a football game, I
get so excited.
I preach to a lot of football teams.
The Rams and the Raiders and the Cowboys
just asked me to come preach to them.
If I can work it out, I'll come
down there.
But I love to watch them when they
get in the huddle.
I think they're having a prayer meeting, you
know.
Wouldn't it be great if we had a
safe football team?
They'd line up, God's going to get you.
And when they'd have a pileup, I'm not
letting you up until you get saved.
But here are these big old football players.
300 pounds of muscle and steel and iron
over their eyes and big old things all
over them.
Button heads worse than a bunch of wild
billy goats.
And some of them get a half million
dollars to crash heads.
And big old guys, I don't want to
be no emotional religion, religious excitement.
Raise my hands.
I'm not that kind of thing.
Have you ever seen that big guy get
his ball over the line?
They get so excited and they don't even
have a round one.
And they get it over the line and
here's some old mean guy, I don't want
to be, and he goes, oh, and they're
piling on and jumping and carrying on worse
than a bunch of kindergarten students.
And some of them think I'm weird.
I don't understand how we get so excited
about the trivial.
Since 1969, I've been carrying a 12 foot
long wooden cross around the world on foot,
now over 20,000 miles, almost the entire
distance around the earth walking.
And it weighs about 80 to 90 pounds,
depends on whether it's wet or dry, and
through 60 countries on six continents.
And sometimes people see me with that cross
going down the highway and they holler, you're
nuts.
I said, don't worry, I'm screwed on the
right boat.
What about you?
I don't mind.
I'm here to tell you tonight, I'm not
ashamed of a piece of wood made in
the form of a cross, which represents as
a symbol the redemption of God's grace through
the blood of Jesus Christ to save a
lost world.
Because I see other people excited about boards.
Have you ever seen a guy drive up
in his big old Mercedes or Cadillac, get
out with a big successful pot belly and
walk out in a little green pasture?
And he's got an iron rod and he's
got a little knot of wood on it.
And he tries to knock a little ball
in a hole 400 yards away.
If he ever does it one time in
a lifetime, you'll never hear the end of
it.
And that guy standing there with his iron
rod with a little knot of wood on
it, sees me walk down the highway carrying
a cross and he thinks I'm weird.
Brothers, others, big old guys say, I don't
know about that, carrying a cross, that's crazy.
And where does he go?
He goes down to the bar, big old
mean guy, and he's got a piece of
wood punching balls with it.
Now isn't he really tough?
Hitting a ball with a stick.
Others, well I think you're half crazy carrying
a stick around a big cross.
And what do they do?
They give their whole life running around.
They make their piece of wood and call
it a tennis racket and go swish, swish.
And they swish around day and night for
years.
And they think they're alright.
Others get a stick of wood and they
try to hit a ball with it, call
it baseball.
Some get a million dollars, million dollars for
swinging a piece of wood.
And they're excited over that wood.
There are others that take a piece of
wood and they try to ride down a
slippery mountain slope on snow with their boards.
And there are others out in California, boy,
they think they're really with it.
And they're riding waves, trying to ride the
ocean waves.
And they always fall off.
My friend, do you get the point?
We've allowed people who get excited over round
balls and little pieces of wood to intimidate
us and tell us we're strange for telling
the good news of Jesus Christ.
You can have a guy walk down the
main street in Midland, Texas.
And you can have him walk down the
street with a Bible in his hand and
people seeing it.
Weird.
Religious enough.
You walk down the street with some guy
seven foot tall with a number two on
his chest and little breefy pants bouncing a
ball and they'll think he's a hero.
The guy could get a good job picking
fruit in Florida and make an honest living.
And he's running around bouncing balls.
Now I'm here to tell you tonight I'm
not going to let a bunch of wood
freaks and ball freaks turn me into a
little quiet witness for Jesus Christ.
If they can get excited about that, I
can say like Paul, I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ.
For it is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believe it.
And it is time that we allow the
Holy Spirit of God to set us free,
to loose us from the things that abound
us, that we may speak and teach in
the name of Jesus Christ.
Now we're going to be sharing together for
the next five days.
And as we share together, I felt that
tonight in line with the burden God's put
on my heart to share during this week,
that I could just emphasize a little in
my own life and my own relationship with
Jesus Christ.
Because I'd like for you to know what
Jesus has done in my life, that he
may receive the glory and honor and praise
and that we'll all be free to share
and live for him.
And let me share this with you.
I do not look at myself like a,
you know, an orator or preacher or something
like that.
What I am is just a follower of
Jesus Christ.
That's it.
I just follow the Lord.
I love him.
He is my Savior.
And almost all the time I am sharing
Jesus personally.
The pastor moved the pulpit so I'd have
a little more liberty to move around here.
And most of my living is meeting people.
Most of the time when I share, I
will have walked in to like Midland, Texas.
And the word spread.
There's a guy coming down the road with
a cross and whatever.
And people start gathering.
And as they gather, somebody will say, there's
a wide spot in town or a parking
lot up there.
And people will just gather.
And on the way in, some of you
will be giving me something to drink and
others something to eat.
And I'm talking and sharing with you.
And I'm preaching and sharing Jesus in a
natural, real setting of people that I'm around.
And here we have to meet in a
building.
And you came in your clean, nice clothes,
dressed up.
And I did too.
And we're in a beautiful surroundings.
And we hadn't even got to meet each
other.
I haven't got to eat any of your
food or sleep in any of your houses
or anything else.
And I'm saying that to say that really,
I love you.
I love Christ.
I love people.
And so I'm not just preaching at you.
I'm sharing what my life is in Jesus
Christ and what He means to me.
All this summer I have been carrying the
cross in Lebanon and in West Beirut and
just walked from Beirut to Jerusalem and in
Poland.
And I have been in war, in devastation,
in death, in horrors all summer.
And so I just pray that God will
help each of us to share together that
Jesus may really be real in your life
and that you may be free to follow
Him.
Because I had rather meet you, go home
and share with you and talk and spend
the night than I had to stand up
here and preach even to an audience.
But it's what God has ordained for this
time.
When I was seven years old, I received
Jesus Christ as my Savior.
I was converted in a parking lot.
My father was an alcoholic and my mother
was a committed believer.
And I grew up from the time I
was four years old until I was 13
in bars and nightclubs in Louisiana.
As a matter of fact, the first thing
I ever remember of my dad when he
came home from World War II was being
in a bar in Port Natchez, Texas and
watching a jukebox, bubbles in a jukebox going
around.
And I remember dad sitting there drinking.
That's the first remembrance I have of my
father.
And then we moved over to Louisiana and
grew up on a cotton plantation.
And one night I heard the message of
Jesus in an outdoor rally out in the
country in a brush arbor.
And I wanted to give my life to
Jesus.
First time I ever felt I needed Him,
I wanted to trust Him.
And my mother helped me by my shirt
and she wouldn't let me go.
And I begged her.
And on the way home, finally mother stopped,
turned the truck around and we went back.
The only one left was the evangelist and
the pastor and one lady and another man.
And I went up to him and I
said, I want Jesus in my heart.
Seven years old, barefooted and wearing Big Mac
overalls.
I knelt in the dirt and Jesus Christ
came to live within my heart.
Now, I don't know about you, but all
I know is me.
When I was saved, I knew it.
And when I got up the next morning,
the first thought in my mind was I
want to tell my sister Virginia about Jesus.
She was nine years old.
And I told her about the Lord.
And Virginia said, I want Jesus.
I said, give your heart to Him.
She said, I will.
I'll go to church.
I'll go to that meeting tonight.
I said, you might die before tonight.
The Lord knew I was going to be
an evangelist.
I didn't.
And I said, so pray now.
Virginia said, I don't know any prayers.
And I didn't know any either.
But I knew what the preacher had prayed.
And I remembered the little prayer I prayed.
I said, let's pray right now.
And I got my sister on her knees
and I let her in a little prayer,
something like Jesus come into my heart and
save me.
I give my life to God and I
repent.
My sister began to cry.
And I thought I'd done it wrong.
Because I was happy when I was saved.
And I didn't know till that night that
you could cry or laugh or just smile
or whatever when you got saved.
I mean to tell you, the desire, the
want to, was in my heart to share
Jesus.
I'd go to our church and I'd gather
up tracts from the church tract rack.
They didn't have any good tracts.
And I'd lay them around in the bars
while Dad was drinking.
And they were tracts like, why Baptists don't
dance?
Ten reasons to tithe.
You know, these ridiculous things, you know.
But that's all they had.
I'd lay them around everywhere.
People would say, what's this doing in here?
Dad would say, that's my son.
Y'all leave him alone.
And Dad, with my bodyguard, for six years
I shared the Lord.
I was so excited.
I used to drive the tractor, standing on
the tractor seat and steering it with my
knees and preaching.
Dad, we had some crooked cotton rows, but
I wanted to.
I remember preaching to a friend of mine
named Maxie.
And I was preaching to Maxie.
Maxie was my dog.
And I was under the house.
Our house was off the ground there in
Louisiana in the swamps.
And I was telling Maxie, I remember I
said, Maxie, I know you're a dog and
you can't talk, but if you'd give your
heart to Jesus, would you just nod your
head?
And I promise you it's the truth.
Old Maxie just raised her head.
I ran in the house.
I said, Mama, Maxie got saved.
Mother said, if any dog's going to be
in heaven, old Maxie will be there.
And I went out and started preaching to
her puppies.
I wanted everybody to get in.
When I was 13 years old, my dad
staggered in home drunk, could hardly walk, got
in, fell on his knees by the couch,
and he said, Son, go get the Bible.
And I went and got the big family
Bible.
My dad began to read it and cry
and pray.
And I had the privilege of leading my
dad to Jesus Christ.
Stone drunk when he prayed and asked the
Lord to save him, got up, saved, and
sober.
I tell you, people say, Man, you don't
need to witness to drunks and drug addicts
and these people are too far gone.
They don't know what they're doing.
I tell you, if a wino, if anybody
can count his change, he's got enough sense
to get saved.
You guys know what I'm talking about.
You're down there in some old dive, and
the guy can't hardly stand up there, and
he pulls out his money, and they don't,
he owe me ten cents more.
Hey, if that guy can count his change,
he can tell God, have mercy on me,
a sinner.
He knows what he's doing.
Don't say he doesn't.
My dad was saved.
Got up, said, Son, I'm not ever going
back in those bars again.
I said, That's not right, Daddy.
He said, I thought that's what it was
all about.
I said, No, we got to go back,
and you got to tell those men and
women what Jesus has done for you.
And with my dad, with our big family
Bible, with all the pictures in it, we'd
go back to those old bars in West
Carroll Parish, I mean, East Carroll Parish and
Morehouse Parish, Bastrop, Monroe, and all those towns
and go back in there.
And Daddy would lay his big old Bible
on the bar, and then, How you doing,
Mr. Blessed?
He'd say, I'm saved.
What about you?
And share the riches of Jesus Christ.
When I was 15 years old, Christ called
me to preach, and I've just always been
delighted to just do anything the Lord wants.
I don't know about you, but I don't
fear the will of God.
I love for Him to share just anything.
When I was in college, laying in the
floor of my dorm room, finally searching for
the empowering of the Holy Spirit of God,
laying in the floor, not kneeling, didn't feel
worthy to even kneel, but laying in the
floor, I prayed this prayer to God.
And it was a night of revolution inside
my life for God.
But I remember saying this to the Lord,
Lord, I may not can preach like Billy
Graham, and I may not can sing like
Beverly Shea, but if there is anything that
nobody else will do, I volunteer.
I'll be your garbage can.
Call the great, call the mighty, call the
best, but if there's anything nobody can do
and you want it done, I will volunteer
to do it.
I tell you, time after time in this
world, I think God has called, and somehow
He got to the bottom of the barrel
and He said, Bless it!
Let's go!
And here I go.
To me, it's just the greatest joy to
be able to serve and share about Jesus
Christ, to be able to speak His name.
It's the most wonderful privilege to have His
Spirit abiding within us.
People say, but don't you get lonely walking
around the world all these years, and places
where you go for months and months, and
the jungles, and whatever.
How can you ever get lonely when you're
surrounded by a whole company of holy angels,
and you have the indwelling Holy Spirit on
the inside, and you're saved, and you know
your name is written in heaven, and you
know that Jesus is with you, and you
know the presence of God will be with
you always, and you know that He said
He'd be before you, and behind you, and
His hand would be upon you, and He
abides.
Hey, you can't do anything but shout whatever
the circumstance there is in life.
And I'm not going to give all of
my testimony, but any means we'd be here
for every night and all day from now
on.
But in 1966, I began ministering in Hollywood,
California on the Sunset Strip, and we opened
the first Jesus Nightclub, and put a big
cross on the wall, 12 foot high and
6 foot wide.
I never dreamed I'd be carrying it, or
I wouldn't have made it so big.
And so we put it on, just remember,
whatever you make one day you may have
to carry.
There's a sermon in that.
But one night, after many years of witnessing
in Hollywood, and I'd been preaching that night.
After the church service, I went and preached
in the cellar in Dallas.
Any of you backsliders ever been in the
cellar in Dallas?
I preached there.
What about in Fort Worth?
I preached in the old cellar in Fort
Worth.
And Houston?
Preached in the cellar in Houston.
These are not, this is not a church
denomination.
For some of you, these are nightclubs.
And if any of you hang out down
here at your favorite bar or whatever, if
they want me to preach, go down there
tonight and ask them, and I'll come down
tomorrow night, or tonight, or anytime.
We'll have a rally down there at midnight
in your local bar.
I'll preach anywhere.
If there's anybody alive, I'll go there and
share with them about Jesus.
But that night, after having preached at that
church, and then in the cellar at that
old nightclub, went back to my room, and
I was kneeling by my bed, and I
was praying.
And I prayed on through three o'clock,
and four o'clock, and five o'clock
in the morning, kneeling by my bed, Jesus
spoke to me and said, Arthur, take the
cross hanging on the wall of the building
and carry it across America.
And give your life to identify my message,
carry the cross in the roadsides and streets
of the world, and identify my message in
the streets where the people are.
Now, I don't know about you, but again,
all I did was pick up the phone,
call my wife in Los Angeles, and say,
Sherry, the Lord wants me to carry the
cross across America and on around the world.
My wife said, when are we leaving?
One place where I preached recently, the guy
said, you're not married, are you?
As much as you travel, I said, sure
I am.
My wife's name is Sherry, and we have
six children, Jenna, Joel, Joy, Joshua, Joseph, and
Jerusalem.
And it's a quiverful.
You know, the first commandment in the Bible
is to be fruitful and multiply.
That's even before they ever got lost or
got saved or anything.
That's the first commandment.
Want to be obedient, you know, to what
the Lord said.
And I remember when I first met my
wife, and it was kind of prophetic for
our whole relationship.
I was in a meeting, and I looked
out, and she was on the third row,
second one over.
And I punched the preacher.
I said, you know that girl?
And he said, yeah.
I said, I'm going to marry her.
He said, when did you meet her?
I said, I hadn't yet, but we will.
And two weeks and five days later, I
married Sherry.
And some people say, why so fast?
I said, well, the Bible says, quench not
the spirit.
So, you know, I don't know whether that's
good for y'all's dating and marriage and
singles class, but that's what happened to me.
And we've been living with the same wife
for 19 years.
And we're leaving again in January, heading overseas
for another year.
It is a joy to follow Jesus.
That night, having answered the call of God
to carry the cross, I felt him say,
leave Christmas day.
And that was 1969.
Two weeks before I was to leave, I
was in our building, and I felt a
pain on this side of my head.
And just moments, the right side of my
body started going numb, and paralysis on this
side of my tongue and face, and most
of my arm and right leg.
And I had a stroke.
And it was the fourth stroke that I'd
had in three years.
And laying in Glendale Adventist Hospital with four
neurologists examining me, and they did an arteriogram,
dyed my brain.
My head was, my neck was bigger than
my head.
I like to die from the test.
And then they said, you have a ruptured
blood vessel.
It's swollen out like a balloon, and it's
seeping blood.
And we've got to go in and put
in, take it out and put in tubing.
And you may make it, or you may
not, or this and all this.
I said, but I'm supposed to leave next
week carrying the cross.
He said, carrying a what?
I said, the cross in our building, 12
foot long, 6 foot wide.
God said, leave Christmas Day.
He said, you need surgery right now.
If you get excited or strained or preached,
you could die like that.
He said, and he said, if you had
total rest, if you didn't have the operation,
maybe you have six months to three years
to live, but any exertion or excitement.
And they were giving me medicine.
I forget what it was to make my
blood thin or my head big.
I don't know, something.
I kept laying in bed.
I said, I've got to think it over.
And finally, I told Mr. Sherry, take me
home.
And I went home.
And there with all that medicine laying in
bed, I made a decision.
I said, I'd rather die in the will
of God than live outside of it.
She helped me.
I went to the toilet, threw the medicine
in the toilet, flushed it down.
Three days later at 8 o'clock in
the morning, got out of bed, went down
to our building, took that cross off the
wall, put it on my shoulder, and started
walking down Sunset Boulevard, sick as could be.
I didn't know whether I'd make it to
Washington.
I wasn't healed.
I was still in bad shape.
But every step I took, I got stronger
and stronger and stronger.
It has been now, this Christmas, 13 years,
walking farther than anybody's ever walked.
And with a cough, through these 60 countries,
13 years, I've been in jail 25 times.
I've been beaten and stoned, taken out before
a firing squad to be shot.
I'll tell you about that later on in
the week.
I've been through things you can hardly conceive
of.
And yet, by the grace of God, hadn't
been sick a day, never felt better in
my life.
All glory to God.
He said, I will be with you.
There's a shoe company.
I wear their shoes, not these shoes, but
I wear, I mean, the best shoes in
the world.
I'm not going to give them a commercial,
but I wear their shoes.
They've tried every way in the world.
The president of the company has come to
talk to me, to try to get me
to endorse their shoes.
I said, listen, I wouldn't walk one step
for a shoe company, but I'd give my
life to walk all the steps for God.
I like these shoes.
I wear these shoes.
But I tell you, no, I couldn't dare
take any money from the shoes.
Hey, it's following Christ.
He gives the victory.
I want you to know, He'll be with
you always in your life.
And when you're free in Him, He is
there all the time.
I remember going across Africa, and I was
in the Canary Island.
And every day I'd go down to the
boat to try to catch a ship going
to Africa.
Didn't know anybody over there anyway.
And every day I'd say, can I get
on your boat?
Finally, I caught a ship going to Freetown,
Sierra Leone.
Arrived in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to start out
to walk across Africa 4,500 miles.
It took me two years and one month
to do it.
But anyway, as I was in Freetown and
met missionaries and other preachers and Christians there,
and they all said to me, Arthur, you
can't walk across Africa with a big cross.
Well, you've got to boil the water.
You've got to purify the water.
You can't eat the food and drink the
water.
You'll have amoebas and worms and diarrhea.
You'll just get diseased and die.
And I prayed, and I read the Scripture
in Luke the 10th chapter where the Bible
says, And in whatever house you enter, say,
Peace be to this house.
If the Son of Peace be there, your
peace shall rest upon it.
If not, it will return to you again.
And in the same house, remain eating and
drinking such things as they give, for the
laborer is worthy of his hire.
Go not from house to house.
And in whatever city you enter, and they
receive you, eat such things as are set
before you, and heal the sick that are
therein, and say, The Kingdom of God hath
come here.
I said, I'm just, I don't know any
other way to do it.
I was scared to death.
How do I walk across Africa?
I read this.
I said, Lord, it's your problem, not mine.
You said, go.
If you want me to see Dar es
Salaam, Tanzania, you've got to keep me alive.
If you want me to die of disease,
I'll die for you in these jungles.
I'm your problem.
I'll go and do what you said.
The first house that asks, you go in.
I've lived that around the world.
You don't try to pick them.
First person asking may be the poorest man
in town, or the richest, whoever it is.
First one asks you to their house, go.
First one asks you to eat, eat.
Eat whatever they're eating.
Drink what they give you, and say, God's
Kingdom hath come here, and pray for the
sick.
And I said, I'm not going to preach
to anybody.
I won't eat what they're eating, drink what
they're drinking, or sleep in their house.
And I said, it's yours, God.
I mean, I walked across that land, and
not only that, around the world.
You've got to drink.
You can go without food, but you can't
without drink.
And I have gone days without bathing.
Now, I did bathe today, so I'm all
right.
But I have gone days without bathing, because
the water was so bad, I wouldn't bathe
in it, but I had to drink it.
Because you've got to drink it.
And I mean old green scummy stuff, wiggly
things in it.
You've got to.
I dipped down with an old gourd, saying
the name of Jesus, kill them all.
And I just drank it down.
And I am here to tell you, I
have even drank out of a pig's trough.
I mean where the pigs are, almost like
the prodigal son.
I said, I called it the pig Hilton
one night in Columbia, down in South America.
I put some boards above this pig thing.
It was in the jungle.
And there was a pig pen and it's
wet.
And I laid there over the pigs.
I call it the pig Hilton.
But anyway, I'm telling you, never been sick,
not even had diarrhea.
When I came back from Africa, my mother
sent me to a doctor.
She said, you've got to be contaminated with
everything.
Check me out.
Doctor said, never saw anybody in the world
in any better shape than you are.
And I get up in the morning and
I say, God, if there's anything that's in
me that shouldn't be there, kill it.
And I say, God, if there's anything I
need in me that's not there, put it
in, in the name of Jesus.
I don't know.
I believe God will be with you in
all things at all times because this is
what I think it's all about.
On the morning that I started out with
a crawl in 1969, walking down Sunset Boulevard,
as I got down to Vine Street, there
was a man came running toward me and
grabbed the cross and tried to take it
away.
Now, you may think I'm weird, but I
mean, he was weird.
If you come to Hollywood, I am a
fundamental conservative.
This guy said, Jesus is my brother and
you've stolen his cross and I want it
back.
Well, what do you do?
I just held on to the cross and
he's pulling and screaming and cursing and finally
said, I'm going to kill you.
I'm going to kill you.
You're dead.
And he turned and ran down the sidewalk.
Well, I figured the best place to be
was anywhere but right there.
So I kind of zigzagged around and make
it on over by Los Feliz Boulevard near
Griffith Park and kind of forgot about it.
30 minutes later, there are three guys walking
with me, Jim, OJ and Jesse.
Jim had come back from Vietnam, a Marine
had been converted and he was now out
of the Marine Corps and he was going
with me across America.
They were a singing group and OJ, a
black militant converted to Christ.
And then OJ was a nightclub piano player
and old nightclub brawler converted to Christ.
And there was me and I look and
here comes this man running down the sidewalk
with a two by four board with a
big spike nail driven through the end of
it.
And he's like this.
He says, I'm going to kill you.
I'm going to kill you.
And there I am holding the cross, three
guys with me.
First thing I think about, these guys can
wipe him out in no time.
Lay down the cross, wipe him out and
go on.
Suddenly it all came to a head.
Seemed like the Lord was saying to me,
if you're going to carry the cross, are
you willing to live in the way of
the cross?
You know, is it a piece of wood?
Is this a board?
Or is this my life?
And it just hit me harder than that
board ever could in my mind.
Some of you know how fast you can
think at the very critical crisis moments of
life.
And those things flashed through my mind.
And I had to make a decision.
New God had called me and I thought,
what would Jesus do?
And I said, guys, if you can't take
it, run.
But don't touch him.
Don't touch him.
Run or pray.
And I put the cross down, put my
arms around it.
And every one of those guys wrapped their
arms around it too, bent over and we
started praying.
My wife drove up and she hollered, Arthur,
guy's fixing to kill you.
She was driving our car, pulling the trailer.
And he was standing over with that board
raised up.
And in my mind, I could almost feel
it hit me in the back.
But as I prayed, as I prayed in
those moments, there was a loosening and there
was a freedom that surged through my body.
I said, Jesus, if I die, I die
for You.
If I live, I live for You.
I've had it.
I'm free.
Doesn't matter anymore.
And I want you to know, and you
may not understand it, I mean joy swept
through my being.
I thought right here at this moment, I
know I'll die for You, Lord.
I'll live for You.
Whatever I want to live in the way
of the cross.
And kneeling, praying, finally I heard somebody crying.
And I looked up and the man was
at the foot of the cross on his
knees crying.
I asked you tonight, how many of us
who say, yes, I'm a Christian, and yet
within our own life have yet to say,
Jesus, I want to live in the way
of the cross.
I want to live Your life.
Your life for me is good.
Your life for me is right.
I want this.
I was invited to Rome two years ago
and I spent Christmas, well now this Christmas
will be three years ago, Christmas 1979, to
spend Christmas in Rome and meet Pope John
Paul II, who invited me to carry the
cross into the Vatican to celebrate ten years
of walking around the world, carrying the first
cross ever carried around the world.
And I met with him and there was
one priest who was in charge of my
activities while I was there to assist me
in Rome.
His name was Father Maloney from Inglesia Santa
Susana, head of the Paulist Fathers, which are
the evangelist fathers of the Catholic Church.
And I remember every time I'd see him,
I'd be saying, I love you.
And when I'd leave him, I'd say, I
love you and see you in the morning.
And I just meant it, but I kept
saying, I love you.
And he'd never say anything.
He'd say, see you tomorrow or whatever.
Well, it was kind of strange, you know,
after for several days we were together, never
anything of expression.
Finally, it's after I'd been with the Pope
and the next day I'm leaving to go
through Italy with a cross toward Assisi and
it's raining like today and it's cold and
windy and I start out and I come
by his church to tell him goodbye and
I am dripping wet and cold.
And when I'm walking, I don't even wear
a raincoat.
You'll bust them out.
The water will drip in it anyway.
And if you wear a raincoat, you get
so hot, you sweat inside it.
So you just get wet, you know, take
it whatever it comes.
And so I'm dripping and I'm shivering and
I tell him goodbye and I start to
walk away.
And Father Maloney said, Arthur, and I look
back.
He said, I like you.
I said, great.
Oh, wow, I'm glad you feel something.
He said, listen, you've been leading me all
the time and you always say, I love
you, I love you.
He said, Arthur, he said, I'm commanded by
Christ to love everybody.
But he said, not everybody that I love
do I really like.
He said, there's some people that curse him
all the time.
I love them, but I don't like the
language they use.
There are many people I love that I
don't like the life they live.
They don't love the Lord.
They don't love His church.
They don't love the Bible.
They don't love other people.
I love them, but I don't like their
actions.
But he said, you know, I like you.
I like to eat with you.
I like to talk with you.
I like to walk down the street with
you.
And I like for you to make me
interpret when you preach.
He said, I like being around you.
I like what you like and I love
you.
Changed my thoughts about what love really was.
And as I thought of those words, I
thought of it in relationship to the Lord.
Many of you tonight, I ask you, you
say, do you love the Lord?
You'd say, yes, I love Him.
Let me ask you this, do you like
Him?
Do you really like Jesus Christ?
Do you like what He likes?
Do you like His Word?
If you like it, you'll read it, right?
Do you like His life?
Do you really like living for Jesus?
Do you like what He likes?
Do you like to be around Him?
Do you like to be with Him?
If you do, why aren't you praying more?
You know, do we like what He likes?
If we do, why aren't we sharing Him
more?
I think tonight many of us may need
to say, Lord Jesus, I like You.
Help me to like what You like, to
like Your life.
I like You.
I want to live in Your way.
I like Your way.
I like You.
I love You.
Many of us in our lives, as I'm
sharing about liberty in the Spirit, need to
remember the words that are in the Bible,
recorded in Corinthians that says, where the Spirit
of the Lord is, there is liberty.
One last illustration, and then we're going to
have a time of invitation and commitment to
Jesus Christ.
Last year I came across through Germany, and
it arrived in Berlin, and there put the
cross on top of Olympic Stadium where Hitler
in the 1936 Olympics had lit a torch.
And thousands, tens of thousands of people in
that stadium, cheering as they carried the cross
up to the top of that stadium and
stood that big cross high above that stadium
where the torch of Hitler had been lit.
Jesus is Lord.
Hitler's dead, but Jesus is still Lord.
Driving back to West Germany on the East
German Autobahn corridor to West Germany, I got
right at the border and my car broke
down.
Jenna, my daughter, oldest daughter was with me,
and she is 18 now.
She was 17.
And when she...
The car stopped and I prayed for the
car to crank up, but the car didn't
crank up, so I figured the Lord broke
it.
And that night we stayed there for two
days, and that night I'd witnessed and I
was sitting there in the car praying.
And I said, Lord, why have you stopped
me?
I want to listen.
What are you saying?
What are you trying to do?
Let me just deviate for a moment and
tell you this.
I'll give you the clue for making the
devil keep his hands off of you most
of the time.
Things happen, like that car breaking down, and
you say, well, I guess the devil did
it, and you stand there fighting the devil
all the time.
I believe this.
All things work together for good to those
who love the Lord and are called according
to his purpose.
I prayed for that car and it didn't
get fixed.
I figured then God broke it down.
If it was the devil, the Lord would
have fixed it.
So now I'm saying, God, I'm here because
you want me here.
That's my motto everywhere.
My motto is, if ever in doubt and
you don't know what to do, preach.
If you don't know anything else, just preach.
And my motto, I'll tell you how it
works.
I'm heading off, and if the airplane doesn't
take off, and they say there's going to
be a three-hour delay or the plane's
not running, and you got to catch another
one, many times, oh, goodness, oh, wow, oh.
That's not me.
I can praise God.
I'm going to give the Hare Krishnas a
run for their money and I get out
there in that airport.
You think the old devil's going to break
my plane down so I'll have time to
witness in his airport?
He gets a plane out of there on
time.
Get him out of here.
That way you get all the demons working
for you.
Get him out of my town.
He'll keep everything going smooth.
I figure if my car breaks down, praise
God, the tow truck driver needs Jesus.
Or the mechanic needs the Lord.
That's how I look at it.
I mean, you can get so excited if
you're, oh, I'll say this sermon for tomorrow
night.
But isn't that a good motto?
I mean, he'll quit harassing you.
He'll quit harassing you.
Say, if I get any more bills, I'm
going to put gospel tracts every letter I
get, you know.
Man, they'll quit sending you those bills.
The devil don't want you in debt.
People get saved.
So I'm there in the middle of the
night and I'm saying, Lord, you stopped my
car.
What are you trying to tell me, Lord?
And it seems so clear the Lord spoke
and said, Arthur, you've been praying for years
when to go behind the iron curtain and
carry the cross.
Well, I'm telling you there is no iron
curtain.
That hit me.
That's not a Bible term, iron curtain.
That's a political term, a news media term
that came up in the early 50s with
the Berlin blockade.
And we've made it almost a spiritual term.
We've made an iron curtain.
I say, Lord, when will you leave me
behind the iron curtain?
And God said, there isn't an iron curtain.
He said, if you'll take that word iron
curtain out of your vocabulary, you can go
into those communist countries and they won't throw
you out.
I'm with you, go.
I prayed.
I repented.
I said, God, take it out of my
words.
Except when I preached to share it with
some people and went, got a visa for
Poland last summer, flew into Poland.
Let me tell you, I got into Heathrow
airport, got there to the airport, checked my
cross in on a lot of airlines.
I just, you know, went on Polish airlines.
I figured if I'm going to Poland, I'll
start trying to get every pole saved as
soon as I can find them.
And they had Polish airlines.
Instead of riding in on British airways, I'll
go in with the Polish airlines.
They checked my cross in just like everybody
was checking crosses.
They just put the baggage claim and haul
it off.
Nobody said a word, just put it on.
I fly into Warsaw and I'm now past
East Germany, heading into Warsaw land, go through
immigration, all right, get ready to go through
customs and I'm hauling through one backpack and
cross.
And they start going, Kolomo, Kulu, Kolomo, I
don't know how they go.
I got excited.
I thought it was a charismatic conference, but
they finally got somebody that could speak English
and said, what is it?
And I said, it's my cross.
And they said, what are you doing?
I said, on the way to Czestochowa, walking
through Poland.
They said, are you taking that with you
or are you leaving it in Poland?
I said, I'm taking it with me.
They said, so you'll have no problem when
you leave.
We'll put you this thing down.
They gave me a receipt, brought in one
cross, can take one cross with him.
Fantastic.
And that's the last person I saw from
the government till the day I left.
On a Friday night, I arrived.
On Monday morning, started in the cathedral.
The primate, the head Catholic of Poland gave
me a paper, said every church, convent, monastery,
welcome this evangelical brother in the name of
Jesus Christ.
Went down through Poland for a week.
No problem.
The Lord, when I finished Poland, God said,
now go to Hungary.
Fly in the morning on the first flight
to Budapest and go into Budapest.
Got in there and the Lord said, go
through the customs, don't look right or left,
just walk straight through.
And I'm telling you it's the truth.
Arrived at the airport, went through immigration, got
the cross, walked through.
People are lined up, having their bags checked.
I walked through, don't look to the right
or left.
Nobody says a word.
Get in the front of the airport and
say, now what I do?
I didn't even have a map.
I call, Joel's sitting back there and I
call sharing the kids are in Vienna at
a trailer park.
I said, praise God.
Got through Poland all right.
We're going through communist countries.
Drive on in here with my wife, driving
the car loaded up with thousands and thousands
of gospel tracts, Jesus stickers, Bibles and everything
else that you can evangelize with.
Came through, we went right on through Hungary,
carrying the cross.
And I always said, well, we get through
Hungary, praise the Lord.
And we went on through Yugoslavia and then
get to the end of Yugoslavia and go
into Bulgaria and go on through Bulgaria and
finally get on to Turkey.
I'm telling you, God wants to break down
these old iron curtains in our mind and
lose His spirit in it.
I've got to tell you one funny, I
freak a long time, so you don't have
to, you can leave if you need to.
But let me tell you, you don't want
to miss this one.
And it's how the Lord works.
Joel, now I wouldn't lie in front of
my son right here.
What I'm telling you is strange, but it's
the truth.
We were going through Hungary and Joel was
with me and we were walking through this
town and nobody would talk to us.
They were people crying, but they wouldn't speak
because they knew we'd be arrested.
They were so appraised because you're not supposed
to do anything religious.
And we're carrying a cross down the highway
and into this city and we can't talk.
No one will talk.
They just kind of back up and look.
And I said, Joel, God wants to do
something here.
And we got right in the middle of
town.
I didn't know what to do.
Suddenly I thought, let's eat at the restaurant.
Now you don't think that's a very profound
thing to do, but when you put your
cross parked at the door of a restaurant
in Hungary and walk in and just order,
go like that, you know, on your stomach,
I want something to eat.
Boy, the crowd starts gathering outside.
You know, a cross?
How do you get in?
Where is it?
Who is it?
They're scared to ask us, but they're gathering
in the sidewalk, in the street.
And finally, in a little bit, we hear
sirens screaming.
And I said, are you ready, Joel?
They said, yeah, daddy.
I said, you know, this is it, showdown
time.
And the police stopped.
They come in, five police with billy clubs
in their hands, run into the restaurant.
I step up and I'm trying to talk
to them.
And I said, do you guys know the
Lord?
And they're just, you know, bala, kala, hula,
whatever they're trying to talk.
And I say, listen, I'd like to give
you a Jesus sticker here.
And I just stuck a Jesus sticker on
them.
I said, come out and look at our
passport.
And I bring them out and I get
the passport out of the backpack.
And so they're looking.
We were really stamped.
We're in.
They're just looking.
And I'm trying to tell them, I'm walking
around the world praying, Jesus, you know, Jesus,
understand, Jesus.
And I said, do you speak English?
And they're talking to each other.
I say, listen, in the name of Jesus,
Satan, I bind you.
I bind you, Satan, just get in your
car.
They didn't know, see, they thought I was
being friendly and I was just praying all
over them.
I'm just going around.
I said, I bind you, Satan, in the
name of Jesus.
Satan, you have no authority over the cross.
You were defeated at Calvary.
And I'm just praying all over them.
I promise you, in less than five minutes,
they put their billy clubs up, get in
their cars and drive off and leave us
in the middle of town.
And then this summer, going on through, carrying
the cross, I'll catch you another night.
Don't have time tonight.
About carrying the cross through Lebanon and Israel.
We've just come back from a summer with
Joshua who is 11 years old.
Did any of you see Joshua and I
on television this summer with Arafat and a
bunch of other dudes?
We walked right into West Beirut carrying the
cross, carried the cross this summer for two
months through the Israeli army, the Lebanese army,
the Philanthroist army, the Syrian army, and the
PLO army.
I'm here to tell you, God doesn't have
any iron curtains.
Not by might, nor by power, but by
My Spirit.
You know what I believe God wants in
Midland, Texas?
He'd just like a few people who don't
know what He can't do.
If we could just somehow get unlearned so
that we just don't know, but we simply
believe all things are possible.
But around our lives, we've erected big iron
curtains of fear.
Oh, I'm embarrassed.
Couldn't witness.
I'm kind of embarrassed over this.
Oh, God wants to set you free.
But I don't know what my friends would
think about God wants to set you free.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's
liberty.
Free to share at your school.
Free to share in your jobs.
Many of us have got old iron curtains
surrounding our lives of sin.
Old bondage that you've tried to get out
of, that year after year, and finally you've
reached the point, well, that's my weakness.
I've just got to learn to live with
it.
You can be free.
You can tell the devil tonight, in the
name of Jesus, fight and get your cut
and take your hands off me.
I'm the property of God.
I'm bought by the blood of Jesus.
I am His, and He indwells with me.
Greater is He that is in me than
he that is in the world.
And by being loose and free, God, breaking
down these old barriers in our mind, loosing
His Spirit through you, can revolutionize your life,
this church, and the world.
In a few minutes, I'm going to ask
that this altar be a place of commitment
for the glory of God, where those of
us who have been bound can be set
free.
Where those of us who have been in
bondage in our minds can be loosed.
Well, I don't believe God can use me.
Remember when God told Moses, I am that
I am.
I am with you.
Saturday night, I'm going to preach on the
presence of God.
You've never heard anything like it.
Don't miss Saturday night.
You'll revolutionize your life.
But I mean, God will be with you.
He will free you.
He will give you liberty.
Not by might nor power, but His Spirit.
Those of you who've been bound can be
set free tonight.
Those of you who know what God's called
you to do, but you've never done it,
can be set free for the service of
God.
He'll use you.
If you know, I think one reason why
I've been an encouragement to so many people
to serve God more is they say, if
God can use you, oh, He can really
use me.
If you call that preaching, I could preach.
That's what I mean.
That's what it's all...
I know if God can raise me up
out of a hospital bed, Glendale Hospital in
Los Angeles and take an old piece of
wood that we found in a garbage dump
and use this boat to convey a message
to millions of people around this world, God
can use you.
And will.
And wants to.
For you to speak His name, to witness,
to tell others about Jesus.
For you to go out here tomorrow.
If people can get excited about those balls
and those wooden sticks, listen, tonight many of
us need to be at God's altar and
say, Lord, You've got me.
I mean business with God.
The moment we're going to pray, I'm going
to invite you to this offering.
Now, I want you to hear how I
give an invitation.
I'll say it every night.
But I don't give an invitation the way
most people do because I usually am not
preaching in churches.
I'm preaching outside.
Preach to armies all summer long.
All kind of armies.
Only one was a Christian one.
Most of them were Muslim or Israeli or
whatever else.
And I just preached day before yesterday on
board a Coast Guard cutter in Mobile, Alabama.
And all those soldiers standing there, what I
always ask them to do.
They know what it means to volunteer.
They know what commitment is.
They're already committed.
But it's like when you offer for volunteers
on a suicide mission or whatever it is.
Don't know whether you'll get out.
Somebody steps up and says, We need some
volunteers.
Mission's too dangerous to send you there.
Anybody volunteer, step out.
Why do they just take one step, right?
On that old Coast Guard cutter down there
in Mobile, day before yesterday, preaching to those
soldiers, those sailors on that boat.
I said to those guys standing there, those
of you who want to commit your life
to Jesus Christ, you know what it means
to volunteer.
You know what it means to make a
commitment that means everything whether you live or
die.
Those of you who are ready to commit
your life to Jesus Christ, I want to
pray for you.
And we want it to be a time
of commitment.
Take one step forward and accept that.
I've seen this summer guys do that in
front of others who are not even of
their religion and whatever else.
I mean courage and commitment.
I don't give an invitation with every head
bowed and every eye closed because I believe
we've got to start living in the open
for God.
We need to pray one for another.
If you can't, if you've got to slip
down here to this altar, you're not going
to have the courage to stand up out
in the world.
You've got to stand up.
I make no apologies for asking people to
openly confess Jesus Christ as their Savior.
We confess everything else, all these guys and
everything they're doing in their sports.
I'm telling you, I'm not ashamed.
The Bible commands it.
In the heart, we believe with a mouth,
confessions made to salvation.
Those of us who are in need of
a change that Christ can bring in your
life, in a moment I'm going to ask
you to the altar.
Those of you who are right with God,
you stay in your seat.
See, I don't like to give an invitation
where you think, well, I love the Lord.
I guess I ought to be down there.
Hey, no.
If you're right with God, stay in your
seat, okay?
So nobody will think you're intimidated.
They'll think you're right with God.
They're not going to think you're a sinner
for staying in your seat.
They're going to think you're right with God.
And among those who come to this altar,
we're saying, God, I need to be set
free.
There's barriers that need to be broken.
I want to get out of prison.
I want to be free.
I want the Spirit of Your liberty in
my life.
I need the liberty.
I need to be baptized with Your fire
to speak the name of Jesus, to tell
others about the Lord, to live in Your
will.
Some of you have been called to preach.
God accepts your call.
Everybody's called to witness and you haven't been
doing it.
I believe that this altar can be an
altar time of empowering for people meeting Jesus.
I'd like to ask for those of you
who are not saved, if you're not saved,
I'll give an invitation for you in a
moment.
This altar call, basically, if you can't restrain
yourself, come on down anyway.
But it's a call for Christians who say,
God, I mean business, and I need to
sell out, and I need to get free.
I want to live in the way of
Christ.
I like Your life, Jesus, and I want
to live in liberty and freedom and power,
and I want You to use me.
See, this city and our world turns upside
down for God.
And I say this, remember, it's a commitment
to God, not to me.
One person told out to Jesus will revolutionize
this city.
Ten, a hundred, I don't know.
And then another thing I do is in
a moment after I pray, I'm going to
ask those who need to be at this
altar to stand up.
And then after you've stood up, I'm going
to ask you to come to this altar
and pray at one time.
We're not going to sing a lot of
songs and verses.
I think it's time you make up your
mind clear and decidedly.
I have decided with my mind, with my
heart, God, I need freedom, I need liberty,
I need victory.
I desire Your way, and I want You
to change me tonight and empower me.
Let's pray together.
Father, right now in the name of Jesus,
I pray.
I pray for the liberty of Your Holy
Spirit to move through this auditorium.
I ask God that every work of Satan
be broken, every demonic spirit, every evil spirit
have no authority nor place in anybody's life
or in this building.
We acknowledge and confess Jesus is here, Your
Lord, and we pray that You'd give people
liberty, men, women, leaders of this church, visiting
preachers, whoever may be here, the liberty to
say, God, I want to get free tonight.
I want to get filled with Your Spirit.
I want to be burned by the fire
of God.
Father, we know You desire this, and we
pray, God, that every person who acknowledges and
confesses the need shall be met by You,
changed and transformed, and that as there's liberty
in the believers, there'll be liberty for the
lost to be saved.
In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.
Now, right now with everyone looking up, those
of you who've heard this, have you say,
author, I need to be at that altar,
I mean business with God, I need God
to do something in my life that hadn't
been there, I need to be freed and
empowered.
Those of you who need that, begin right
now in the name of Jesus, stand up.
Just stand up in your seat right where
you are, around the auditorium, no games, no
tricks in the choir, wherever you are, you're
right with God, just stay seated.
I need this work of God in my
life.
Stand up right now.
As you're standing, would you make your way
down to this altar?
Make your way out of the balcony, others
of you, get up from your seat.
God's Spirit is calling.
I want our choir to sing, I've decided
to follow Jesus.
No turning back while you're coming to this
altar.
Pray one for another.
God's Spirit is moving.
No games, no gimmicks.
God's speaking.
If you're right with God, stay where you
are.
God's not leading you to this altar, don't
come.
But if He is, don't resist.
Right now, quickly.
This
is
God's Spirit.
Convince me, God bless you, God bless you.
Lord, I want to be free.
I need to be saved.
I need to be at this altar.
Will you get up right now and come?
Right now, quickly.
Amen.
Anyone that needs to be here, even as
we pray, just get up from your seat
and come and join us.